The Secret World Review

Posted By James C. about 10 months, 3 weeks ago

The Secret World Review

If you were to ask me of The Secret World’s place in MMO history two weeks ago, I would have replied “Near the bottom of the pile.” Only 14 days ago, this game was without a tutorial of its unique “level-less” system, and half of the quests in its second playable area were broken. But if you were to ask me now, I would rate the game MUCH higher. Not cresting the mountains made by World of Warcraft or Everquest, mind you, but definitely something that would require a closer look into the deep dark hole that the game opens.

You are one of the few, chosen by the forces immaterial, to be gifted the power of anima one dark week ago, after chaos had spread through the subway tunnels of Tokyo by that which is known only as the Filth. After exerting control over your new power, the organization of your choice, the secretive Illuminati, the duty bound Templars, or the chaos assertive forces of The Dragon, come knocking. Knowing well of your powers, they first allow you to experience combat firsthand at the devastating event a week ago, then allow you to take up arms in the craft of your choice.

With everything in order, your organization will ferry you off to the Hollow World of Agartha, a means of quick travel around the world, to hop skip and jump to Solomon Island. This land mass on the corner of New England has begun to literally seethe with darkness as an unknown force has begun riling that which sleeps beneath this backwater civilization. The forces of the Undead and the seafaring Draug have begun their siege against the remaining residents of Kingsmouth while hell rifts and spectres of the long dead have begun terrorizing the borders of Savage Coast. It’s up to you to make sure that the things that go bump in the night get bumped back, but always to profit your faction.

This is the absolute last time I ask Daffy Duck for directions.

The story and happenstance are told between four types of questing: The Main Story, where you progress one quest that you complete over each major locale, Main Quests, where you help the local population defend or strike back against the immense amount of supernatural garbage and/or profiteering human corporations, Dungeon Quests, which can only be completed in select dungeons, but are worth an incredible payoff, and Side Quests, missions you come across during your travels and usually lead to safety hubs in the wilderness. While most quests usually revolve around killing x many enemies or item recovery, there are quite a few differently themed missions that employ stealth or investigations using only incredibly obscure hints and no map markers for guidance. The questing in The Secret World is surprisingly solid, and while it doesn’t seem like there aren’t very many for players to sink their teeth in, most (aside from the investigations) are repeatable after a 24 hour cooldown after completion.

While the system for questing hasn’t changed all that much, one thing that The Secret World does different is its level system which directly relates to its gameplay. While there are no actual levels or classes, players have three experience benchmarks in which they gain ability points which are used to buy active and passive abilities for your primary and secondary weapons. At the third benchmark, players will also receive a skill point required to power up your stats and allows for the equipping of stronger talismans, charms, and weaponry. At this time, it is unknown if you are able to refund your points or if there is a hard cap of how many you can have at one time.

Your weapons for fighting the undead and those creatures deemed unpronounceable comes in varying formats but fall under three main types: Melee weaponry, Ballistics, and Sorcery with players being allowed to equip two weapons at a time. All three weapon types have different ways of creating and sustaining resources to use in powerful finishers, and some abilities can create one resource for each weapon, which is required later on to keep your damage high enough to kill even the most basic monster during your leveling career. Even without classes, the role trinity (Damage, Tank, Healer) in groups still applies with a division of damage abilities and support abilities with each weapon. For example, the character that I leveled was heavily invested in both Support trees of the Hammer and Chaos Magic weapons, allowing me to have fairly high block and evasion while having enough damage to survive the leveling process.