Online game "Secret World Legends"

Secret World Legends is the result of the evolution of the classic MMORPG, the name of which did not contain the word Legends. But the concept remains the same: players find themselves in a virtual world made up of the works of Howard Lovecraft and Stephen King, urban legends and conspiracy theories. At first, the setting looks like a modern city where quite ordinary people live, but then it begins something like Sergei Lukyanenko's book series about Night and Day Watch. And here from a back alley zombies already crawl, on a river bank go cultists who worship the awful god, and on streets rattle weapons Templars with illuminati. In short, the theme of the project is very unusual, and yet it is available for free - and that attracts the public.

Secret World Legends is free, so all you need to start is to install it on your computer. And the first time you run it, you have to create your own character. And you can get only one hero for free, and you have to pay for the next one, so you should be very careful when making your debut. Except for the appearance customization editor, you are given three factions and nine classes to choose from. Let's start with the conflict side: fanatical but conditionally-good Templars stand for the destruction of evil at all costs and operate in London, the Illuminati are more cynical, and their home - New York, the Dragons - supporters of anarchy, taken from the Asian "Triads" and placed in Seoul. Yes, the choice of faction affects the city where the adventure begins - and the scenery in all three starting locations is unique.

The faction is followed by the choice of class. Here, first of all, you should pay attention to the level of difficulty. For example, the easiest to handle character is a Trickster, who uses a gun, destructive forces of chaos and specializes in defense against enemy attacks. And the most difficult - Warlock, destroying enemies with blood magic and assault rifle, and in addition can heal friends. Except for Trickster, novice shooter and destroyer, the first of which is a hell of a firearm, and the second deals only with crushing and slashing weapons. The other types, fighter, assassin, mercenary, punisher and mage, occupy the middle position - and before choosing them, it's better to study their description.

Once you've determined your character's appearance and fighting style, you can begin the adventure. In the story your character suddenly discovers he's connected to otherworldly forces: he dreams some devilry at night, then his hands start glowing in the dark. Naturally, soon a representative of the faction you chose at the start visits you. The guest invites the candidate for an interview at the safe house, where you will be introduced to your superiors (sometimes strange - how do you like a tattooed man in only underpants at the dragon base?) and a brief literacy to help you understand the local conflicts.

Immediately draws attention to the quality of dialogue - unusually high for an MMORPG. And in general the script pleases with elaboration and unexpected, but nice references to various movies or books. There's nothing to be surprised here - Secret World Legends was written by Ragnar Törnquist, known to gamers thanks to the Dreamfall series and The Longest Journey quest connected with it. Once upon a time, these works were on everyone's ears because of the cleverly told stories in them.

In the training missions it becomes clear what is to be dealt with. The game is essentially divided into two parts: investigations and battles. And the former are often connected with the latter, as in the mission for the dragon, when you have to go from Seoul to the Tokyo subway to repel the attack of monsters and get out of the subway survivors. Fighting is conveniently done: there are the traditional moves, jumps, acceleration and dodges on Shift, as if in some Dark Souls. Each character has primary and secondary weapons for attacks, as well as a set of special skills with the usual rollback activation. In addition, the frequency of the strongest blows is limited by the stamina scale, so most of the time you have to be content with the usual lunges and shots.

The world of the game is also interestingly organized. In addition to the three starting cities, there are a number of locations inspired by mystical works, such as the zombie hordes of Kingsmouth, as in Howard Lovecraft's story "Shadow Over Innsmouth" from the Cthulhu book series. All these fragments of the universe are linked together by the branches of a tree reminiscent of the mythical Yggdrasil. In the center of the tree there is a hub called Agartha, where all the heroes get to one way or another and from where portals to remote corners of Secret World Legends lead.

