Everquest - Champions Of Norrath Announced

Thanks to several readers for pointing out a Sony press release announcing Champions Of Norrath: Realms Of Everquest for the Playstation 2. This action RPG, being developed by Snowblind Studios, who also made Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, promises "..a deep, single-player campaign, but it also includes a free online multiplayer component, allowing up to four friends to adventure together using their own Internet connections." As this title will clearly be using the engine from the well-received BG:DA, this could be a very useful addition to the console action RPG canon.

EQ: DA

[Farscry]

Taken from the press release, the playable characters are:

Barbarian Warrior, Dark Elf Shadow Knight, High Elf Cleric, Erudite Wizard, Wood Elf Ranger

Sounds pretty close to the lineup for Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance 2. In fact, Champtions of Norrath sounds so identical to BG:DA2 that it'll be like comparing Gauntlet Legends to Gauntlet Dark Legacy. ...and yeah, sucker that I am, I'll probably get both, unless the offline portion of Champions of Norrath is as skimpy and bland as the offline portions of the Phantasy Star Online games.

good co-op game shock.

[simoniker]

Looks like Baldur's Gate:Dark Alliance was mentioned quite a bit in the good co-operative games [slashdot.org] thread, so it's cool to see another potentially fun co-op title announced.

kill all humans

[ZorbaTHut]

I work at Snowblind Studios, and we're not doing the Fallout game. That's somebody else. Just FYI :P

Hmm

[Dachannien]

The EverQuest backstory has never been particularly powerful, beyond general knowledge of who the gods are and what they're the gods of. Yes, there is some story there, but over the past four years, it's been locked up in GM-driven quests where the players turn it into pure chaos, and quest text that everyone skips through once it's been posted to Allakhazam [allakhazam.com].

Yeah, they're pretty much just milking the franchise, and I don't doubt that some people will buy, but when you compare the backstory of EQ to the fa