Defiance Message Board older than one year ago

Defiance, the ambitious online open-world shooter companion to SyFy's upcoming television series of the same name, is offering a melange of murderous in-game items to all who sign up early. Publisher Trion Worlds reveals that plunking down $5 for a pre-order at a participating retailer grants early beta access, a special in-game title and outfit, plus a three-day XP boost and whichever items that particular retailer is offering.

Available in the standard $60 package, a $100 Collector's edition and limited, GameStop-exclusive Ultimate edition, Defiance is currently slated to launch sometime in April for the PS3, Xbox 360 and PC. The television side of this transmedia twofer will premiere in April with a two-hour episode. For a full list of what's in each package, head past the break.

This April, fire up your PlayStation 3 and dive into Defiance: a massive open-world third person shooter in development at Trion Worlds. Today, we announced a full array of editions (and some sweet pre-order bonuses) but before we dive into that, let me give you a rundown on what Defiance is all about.

Decades ago, arks that carried the six species of the Votanis Collective to Earth. Their star system had been destroyed and they needed a new home. Unfortunately, their peaceful intentions led to a planet-wide war that culminated in the complete destruction of their ships. Their great terraforming machines crashed to earth and the face of our world was changed forever.

Fifteen years later, you take on the role of an ark hunter, a specialized scavenger who digs through the rubble of the fallen arks to uncover advanced technology, weapons, and other valuable loot. You have been hired by Von Bach Industries to find powerful ark technology capable of repairing our now broken planet. Armed with special abilities provided to you by your EGO (a nano-device that is injected directly into your body) you must brave the dangerous Bay Area frontier in order to find arktech. To survive, you will need to upgrade your EGO, increase your power level, and customize your weapons. To succeed, you will need the help of others. This is not a world where you can go it alone.

Defiance is a shooter. Defiance is an MMO. Defiance is a game where you can group up with your friends – be it two, three, or thirty, and traverse the expanse of a terraformed San Francisco Bay area. You’ll encounter thousands of players in-game with you. With your friends, and the folks you meet throughout the course of your journey, you’ll explore the world of Defiance and unravel the story that is entwined with a Syfy series (coming to TV this April).

Together, you and your fellow Ark Hunters will take on Arkfalls: massive, dynamic events that unfold in the world at any moment and need dozens (or more) players to defeat them. You’ll happen upon Shadow Wars: huge competitive battles with up to 96 players duking it out. You’ll see these Shadow Wars unfold as you play through regular missions and can choose to jump in at any time (or watch from a hilltop, safe from the gunfighting but missing out on the spoils of victory.) We also have more traditional competitive maps for smaller skirmishes and, for those who enjoy co-op play more than face-to-face carnage, we have small group co-op instances where you and your friends can group up, strategize, and take down hulking bosses.

Let’s get to the nitty gritty of today’s announcement. As of today, you can preorder four different editions of Defiance for the PlayStation 3. And to confirm, Defiance does not have a monthly subscription. Grab the game, jump into the world, and enjoy.

Defiance Pre-Order ($59) Bonuses Include:

• Outlander outfit helps you blend in with the locals
• Iron Demon title lets potential enemies know you are not to be messed with
• Retailer Exclusive pre-order weapon that gives you a leg up out of the gate
• 3-Day XP boost helps establish you on the battlefield
• Beta Invitation – get in the game early!

Defiance Digital Deluxe Edition ($99) Includes:

• Rare VBI Sentinel Shield helps you never let your guard down
• In-game title: Badlands Drifter
• Ark Infiltrator outfit – look good while crackin’ skulls
• Hydra heavy weapon helps you bring the boom early
• +5 Increased inventory space – don’t leave home without it
• 30-Day scrip boost – more everything!
• 30-Day XP boost – level up faster!
• Lock Box – sweet random rewards!

Defiance Collector’s Edition ($99) includes the Digital Deluxe items and adds the following:

• Unique Defiance Collectors Box
• CD soundtrack – from legendary composer Bear McCreary
• Exclusive Art of Defiance book – unique stills and never-before-seen renders
• Exclusive Hellbug statue
• An official Von Bach Industries contract
• Defiance Post Cards and stickers
• Bonus “Making of Defiance” DVD
• 7-Day scrip boost
• 7-Day XP boost

Defiance Ultimate Edition ($149, GameStop Exclusive) adds the following to the Collector’s Edition:

• Exclusive Defiance Messenger Bag
• Exclusive in-game title: Pale Wars Ronin
• One Year Season Pass (All DLC)
• 1200 Bits

Want to see more Defiance? Check out our latest co-op trailer or head to our YouTube page to see clips of both the show and the game.