Originally, Secret World had no classes or traditional character progression. But after the relaunch of the project in 2017, a lot of things became more familiar, and the progression acquired features familiar from other games of the genre. You simply earn experience for completing quests and battling enemies, and then distribute these points to different branches in the character development window. There are vertical and horizontal tabs. The former are combat skills, including sword handling, crushing weapons, pistols, rifles, and shotguns, as well as spells and hand-to-hand combat.

Horizontally, there are four tabs in the progression window - active skills, passive skills, anime distribution, and build manager. The last two points are worth talking about in more detail. Anima is a certain power of the virtual world, for the possession of which the Templars, Illuminati and dragons compete. Each hero is endowed with this power in part. At level 20 you can allocate your anime so as to increase health, attack power or defense - and thus adjust the created image according to your preferences. There are also builds based on the distribution of equipment. You can collect several options for different occasions - for example, one will be useful in a duel with another user, the second will be good against the crowd of opponents, and the third will reveal in a boss fight.

A lot of time in Secret World Legends is spent exploring locations. You can collect in the dark corners of the so-called legends - pieces of descriptions that help you better understand the virtual world. It's also full of interactive items. No one prevents you from sitting at a table in a cafe, chatting in this format with other players or thumbing through the magazine lying next to it, which depicts the elements of clothing and jewelry. They, by the way, are allowed to purchase immediately if you do not want to collect trophies from enemies and make something useful out of them. Interactivity comes in handy in combat. Here's a little example: if you jump on a car, an alarm will go off, which will attract zombies wandering around. You can set a gas can near the car on fire, and the attackers will run straight into the flames.

Do not forget about multiplayer, it's an MMORPG. Single adventures here, of course, quite a lot - enough for a hundred hours. But there is also something to do with friends. You can go on a raid on the boss or complete any of the tasks together, if it's hard to cope without help. Presented and the different types of competitions between Templars, Illuminati and dragons. Arenas for PvP (battles between gamers) in the game a few, and all named after the legendary places. In Fusan (a fabulous country from the Chinese chronicles, which is sometimes placed on the place of modern Buryatia) it is necessary to capture and hold the point, repulsing the opposing teams. Battles in Eldorado resemble the rules of Capture the Flag mode from classic shooters. Stonehenge offers a "King of the Mountain" analogue, and Shambhala is a team deathmatch.

The way to all four arenas is from the same hub - Agartha. By the way, this country was not invented by the developers of the game. It was first mentioned in the 19th century novel "Sons of God" by Louis Jacolio, and "agarta" means "inaccessible" in Sanskrit. Ironically, in Secret World Legends, by contrast, all roads lead here. Just be prepared for the fact that in the hub, especially if it gathered a lot of heroes managed by users, everything starts to slow down. This is a characteristic feature of the project: graphics seem nice, with weather effects, changing time of day and not the most terrible animation of the characters, given the age of the game. But no matter how powerful your computer is, the frames per second counter will be frustrating every now and then.

Another important thing to consider is the lack of localization. Everything here is in English, the font is too small, and there are no subtitles in the story screensavers. Therefore, without understanding at least the basics of the English language, most of the plot and descriptions of the virtual universe, as well as the hidden quotations and cultural references in the dialogues will slip away from you. Missing script details would be half the trouble, but here it can be difficult to understand the nuances of the game mechanics. After all, there are hundreds of skills, items, and conditions being dumped on you. On the other hand, if you understand everything, you are guaranteed at least a hundred hours of interesting adventures.

Secret World Legends is responsible for the same company Funcom, which released the hit MMO-market Conan Exiles, so the expectations of gamers from the beginning were exaggerated. And the bulk of the criticism is connected with this fact. Yes, the project was difficult: it was created more than 10 years, first it was distributed by subscription, and in 2017 they made it conditionally free - not from the good life, we should understand. Nevertheless, "Legends" bribes with its unique for the genre entourage, interesting design of locations, the quality of story chapters and the spirit of mystical adventure. If that's enough of a set for you to enjoy, get involved. It doesn't require any complicated actions - everything is available for free directly in Steam, and without registering additional accounts.

Zarium. January 2023