LOVE Beta Ends, Real Experience Begins

In a world where MMOs continuously borrow from the same formula as their online peers, rarely are we able to witness a work as mold-breaking as Eskil Steenberg’s LOVE. Being labeled as “the most ambitious video game ever made by a single person”, LOVE will be released on March 25th for the PC. Players will be able to immerse themselves in the first person world where controls have been simplified, not to make the game easy, but so that the player can focus more on the actual story itself. If you feel the need to dive into the pools of a refreshing new MMO experience, then I urge you to hit the jump for the press release and more info.

PRESS RELEASE
ANNOUNCING THE RELEASE OF THE PROCEDURAL ONLINE ADVENTURE GAME “LOVE” ON MARCH 25th

STOCKHOLM, SWEDEN (March 1st, 2010)

On the 25th of March, LOVE, perhaps the most ambitious video game ever made by a single person, will be released.
LOVE is a first person cooperative persistent world game where players build settlements and venture out in to a world of adventure. Set on a small planet with a wide range of geographical landscapes, including canyons, fields, forests, glaciers and deserts, LOVE players experience an ever-evolving world with erosion, tectonics, changing wind and sea levels, and new, breathtaking vistas to explore. Using advanced procedural generation technology the game evolves while you are playing it to create new content and adapt to the players actions. The dynamic environment lets players create their own architecture by raising and lowering the ground, creating tunnels in addition to placing and connecting objects in a complex infrastructure.
Five different AI Tribes will also build their own settlements that players can attack but the AI can attack back and destroy player settlements.

The procedural content generation system is able to create massive amounts of nature and architecture in many different styles, and is able to mimic human game design, but unlike content created by designers before hand, it can also adapt to the players actions. This innovative approach lets the players change the course of history in any way they want and makes the game flexible enough to respond.

LOVE runs on a custom engine, developed by Steenberg, featuring many innovations such as cloth, wind and water simulation, low latency networking and the high performance graphics that give LOVE its unique look. In order to develop such a hugely complex and ambitious project, a number of new technologies were developed during production, including the VERSE network protocol (http://www.quelsolaar.com/verse/), which seamlessly allows the game to be edited in real-time, the modeler Loq Airou (http://www.quelsolaar.com/loq_airou/),
an in-house
tool developed to improve productivity, and the asset management tool, Co On (http://www.quelsolaar.com/co_on/). These tools will be shown at the upcoming Game Developers Conference in San Francisco, California and impact future game development.

LOVE is built on a subscription model and at launch be available for Windows, with OSX and Linux versions planned. Upon LOVE’s release, development will shift focus to updating and adding new game play elements maintaining an ever evolving game.