Rising Fire was announced by Tencent Games earlier this year for PC Windows, although it was revealed much earlier as a Xbox title known as “Project Mercury”. Developed by Yingpei Games, the China subsidiary of Epic Games (creators of Gears of War and Unreal Engine), which in turn is owned by Tencent, the studio also brought us Zombies Monsters Robots (also known as Mercenary Ops).
An online third-person shooter, a genre which I am not comfortable with, Rising Fire pits players in the war against an invading alien race, and according to the story, the human race once welcomed them to settle here. Somehow, the humans got greedy and pissed the aliens off. Weird. There are 4 playable classes: Hunter, Ranger, Bouncer, and Cyborg. Bouncer? She must pack a hard punch.
Other than unique skills, which are mostly used in boss battles, there is not much difference between the 4 classes. They are all able to equip 3 different types of guns out of the 6 available, and players can eventually unlock up to 4 passive skills slots to give the gun types they are holding a boost. While there are tons of guns with different stats, I am not seeing any customisation features available.
In Rising Fire, there are huge open-world zones with world bosses, though most of the combat takes place inside the various PVE dungeons. I am not liking the matchmaking system, as it automatically pushes players into the dungeons solo when a full team of 5 cannot be found. There should be an option somewhere. I am not good with shooter games, hence pardon my noob skills in the videos!
There is PVP in Rising Fire, though I have yet to enter. Certain items can only be obtained using the medals from PVP, and also from the medals given through completing daily quests. Monster spawn rates are really bad in the open-world zones, and getting into dungeons is a much better choice. Rising Fire is still in Alpha Test 2, hence there are still at least 6 months before Open Beta begins in China.
