Quantum Mechanix unveiled some new info about their highly anticipated new game, Firefly Online while at NYCC this past weekend. We sat down with Quantum Mechanix's CEO, Andy Gore to get a little better look at the first new Firefly since 2005.
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We found Andy chatting up customers at the QMx booth on the show floor. A fully to scale replica of the Serenity, which lit up and had a meticulously crafted galley section (despite no one ever being able to see it) was on display, as was a very, very expensive replica of the USS Reliant, the ship commandeered by Khan in Star Trek II. They had already sold a bunch of the latter. If you're a Firefly collector, and you had a lot of money to spend, QMx was the place to be.
The interview can be found below, but here's the quick summary:
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Don't call it an MMO. It's a single-player experience with multiplayer elements. It will be cross platform on PC, Mac, iOS and Android devices. There will be an app, called the Cortex, released soon that will allow players to experience certain parts of the game before the full release in late spring. Yes, the entire cast is returning, even Wash and Book. No, Joss is not involved. No, no price was announced, but it will be priced like 'an indie with high production values'. There is a new crime boss voiced by a famous actress.
So what is Firefly Online? Is it a MMO?
Kind of. It's an online RPG. I don't like MMO because that's come to mean a certain type of gameplay. MMO stands for massively multiplayer online and [FFO] is all those things. However, it is not a traditional MMO. The gaming experience is much more single-player. You take on missions, you go out and have adventures, you get into various kinds of hot scrapes and then what decisions and how you play those scenarios determines how you move on in the story.
When is the release date?
Probably late spring. I think it was Leonardo Da Vinci who said no great work of art is ever finished, it's abandoned. So I think that's very true of game development. There's a point in which it's finished because it needs to be finished.
I think until people see the game, they will not realize how close this is to giving them what they asked. I will never pretend that we are anything close to what Joss would do. Joss is a genius and we are bare shadows cast from that. We have a wonderful template to work from, an amazing talent that is his talent, so we are literally standing on the shoulders of a giant. But we're still standing there, we're still telling a good story with wonderful actors.
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To say that people will be anticipating Firefly Online is saying like people get 'sort of worked up' over the Superbowl. Browncoats are very...vocal about their baby. Andy knows he and his company have a long uphill struggle.
See you, space cowboy.
