Cult adventure MMO goes Free to Play in all the right ways
Friends have tried to get me on the WoW train many moons ago, then there was SWTOR, Rift, and EVE Online. Instituting money drains like auction houses and excruciating time eating mechanics that make the eyes bleed with repetitiveness doesn’t compel me to sacrifice my hard earned dollar to a subscription fee month after month.
Then came Norwegian game developer Funcom that challenged my snobbery of online gaming with a bonus: no monthly subscription fee. The Secret World hit the PC in 2012 with mixed fanfare, of course EA was doing its best to find that elusive WoW killer. So did EA achieve this? Not in the slightest but what it did was create a cult hit that managed to hold up and improve over time.
The Secret World offered an online playground with some of the most popular horror tropes ever created. Zombies, Eldritch forces, esoteric conspiracies, Mayan prophecies, interdimensional monsters everything from Lovecraft, King, and Koontz to Monster Squad and the Mummy exist in this game. Imagine a game where you fight off biblical plagues as a gunslinger on the front lawn of the Black House somewhere in Maine: pure fanboy joy right there.
Fast forward almost six years later TSW is rebranded as Secret World Legends and relaunched as free-to-play with new expansion content called Dawn of the Morning Light and my curiosity got the best of me. Typically, when a MMORPG goes free-to-play, it signals the end because also typically most of the content is locked by the horrors of microtransactions that forces the player to pay money to access the rest of the game.
After resurrecting my dated account, I had to start fresh. The character creator is limited but you spend 90 percent of a third person game staring at the toon’s backside so it’s no problem. My slick Mohawk sporting avatar was ready to choose a role in about eight minutes.
SWL has reduced the freeform approach to role building opting for a more streamlined bank of skills and abilities that unlock in linear paths. Before it was very easy to muddle abilities up that it critically hobbled character builds to devastating effect. Players can now choose from nine presets that combine various abilities and powers to fit their playstyle eventually allowing for them to unlock them all over time.
Funcom championed Secret World Legends to be accessible to new players of MMORPGs and with the interface change to a more basic control scheme that actually pulled it off. If you can WASD and spin a mouse at the same time, then you’re good to play. Gone is the crazy six button press hotkeys for cooldown interface that turned off many players and was very jarring in the original iteration.
Loot scrounging was never a big thing in Secret World, instead it focused more on playing through story driven quests given by NPCs. Have I ever mentioned that I hate crafting game mechanics? SWL makes it easy with a like consumes like system so the inventory doesn’t get filled with useless junk prompting a jump from the action to a vendor seven load screens away.
But is SWL right for everyone? Not exactly. Remember this is a story driven MMORPG it’s mostly PvE with some PvP elements. All of the usual MMO functions exist with the dungeons, clans, and annoying chat window but the meat and potatoes are all about the adventuring either solo or with online friends. Quests are broken down into categories like story, side, sabotage, and investigations that break up the monotony of gratuitous monster genocide.
When I say “investigations,” be prepared to wrack your brain for days fighting off the urge to call up a cheat site just to farm the XP. Though investigation missions are time consuming and not for the impatient they are the most fun. I’m serious, one mission will have you researching the Old Testament for clues to solve a puzzle written on a sewer wall in New England.
Ever learned Latin? SWL will require you to study dead languages in order to dive more into the well-crafted lore about a world full of lore.
I’ve not been able to dig into the new content but it’s free along with the rest of the game and patrons who subscribe $12 a month have access to daily boosters and other rewards. But nothing has been taken away from the game. In fact, it’s still worth the visit just to see how F2P games should be done.
When not vaporizing zombies or leading space marines as a mousepad Mattis, Brandon Watson is making gourmet pancakes and promoting local artists.