Cryptic Studios Announces Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game, “City of Heroes”

Comic-Book Style Adventure Filled with Superheroes and Fearsome Villains to Release in Summer of 2002

San Jose, CA – September 26, 2001 – Cryptic Studios proudly announces “City of Heroes,” a massively multiplayer online world home to an entire universe of super-powered, comic book style adventure. When the game releases next summer, thousands of players can take on the roles of superheroes, fight villains, and help create the story in a stunning, 3D graphical world, courtesy of the San Jose-based developer.

Super Powered Action and Adventure

City of Heroes is the first superhero themed online RPG and will offer a host of exciting and compelling gameplay features. Players create their own heroes, choosing from hundreds of different powers, skills, abilities, and items and design their own unique costumes. Then they can band together with other players to fight evil, build their own secret headquarters and strive to become the premiere hero group in the city.

Gamers will confront super villains, aliens, madmen, monsters, criminals, and other fearsome foes. They can take on personalized missions and rid the city of dozens of different evil organizations and hundreds of individual enemies. With success players acquire power, wealth, and fame and come to bask in the spotlight and rake in the rewards as their powers and fame grow with each successful mission and every defeated foe.

City of Heroes takes place amongst the skyscrapers, slums, sewers and streets of Paragon City, a sprawling online metropolis that offers unlimited adventure and countless surprises. Players become an integral part of many and varied different ongoing story arcs as the villain groups menace Paragon City and react to player victories and defeats.

“With City of Heroes we’re bringing a new and exciting genre to online gaming: the world of superheroes,” says lead designer Richard Dakan. “We’ve designed this game to not only capture the excitement of comic book heroes but to offer a unique gaming experience. With this game you can literally ‘become your own hero.’ Players can not only design their very own superheroes from the ground up, but they can have a direct impact on what happens to the city they live in.”

Cryptic Studios plans to release City of Heroes in the summer of 2002. For a gameplay movie, screenshots, and additional game information check out the City of Heroes Web site at www.cityofheroes.com.

About Cryptic Studios

The Cryptic Studios staff combines proven talents from the computer and book publishing industries into a single team devoted to creating innovative, top notch games. Based in San Jose, California and fully funded by private investment, Cryptic Studios currently focuses all of its prodigious resources on the company’s first product: City of Heroes. For more information about the team and its projects, check out www.crypticstudios.com.

[ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: Otku ]

But if I can I will be making him up He is awesome

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Originally posted by Demitri:
I just cant wait to see all the morons with DB/DBZ names..

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Hey! Emperor Pealoff or what ever that imp freak was called is sorta cool, no doubt he was 5x cooler without FUNimation

[ 09-28-2001: Message edited by: Otku ]

Glowing green eyes, drawing a flowing dark green cape about her shrouded black form, a longsword visible on one silvery-clawed hand...

Can we be supervillains?

If it IS real, then I'm making a Flash-type character. Speed r0x0r

I prefer GURPS Supers over HU, though.

But this could be a whole heck of a lot of fun! Now, will they do the typical superhero thing and make all the women with chests so large they'd topple over if it was real life? THAT I'd play in an instant. *giggle*

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Originally posted by Solstyce:
Can we be supervillains?

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Perhaps in an expansion.

like Green Arrow Batman and starman (omg starman graphic novels OWN)

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Originally posted by Cadga the Confused Monkey:
i always found the "non super" super heros to be the best

like Green Arrow Batman and starman (omg starman graphic novels OWN)

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Same here!
Batman owns.

Likewise, someone like Superman isn't well known because of his powers. There've been a million Superman clones over the years; none have the magic that Superman does. Why? Because Superman is the ideal we'd all like to be. He's not a paladin; he's no zealot. He's an icon, but he's not an idol. He's one of us, but he's not. Superman is the archetypical hero. Look at all the stuff he's gone though, storytelling gimmicks aside. Superman is the big S because he's likeable, charismatic, and honorable. He's everything a paladin is, but he doesn't do it out of a zealotry or something epic. And that's Superman's greatest draw. Superman does the epic while still maintaining that personal individual glow. He is both all of us, and at the same time individual.

Then you have heroes who have legacies. Spider-Man and the Flash fall into this category. Spidey started acting responsible with his powers when his Uncle Ben got killed. Wally West/Flash grew up a superhero, then when his mentor the prior Flash died and people kept comparing Wally to Barry, Wally had a lot of growing up to do. Both Spidey and the Flash are coming of age stories, and the readers are loyal for that reason. It's all about growing up.

So here's what I foresee happening with this type of computer game if it ever happens. It's going to be EQ with a different style mask. There'll probably be some sort of faction equivalent to separate the Batman and Punisher types from the Superman and Spider-Man types, and powers will separate warriors from mages in this equivalent.

"Bring me bandages Alfred. The blood interferes with my work."