Sovereign (video game)

Last updated

Sovereign was a massively multiplayer online real-time strategy (MMORTS) game developed for PC by Daybreak Game Company (known at the time as Sony Online Entertainment) that was cancelled sometime from 2001 [1] to 2003 after more than four-and-a-half years of development. [2]

Announced in August 1999, [3] Sovereign would have focused on battle, trading, diplomacy, and economic power between various Houses that players could join, with large-scale guild wars taking place on various planets holding up to 500 players at a time. Each player would be given their own "homeworld" as a form of safe-house to store resources.

Being one of the first attempts at developing an online game of this scale and nature, the project would ultimately be cancelled relatively early into development. Scott McDaniel, vice president of marketing and public relations for Sony Online Entertainment at this time, commented, "We came to a decision that it was not going to be what we wanted it to be, It never really had the magic." [4]

After Sovereign's cancelation, all employees working on the game would instead be moved to work on Star Wars Galaxies and EverQuest II, similar games which would release in 2003 and 2004 respectively. [5]

Related Research Articles

<i>EverQuest</i> 1999 video game

EverQuest is a 3D fantasy-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed by Verant Interactive and 989 Studios for Windows PCs. It was released by Sony Online Entertainment in March 1999 in North America, and by Ubisoft in Europe in April 2000. A dedicated version for Mac OS X was released in June 2003, which operated for ten years before being shut down in November 2013. In June 2000, Verant Interactive was absorbed into Sony Online Entertainment, who took over full development and publishing duties of the title. Later, in February 2015, SOE's parent corporation, Sony Computer Entertainment, sold the studio to investment company Columbus Nova and it was rebranded as Daybreak Game Company, which continues to develop and publish EverQuest.

A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Square Enix</span> Japanese video game company

Square Enix Holdings Co., Ltd. is a Japanese multinational holding company, production enterprise and entertainment conglomerate, best known for its Final Fantasy, Dragon Quest, Star Ocean and Kingdom Hearts role-playing video game franchises, among numerous others. Outside of video game publishing and development, it is also in the business of merchandise, arcade facilities, and manga publication under its Gangan Comics brand.

<i>Star Wars Galaxies</i> 2003 video game

Star Wars Galaxies is a Star Wars- themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows, developed by Sony Online Entertainment and published by LucasArts.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Yu Suzuki</span> Japanese video game designer

Yu Suzuki is a Japanese game designer, producer, programmer, and engineer, who headed Sega's AM2 team for 18 years. Considered one of the first auteurs of video games, he has been responsible for a number of Sega's arcade hits, including three-dimensional sprite-scaling games that used "taikan" motion simulator arcade cabinets, such as Hang-On, Space Harrier, Out Run, and After Burner, and pioneering polygonal 3D games such as Virtua Racing and Virtua Fighter, which are credited with popularizing 3D graphics in video games, as well as the critically acclaimed Shenmue series. As a hardware engineer, he led the development of various arcade system boards, including the Sega Space Harrier, Model 1, Model 2, and Model 3, and was involved in the technical development of the Dreamcast console and its corresponding NAOMI arcade hardware.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Daybreak Game Company</span> American video game developer

Daybreak Game Company LLC is an American video game developer based in San Diego. The company was founded in December 1997 as Sony Online Entertainment, a subsidiary of Sony Computer Entertainment, but was spun off to an independent investor in February 2015 and renamed Daybreak Game Company. On December 1, 2020, Daybreak Game Company entered into an agreement to be acquired by Enad Global 7.

<i>Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning</i> 2008 video game

Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game based on Games Workshop's Warhammer Fantasy setting, developed by Mythic Entertainment and published by Electronic Arts in 2008. The game revolved around the continual worldwide conflict that the Warhammer Fantasy setting is known for, and the game is geared toward ongoing, constant war laced with dark humour. Age of Reckoning ended up selling over a million copies and peaking at 800,000 subscribers, but dropped to 300,000 subscribers several months later. The game received generally positive reviews from critics but shut down in 2013. Since at least 2014, an active private server called Return of Reckoning has been run by fans, and it remains active as of January 2023.

