RaiderZ Beta Announced

Free-to-play MMO RaiderZ provides new kind of monster-hunting, or so the claim goes. You’ll be able to try this out for yourself next month with the closed beta running from 9th to 29th August. I had a quick look at this MMO during E3 and it certainly shows promise.

According to the world lore, a meteor crashed in the Lymorsch desert, mutating the native wildlife into monsters. You play as a hunter running about the typically-spacious MMO environment, killing giant statues and spiders and whatnot.

There’s only one race right now with four classes:

• Berserker – two-handed weapons
• Sorcerer – elemental magic with the option of a sword and shield
• Defender – sword or mace and shield combat
• Cleric – heals and magic damage

Battling the monsters will be a far more tactical experience than your typical world boss in an MMO. As with TERA, movement is the key. Each boss has its own unique style and weakness, from leaping miles into the air to smashing you with bits of the environment. Trying the battles out solo didn’t really give a good feel for the game but I’ll have another look during gamescom.

When it comes to looting, developers MAIET Entertainment are going for slightly more realistic material drops rather than loot. You’ll never see a sword dropping from a wolf. Instead, you’ll loot bones, pelts and the like to craft better weapons yourself or for trade.

The team will be picking registered accounts for closed beta access in the next few days. You can register over at the official RaiderZ Europe website. Just click the Registration button up top, fill in your details and click “Play now for free”. Seeing as it starts on 9th August, they’re using a pretty generous definition of “now” but I guess we’ll let that slide.