MAG-ic?

The idea of 256 players waging simultaneous war in an online action game is inherently interesting to a large number of people. Of course, any concept of that nature also raises many doubts: Will they be able to pull it off? Will gameplay suffer? Will it all devolve into chaos? Is bigger really better?

But while we all have our doubts, this is still an exciting idea that's worth trying. I'm glad to see Sony taking the risk with this game. At the very least it may lay the groundwork for things to come.

The game in question is MAG, short for Massive Action Game (though the title will certainly change before the planned 2009 launch). It was announced at E3 as a game set in a war-torn near-future setting in which up to 256 players (broken down into 8 person squads) would battle it out.

The information released was so minimal that it was hard to get excited. But Kotaku then posted an inside report from a playtester with a ton of details on the game. These type of games are not my specialty and it's still very early to be making judgments one way or the other. But at the very least, the potential for something different and fun seems to be there. If you are interested I recommend you read the report and see what you think.

Today we got an update on the Sony PlayStation blog. What surprised me the most about this update is that they went ahead and actually linked to the Kotaku piece. I would have expected them to ignore a report like that, not give it credibility by linking to it. I'm not complaining, I think it's a good thing that demonstrates an ability to react well to surprises.

The screenshot they include is pretty impressive at well. And they do state in the comments that it is an actual screenshot running on a PS3.

Many things can go wrong with a project of such tremendous scale, but it also has the possibility of being a major hit. It's been a long time since Planetside was released and the public seems ready for a game like MAG.