If you have more questions, hit us up on our forums, or check out our Twitter.

Bosses, battles and vehicles in Trion's upcoming shooter MMO.

Games and TV haven’t exactly had the best relationship over the years. Nor have games and movies, or books, or pretty much anything that’s not games. I’ve wondered for quite a while, though, whether transmedia’s series of spectacular face-plants has been due to fundamental incompatibility between mediums or a simple lack of meaningful collaboration. Defiance – with its frequent, meticulously planned crossovers – might be able to answer that question. But honestly, if the game’s not any good, why should anyone care about what the tiny people who live inside their televisions do or say? Naturally, then, Defiance’s upcoming beta events are of interest. You can scope out its vision of an alien-overrun Wild West future San Francisco and maybe help make it better. A little. Details after the break.

(more…)

Someone is going to crack the open-world shooter, and when they do I’ll be there with the huggiest hug of all hugs. With Firefall and Planetside 2 already out (ish), and Defiance coming, it feels like there’s a movement. The problems that have kept these kinds of games from proliferating will now have three development teams trying to fix them. But what game to choose? This PvP specific Defiance developer diary makes a good case for giving it some attention. Quad bikes and meaty shooty-bangs are all well represented, even if the word ‘console’ is liberally tossed about.(more…)

#defiance We may not have heard about Defiance the video game since E3, but Syfy is still forging ahead with the TV show based on the property, releasing this new commercial for the series during New York Comic Con this weekend. More »

I must confess that, for the longest time, Defiance was just “that game with its own Syfy TV show” to me – probably because that seems to be exactly what Trion and Syfy wanted me to think. Well, they probably also wanted me to think “Syfy, a magical one-stop destination for all my science fiction and Sharktopus needs that I don’t totally begrudge for unceremoniously pulling the plug on Battlestar Galactica: Blood and Chrome,” but I digress. Now the media power couple that is, itself, basically a plot out of a sci-fi novel has finally seen fit to give Defiance’s inner workings a proper spotlight. And, if I’m being honest, it’s not looking half-bad.

(more…)

Grant Bowler gives us some background on his lead role as a character existing in both an MMO game and SyFy TV series simultaneously.

Play as an Ark Hunter trying to bring order to a troubled land in Defiance.

#defiance Here's the latest trailer for Defiance, an upcoming massively multiplayer online game that will come coupled with a television show that its creators say will be affected by the way players play. More »

#defiance Last year the people making the TV show and video game that are both called Defiance performed a distracting magic trick. More »

Alert! Alert! Words like “Transmedia” imminent! You have been warned! Ahem. Trion Worlds and SyFy have released a long video showing off their forthcoming game/tv hybrid thing Defiance, where the battles you fight might later appear on TV. It’s a bit like being a soldier, only there are aliens involved and Fox News will never try to make out that it’s in any way patriotic.

Here comes the video, and a few Things To Notice…

(more…)

Science fiction TV channel Syfy (Really? Still calling it that?) has reportedly begun production on the pilot of Defiance, that previously announced huge transmedia property in conjunction with Trion Worlds. The idea is that there will be both a TV show and an MMO, and that narratives and actions from each one will intersect in some way with the other. The pilot will star Dexter's Julie Benz, 24's Mia Kirshner, and True Blood's Grant Bowler, and feature writing by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, and music by Bear McCreary, who all worked together on the popular Battlestar Galactica series.

The show will take place on a destroyed future earth, where "human and alien survivors of a universal war" have to work together to build a new society. Trion Worlds (creators of Rift and End of Nations) is putting the MMO together, and both the game and the TV series are expected out in Spring 2013.

Science fiction TV channel Syfy (Really? Still calling it that?) has reportedly begun production on the pilot of Defiance, that previously announced huge transmedia property in conjunction with Trion Worlds. The idea is that there will be both a TV show and an MMO, and that narratives and actions from each one will intersect in some way with the other. The pilot will star Dexter's Julie Benz, 24's Mia Kirshner, and True Blood's Grant Bowler, and feature writing by David Weddle and Bradley Thompson, and music by Bear McCreary, who all worked together on the popular Battlestar Galactica series.

