Brace yourselves, adventurers! Brighter Shores, the newly launched MMO from RuneScape mastermind Andrew Gower and his brother Paul is here.
One of the quirkiest mechanics the game offers is the progression system that doesn’t quite follow the usual “grind ’til you drop” formula we’ve all grown accustomed to.
Instead, whenever players leap to a new region in Brighter Shores, they’ll have to trade in their skills, combat level and all that and start fresh – a system that’s unfamiliar, to say the least.
Fen Research, the studio helming this adventure, has now even started practically begging players to give this progression system a chance.
The whole system is a nod to what Fen Research calls the “breadth and depth” approach. According to the studio, this setup ensures that new content feels accessible and fun for everyone without level-cap ceilings or the auto-scaling that a lot of other games slap on.
Instead, Brighter Shores puts a twist on the idea of leveling: players don’t just race to the next episode; they actually get locked into region-specific skillsets.
“It’s relatively easy to move to each new episode (breadth), but even when you’ve hit the latest episode, you’re far from finished,” the devs teased. Each episode, they say, interlinks in a way that will have players bouncing back and forth like it’s an open-world Metroidvania, giving them reasons to revisit and deepen their earlier skills.
And as much as this odd setup feels, well, odd, Fen insists there’s purpose here. “Being able to add new episodes to the game that everyone can enjoy without resulting in loads of ‘dead content’ is very important,” they said, hinting at what could be the MMO holy grail: content that feels relevant for old hands and new recruits alike.
It might be a bit early to say if the Gowers have cracked that code, but with almost 16,000 players currently exploring Brighter Shores, according to SteamDB, maybe there is something to this “breadth and depth” business that’s keeping people around.