<i>EverQuest II</i> 2004 video game

EverQuest II is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed and published by Sony Online Entertainment for Microsoft Windows PCs and released in November 2004. It is the sequel to the original EverQuest, released five years earlier, and features updated graphics and more streamlined gameplay compared to the previous entry, as well as an abundance of voice acting with contributions from actors such as Christopher Lee and Heather Graham. In February 2015, Sony Online Entertainment's parent corporation Sony Computer Entertainment sold it to investment company Inception Acquisitions, where it continues to develop and publish the game under its new name, Daybreak Game Company.

<i>Jurassic Park</i> video games Video game franchise

Numerous video games based on the Jurassic Park franchise have been released. Developers Ocean Software, BlueSky Software and Sega produced various games in 1993, coinciding with the first film, Jurassic Park. In 1997, several developers, including DreamWorks Interactive and Appaloosa Interactive, produced various games for nine different platforms to coincide with the release of the film The Lost World: Jurassic Park.

<i>God of War</i> (2005 video game) Action-adventure game

God of War is an action-adventure hack and slash video game developed by Santa Monica Studio and published by Sony Computer Entertainment (SCE). First released on March 22, 2005, for the PlayStation 2 (PS2) console, it is the first installment in the series of the same name and the third chronologically. Loosely based on Greek mythology, it is set in ancient Greece with vengeance as its central motif. The player controls the protagonist Kratos, a Spartan warrior who serves the Olympian gods. The goddess Athena tasks Kratos with killing Ares, the God of War and Kratos' former mentor who tricked Kratos into killing his wife and daughter. As Ares besieges Athens out of hatred for Athena, Kratos embarks on a quest to find the one object capable of stopping the god once and for all: Pandora's Box.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Capcom Five</span> Five Capcom video games for GameCube

The Capcom Five are five video games that were unveiled by Capcom in late 2002 and published from March 2003. At a time when Nintendo's GameCube console had failed to capture market share, Capcom announced five new GameCube titles with the apparent goal of boosting hardware sales and showing off third-party developer support. Capcom USA followed up with confirmation that they would be exclusive to the GameCube. The five games were P.N.03, a futuristic third-person shooter; Viewtiful Joe, a side-scrolling action-platformer; Dead Phoenix, a shoot 'em up; Resident Evil 4, a survival horror third-person shooter; and Killer7, an action-adventure game with first-person shooter elements. Though not directly related to each other, they were all overseen by Resident Evil director Shinji Mikami and, except Killer7, developed by Capcom's Production Studio 4. Capcom USA later clarified that only Resident Evil 4 was intended to be exclusive; the initial announcement was due to a miscommunication with their parent company.

<i>Gran Turismo</i> (2009 video game) 2009 racing video game

Gran Turismo is a 2009 racing video game developed by Polyphony Digital and published by Sony Computer Entertainment for the PlayStation Portable. The game was announced at Sony's E3 press conference on May 11, 2004, alongside the original PSP. Following five years of delays and speculation, during which it was variously known as Gran Turismo Portable, Gran Turismo 4 Mobile, Gran Turismo 5 Mobile and Gran Turismo 4.5, it made a reappearance at E3 on June 2, 2009, in playable form. It was released on October 1, 2009, as one of the launch titles for the new PSP Go. As of September 2017, Gran Turismo has sold 4.67 million units, making it one of the best-selling PSP games. On June 1, 2010, the game was re-released as part of Sony's Greatest Hits budget line of video games.

