Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning Preview

The Guardian’s blog has a fairly detailed preview on 38 Studios’ fantasy action-RPG Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning which does a nice job at presenting the game to people who haven’t followed it so far (with the weird exception of mispelling Amalur as “Amular” throughout the article), and it should be one of the last too, judging by how close we are to release. Here’s a snip:

So, given it’s a game that thwarts easy summaries, how pleased is Salvatore with the way Reckoning has translated his original vision into a living, breathing, role-playing experience?

“I don’t want to say it will raise the bar,” he says. “But it does bring something a little bit different. With Reckoning, I wanted a world that had beauty and horror something really frightening that was worth fighting against and then giving you all the tools to do it. I think fans are going to like what we’ve achieved.”

And if they do like it, there’s clearly a big future already planned for Amular. Reckoning only features a small part of a persistent world that will be fully revealed in a forthcoming MMO codenamed “Copernicus”, which both development teams including Salvatore and McFarlane are already hard at work on.

Although neither would be drawn on an ETA, having made a fortune from multimedia franchises such as Spawn, McFarlane in particular understands the potential value of an original IP. However, it’s also clear that Amular means more to him than just a string of lucrative sequels.