Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning

Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning is an upcoming single-player role playing title for the PlayStation 3, Xbox 360 and the PC.[2] Ken Rolston, the lead designer of The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion will act as the game's lead designer. Additionally, noted fantasy author R.A. Salvatore created the game universe and lore, with Todd McFarlane, creator of Spawn, working on the artwork.[3] It is being developed by 38 Studios and Big Huge Games for release in early 2012. The first public demonstration was at the Penny Arcade Expo East 2011 held in Boston, Massachusetts on Friday, March 11th, 2011.Gameplay

Kingdoms of Amalur will feature "5 distinct regions, 4 playable races, and 3 class trees with 22 abilities per tree."[3] The player starts off as a "blank slate," waking up in a pile of corpses after returning from the dead. The game will utilize a unique "destiny" system, whereby the player can invest in a skill-tree system to unlock various "destinies," which acts as the class system for the game. Combat works based on the timing of button presses, similar to the style of an action RPG, with occasional quicktime events like those in the God of War series. Lead Combat Designer Joe Quadara, however, emphasized that, "Twitch skill is only going to get you so far. Strategy and proper RPG playing is going to get you farther."[3] 38 Studios founder Curt Schilling said that the style of the game would be a marriage between God of War and Oblivion. [4]
[edit]Development

38 Studios originally began developing the Amalur universe for use in an MMO, codenamed 'Copernicus'. After acquiring Big Huge Games in 2009, the studio decided to transform the project into a single-player RPG, as Ken Rolston and his team had already been working on an RPG while Big Huge Games was part of THQ.[3] Currently, there are still plans to expand the Amalur universe into an MMO after the release of Reckoning.[1]