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Dungeon Defenders II Announced With Trailer
The tower defense gameplay of Dungeon Defenders proved popular, and Trendy Entertainment is following up on the formula with Dungeon Defenders II.
Most noticeable about the sequel is that it’s a free-to-play title, and it’s a 5v5 MOBA (Multiplayer Online Battle Arena) game – at least in part.
The cooperative aspect of the game will be familiar to fans of the original. The competitive aspect will be a MOBA, and is currently in closed beta, but it will be playable at PAX East. Trendy also has a waiting list for beta keys on its website.
“Once you join the beta, you’ll be able to share your feedback directly to the team,” says Trendy Entertainment. “Your opinions and insights, along with the hard numbers we’ll gather from your play sessions, will shape our launch game.”
Trendy is making its competitive experience more than a typical MOBA by adding RPG features.
“Our take on the MOBA genre is more rpg-esque, with more hero customization, persistent hero leveling, loot; and a town square where players can socialize, manage their heroes, shop, trade, and queue for matches,” says Trendy. “We’ve drastically simplified the item system to reduce the learning curve for new players and are aiming for shorter total match times.”
What is earned in the competitive mode will carry over into cooperative mode.
The developer says its reason for doing a MOBA for the competitive part of the game is simple: it’s the only thing that made sense.
“During the development of Dungeon Defenders we constantly tried different multiplayer modes. Deathmatch, Capture the Flag, you name it,” says the developer. “None of them really fit. When planning the sequel, we couldn’t drop the idea that a MOBA in the Dungeon Defenders universe would rock. Maybe it was all the after-hour games of League [of Legends] we played in the office. We don’t know. But it fit well into the storyline and achieved a core goal of helping Dungeon Defenders players meet new players, so we went all in.”
The move to a free-to-play game is supposed to help solve the problem of recruiting new players to play online – but the developers promise players won’t have to “pay to win.”
“Our goal is to provide the same amount of content at around the same price as the original game,” says Trendy.
Heroes and cosmetics will be for sale, not stat boosting items. The game will rotate the stable of heroes available for free, with those bought available all the time. Trendy also promises there will be a large selection of heroes at launch, with 24 the goal. The competitive mode will launch with one map.
Trendy will show off some gameplay on March 22 on its website. The cooperative mode, which is set to go into beta late this year or in early 2014, will release after the competitive mode.
Dungeon Defenders II will launch for PC, Mac, iOS, Android and Web.
(Source: Dungeon Defenders II FAQ via Eurogamer)
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