Frostkeep Studios—a developer composed of industry veterans from Blizzard, Riot, Sony, and more—showed off its hybrid survival multiplayer title Rend at E3. The game is Frostkeep’s answer to Ark, Minecraft, and other popular survival games. Rend has been designed to accommodate players who don’t want to worry about all their progress being destroyed by enemies when they log off for the day. All of this is set in a fantasy world based on Norse mythology, where the prophesied apocalyptic destruction of old gods has already occurred.
Rend is a faction-based MMO, and instead of joining one later as you gain prestige, the game begins with you choosing a team right from the get-go. Players will have three to choose from: the militaristic Order, enlightened Revenant, and mysterious Conclave. You also won’t have to worry about weighing your options to search for advantages in one group or the other, as Rend‘s factions were designed to stand on equal footing and maximize the sense of balanced competition. This idea also applies to players of discrepant levels. Usually if you play an MMO and wander into the path of a max-level character as a newcomer, they’d be able to blow your character out of existence without a thought. In Rend, everyone has a fighting chance. Max-level characters will have more tools at their disposal, having amassed abilities and perks, but a level one character could still reasonably tangle with them; it’s all about playing smart.