City Of Heroes Inspired The Phoenix Project Kickstarting

I loved City Of Heroes. As someone who tends to find MMOs somewhere to run around in on my own, gobble up everything single player, and then quit out and never play again, City Of Heroes was different. It was a place to me. I don't think that's testament to the world-building therein - I'm not sure the towns themselves were anything particularly special. I don't think I can put it down to the superb powers, fun biffy combat, or amazing character creator either. For me it was about a certain time, with certain people. Which means I'm super-excited to see what can be done with The Phoenix Project - the fan attempt to create a spiritual successor to the now gone-forever MMO. Soon to be Kickstartered.

To be more fair to City Of Heroes, while I say the towns weren't anything special, the design of them, and the ability to move around them, certainly was. I never, ever got tired of leaping from one building ledge to another, bouncing off the very corner of a chimney to make a perfect jump to the top of a radio tower. Reloading it over the years, either for some lunatic attempt to review a new update despite having entirely lost track of it all, or just because someone said the words "City Of Heroes" near me, employing Nitefall's superjump was never any less of a supreme pleasure over the years. I've never found another game that can match it.

Missing Worlds Media are going to have a go, though. We first heard about this community-based studio is a collective of programmers, designers and fans back in January. Now there's far more to learn via a great piece on Polygon about the project. In fact, Polygon has another strong post about it, speaking to the project's lead, Kaylan Lyndell-Lees. You should read those.

Obviously they have to tread carefully, as NCSoft will still own the rights to the original game, despite their taking it offline. And of course to do it all, they'll need money, and that's where Kickstarter will come in. They're planning to launch the project on the 8th September, but a figure to aim for doesn't seem to have been revealed yet.

So, yes! Good! Do that then! I want City Of Heroes back, but ideally without the mad amount of clutter that clogged it all up in the later years. I loved bouncing, not collecting scraps of metal to turn into capes/discos.