The show will take place on a destroyed future earth, where "human and alien survivors of a universal war" have to work together to build a new society. Trion Worlds (creators of Rift and End of Nations) is putting the MMO together, and both the game and the TV series are expected out in Spring 2013.

For those in need of a refresher: Defiance is a sci-fi shooter MMO from Trion Worlds that’s going to tie in with a Syfy television show on a weekly basis. And I think I may be one of the people in need of said refresher, because according to the trailer, Defiance is a gun game about guns and aliens and guns and that quick cut thing movie trailers use to make aliens scary – only that’s kind of hard here because the aliens are exploding into extremely dead goop. Dan’s preview from last year’s GamesCom made Trion’s latest dish sound a bit more appetizing, so I’m definitely interested in seeing big talk translate into something other than big explosions. For now, though, watch extraterrestrials catch their death of germs, water, and the odd bullet here or there or everywhere after the break.

(more…)

In the future, the Earth is in trouble -- humanity is at war with a species of invading alien bug things. Defiance, from Trion Worlds, brings MMO third-person shooting to consoles and the PC; events in both the game and show will play off each other.

You know what we always say: the only good alien bug thing is a dead alien bug thing.

#defiance Trion's Defiance, the platform-agnostic shooter-MMO that Stephen Totilo saw at E3, promises to deliver open-world action with thousands of simulataneous players. It's also supposed to sync with an in-development SyFy TV series, so that developments in the game affect the show. That's a tall order, right? More »

Hi! I’m Rob Hill, Sr. Producer on Defiance, and today I’m here to unveil the first ever clip of gameplay for this very exciting shooter MMO for PS3.

For those that don’t know, Defiance is the first persistent online world that plays like a pixel perfect shooter. Unlike other shooter games where you can play co-op with 4 or 8 players at most, Defiance supports thousands of players playing together in a game that never ends. And if that doesn’t raise your eyebrows just a bit, the world of Defiance exists not only in the game, but in a TV series of the same name that will air on the Syfy channel. The game and show will change and evolve together, to create an entertainment experience unlike anything you’ve ever experienced. We’re glad to be able to take advantage of the power and features of the PS3 to help bring such a world to life.

Defiance is the next MMO from Trion Worlds. It’s a sci-fi action MMO styled after their first game, Rift. But there’s something even more weird about it: the game is going to be tied into a TV show running in parallel on the SyFy (hnngh) channel. We got to see what this cross-media complication actually means at Gamescom.

[Roving reporter Dan Griliopoulos was left behind after GamesCom and is wandering somewhere in Europe. For those keeping track, today he's near the ominously named Lago D'Isola.](more…)

After hearing the full pitch for Defiance, it's hard not to be impressed. It's a cross-platform third-person shooter MMO coming out for PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3. It's also intricately tied into an upcoming television show on SyFy. The game is set in a near future version of San Francisco while the show is in St. Louis, and in both cities humanity needs to fight off the monstrous effects of alien terraforming...

#thisreallyhappened I'm supposed to be telling you about a new video game called Defiance, but... I have to tell you something else: I saw one guy controlling the game on an Xbox 360. Another was playing in on a PlayStation 3 More »

One of the more unusual announcements from E3 was that of Defiance, a cross-platform MMO, that is also a cross-media project incorporating a TV show alongside the game. It’s being developed by Trion Worlds (of Rift) and the television channel SyFy. Anyway, it turns out that the game is “set in a futuristic San Francisco Bay Area”, and will be a mission-based third-person shooter, in which you can play as human or alien races. I’ve posted the full fact-o-thing and screenshots below. Click for full size.(more…)

For as many games as we physically play at E3, we hear as many ambitious, high-concept pitches for games that are still quite a ways out. One presentation at Trion Worlds for the upcoming Defiance is about as ambitious as they come. Ready? Deep breath:

Defiance is an MMORPG/third-person shooter set to launch simultaneously on PS3, PC and 360 that's being created in conjunction with the SyFy network which will develop and launch a TV series of the same name, the events of which will bleed into the game and vice versa.

...Yeah, it's a mouthful.

Defiance is damn impressive. When I say that, I mean it mostly from a conceptual standpoint, because the game, a massively-multiplayer online third-person-shooter from Trion (who previously released Rift), is in an extremely early stage of development. Its textures looked a little incongruent, areas...