MMORPGs are alive on the PC… sort of! Project: Gorgon is a call back to old school MMOs, which has it’s pros and cons.
Overview
I was really enjoying Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, but for me any chance to play a multiplayer experience with friends overrides any single player game. I actually bought (and refunded) Project: Gorgon in the past. I originally jumped solo into a big open world that seemed empty, yet overwhelming. I didn’t have the strength to ‘sell’ the game to my friends because I really didn’t understand it at the time. This time around I was invited by someone else to play, and it was on sale on Steam!
Gameplay
Right when I entered the world of Project: Gorgon my first instinct took me back to the days of playing the original Everquest. You make a pretty basic RPG character and get started on a newbie tutorial island. The graphics even suck like they are from 1999 (okay, maybe 2002). If you looked solely at the graphics, you would refund this game immediately. What really gets you drawn in is the interactions and mechanics of it all. There’s no “!” quest markers or arrows telling you what to do. You are forced to explore, uncover and interpret. Sure, there is a fair amount of combat, but the game doesn’t revolve around the combat. Though combat is usually necessary to complete the goal at hand. I usually click through quest dialogue, but in this game you’ll miss obvious and subtle hints about the world. For example, we went into a crypt with 10 or so items on the wall. I generally don’t read lore or any quest dialogue so I just clicked away, spawning bad guy after bad guy. One person in my group recognized the items from something he read earlier on. He was able to click them to unlock a chest full of loot as a reward for paying attention to the details.
Skills & Leveling
Most MMORPGs have a goal to grind through the levels for endgame dungeon content. Project: Gorgon doesn’t have a character level, which turns out to be refreshing for me. I don’t feel the need to mindlessly grind to catch up levels with my friends. There are levels for every skill in the game. Every. Skill. Everything is leveled up by actually doing it, not just adding points to it. You eat to level up eating, unlocking abilities to eat better foods that regen stats faster. You level up forage by foraging. You level up death by dying… yes, that’s a thing. The game looks pretty simple on the surface, but once you get into it the system is pretty complex. There are a number of combat skills like sword, shield, bard, mentalism, archery, knife fighting, necromancy, fire magic, etc. The neat part is that you can make class combos. For example, I can use a sword and shield by equipping both. After defeating a mob I’ll get XP for both sword and shield. Next I can put a lute and horn in each hand, and I’ll be leveling up bard. Replace the lute with a sword and now it is a sword/bard spec. There are even animal combat classes like a cow. Obviously a cow has no hands to equip a bow, so that limits it’s class combination to a magic or something that doesn’t require holding specific equipment. To take it to the next level, my bard has to level Stringed Instruments by playing the lute in order to unlock certain skills. I also have to level Vocabulary by playing a Boggle-like word game in order to unlock other skills. The more I play, the deeper it gets. The thing that keeps you hooked is that your goals are based on an arbitrary level like, “I need to get level 20 tonight”. It’s based on “I need to level vocabulary to get xyz skill”. This is a very simple example, and many quests get several levels deep into “I need to get x, to unlock y, in order to craft z”. When I am about to call it a night by dropping off one last quest at an NPC, it always turns into one more thing, one more thing… and then it’s way past my bed time!
It is not the greatest game ever
I will praise many aspects of Project: Gorgon, but at the end of the day this is really a niche game. Many people won’t want to drop $30-$40 just by looking at the graphics. Many people will get onto the starter island and give up because there is no obvious directions. Many people will make it to the first town and see that it looks physically empty and assume the game doesn’t any depth, or anything to do. I imagine the price point is high because it is not really for hordes of people. Dealing with high population spikes would take away from game development and make them focus more on non-development related issues (like dealing with servers and more compatibility). There are NPCs in the game that are noted as placeholders. They aren’t hiding that the game is unfinished.
Summary
I will confirm though, that there are lots of meaningful and memorable things to do. We’ve killed a couple named dungeon bosses that increase or notoriety. Each of them have been memorable and worth the risk. This game also has some really, really creative aspects. For example, one of the dungeon bosses was a cow. If you attack the cow and lose the fight, you’ll be turned into a cow. Luckily we won the battle, because I heard the quest to un-cow takes some time. There are lots of little quirks in the game as well. One NPC wouldn’t talk to me because I was filthy. Eventually I learned to dunk myself into a fountain or lake before talking to them. Part of the fun is learning. It doesn’t have a pop-up window explaining what to do to get cleaned up, but it makes sense when you think about it. Another neat part about the game being so small is that you really have to discover things on your own. There is a basic wiki page, but there are no walkthroughs or guides. I’ve run into many riddles (some I still haven’t figured out) because I can’t just Google the answer for.
Conclusion
There is so much more to talk about in Project: Gorgon. It doesn’t look like much on the surface but I can assure you that there is a lot of good fun deep-down inside. Despite the game population on SteamCharts usually only showing between 150-200 online, there are always friendly people willing to help or answer questions. Although it is extremely hard to recommend this game at it’s full $40 price, I think the niche player looking for that old school MMO formula won’t mind. For the general public though, I would suggest waiting for more development or a significant price drop.
Past Prime Gaming 