GU Comics is a single panel webcomic written, drawn, and colored by William "Woody" Hearn. Established July 10, 2000 and launched August 15, 2000, GU is published, free, five times a week on its own web site. The comic focuses on a single video game such as World of Warcraft; but, it also comments on gaming industry and community news, often lampooning gamers in general through the adventures of Hearn and his fictional roommate, Ted, and occasionally parodies contemporary social, political, and personal issues related to the online and general video game world. In recent months Hearn has focused primarily on writing comics revolving around various pen-and-paper role playing games; it is unclear if Hearns actually takes part in these games or if he simply finds humor in D&D sourcebooks over PC MMO games.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic (KOTOR) is a media franchise of space western role-playing video games created and developed by BioWare, which have seen releases on the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, Microsoft Windows, OS X, Xbox One, and android. The franchise takes place in the fictional universe of Star Wars by George Lucas. The first title, and subsequent massively multiplayer online role-playing game series, was developed by BioWare while the second was done by Obsidian Entertainment per LucasArts' request. All were published by LucasArts. The video game series is based on an earlier comic book series; the franchise includes a subsequent new comic book series. Both comic series were published by Dark Horse Comics and act as prequels to the video games.

God of War is an action-adventure game franchise created by David Jaffe at Sony's Santa Monica Studio. It began in 2005 on the PlayStation 2 (PS2) video game console and has become a flagship series for PlayStation, consisting of nine installments across multiple platforms. Based on ancient mythologies, the story follows Kratos, a Spartan warrior and later the Greek God of War, who was tricked into killing his family by his former master, the original Greek God of War Ares. This sets off a series of events that leads to wars with the different mythological pantheons. The Greek-based games see Kratos follow a path of vengeance due to the machinations of the Olympian gods, while the Norse-based games, which introduce his son Atreus as a secondary protagonist, show Kratos on a path of redemption and inadvertently coming into conflict with the Norse gods.

<i>Six Days in Fallujah</i> Upcoming video game

Six Days in Fallujah is an upcoming tactical shooter game developed by Highwire Games and published by Victura. The game's plot follows a squad of U.S. Marines from 3rd Battalion, 1st Marines (3/1), fighting in the Second Battle of Fallujah over the span of six days in November 2004.

<i>EverQuest Next</i> Video game

EverQuest Next was a planned massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG), meant to be the successor to EverQuest, EverQuest Online Adventures and EverQuest II. The game was in development by the Daybreak Game Company, but the project was terminated in 2016.

<i>PlanetSide 2</i> 2012 massively multiplayer online first-person shooter game

PlanetSide 2 is a free-to-play massively multiplayer online first-person shooter developed by Rogue Planet Games and published by Daybreak Game Company. The game supports battles with thousands of players and incorporates modern first-person shooter mechanics. Six different infantry classes and over 18 ground and air vehicles are available to players and interact on the battlefield to simulate combined arms warfare. As a re-imagining of PlanetSide, PlanetSide 2 chronicles the efforts of three factions fighting for territorial control of the planet Auraxis.

Landmark was a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed and published by Daybreak Game Company for Microsoft Windows. The game's original name was EverQuest Next Landmark, but was switched to Landmark in March 2014. The original purpose for EverQuest Next Landmark was mainly as a player content creation tool for EverQuest Next. Landmark was released in June 2016, and was playable until the servers were shut down in February 2017.

<i>Spider-Man</i> (Insomniac Games series) Video game series developed by Insomniac Games

Marvel's Spider-Man is a series of action-adventure video games developed by Insomniac Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment for PlayStation consoles and Microsoft Windows. Based on characters appearing in Marvel Comics publications, the games are inspired by the long-running comic book lore, while additionally deriving from various adaptations in other media. The series principally follows protagonists Peter Parker and Miles Morales, who fight crime in New York City as Spider-Men while dealing with the complications of their civilian lives.

References

  1. "Sovereign". IGN. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  2. "So Long Sovereign..." IGN. 2003-02-12. Archived from the original on February 16, 2003. Retrieved 2007-12-31.
  3. I. G. N. Staff (2000-03-22). "Sovereign Interview". IGN. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  4. "EverQuest hits the PS2 - Feb. 12, 2003". money.cnn.com. Retrieved 2022-09-11.
  5. Sulic, Ivan (2003-02-13). "Sovereign Details". IGN. Retrieved 2022-09-11.