http://tera.hangame.com/ (view with IE if site doesn't load correctly)
Upcoming MMORPG for the PC by Korean developer, Bluehole Studio, and to be published by Hangame, TERA (Project S1) recently debuted at the 2009 Hangame Invitational along with Continent of the Ninth (Studio Cloud 9), Kingdom Under Fire II (by Blueside and Phantagram), and Warhammer Online (Mythic).
So what's the big deal? It looks amazingly awesome, but then again so do a lot of upcoming Korean games. TERA utilizes an exciting, action-oriented gameplay system, but so does Continent of the Ninth, Blade & Soul (NCSoft), Dragon Nest (EyeDentity), and others. What's interesting for me is that the developer, Bluehole Studio, is made up of a lot of former heavy-hitters from NCSoft. I won't divulge anymore than that, but suffice to say this is a very impressive group of developers and the results show it. If western gamers paid any attention to the incredible development of Korean games lately, they would probably liken this to a bunch of ex-Blizzard guys out to make their own blockbuster game... x10.
I recommend viewing the promotional trailer on the official site, but here's an interesting YouTube clip featuring a boss encounter:
It reminds me a lot of Monster Hunter, actually. A lot of generalizations have been made about Korean online games being pretty to look at, but not fun to play, so I'm hoping the slew of titles on the horizon can address this. TERA is one of many promising looking games that we'll be keeping our eyes on.
