Martial arts films are a subgenre of action films that feature martial arts combat between characters. These combats are usually the films' primary appeal and entertainment value, and often are a method of storytelling and character expression and development. Martial arts are frequently featured in training scenes and other sequences in addition to fights. Martial arts films commonly include hand-to-hand combat along with other types of action, such as stuntwork, chases, and gunfights. Sub-genres of martial arts films include kung fu films, wuxia, karate films, and martial arts action comedy films, while related genres include gun fu, jidaigeki and samurai films.
Wuxia is a genre of Chinese fiction concerning the adventures of martial artists in ancient China. Although wuxia is traditionally a form of historical fantasy literature, its popularity has caused it to be adapted for such diverse art forms as Chinese opera, manhua, television dramas, films, and video games. It forms part of popular culture in many Chinese-speaking communities around the world. According to Hong Kong film director, producer, and movie writer Ronny Yu, wuxia movies are not to be confused with martial arts movies.
Asheron's Call (AC) was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows PCs, developed and published by Turbine Entertainment Software. Though it was developed by the Turbine team, it was published as a Microsoft title until 2004. The game was set on the island continent of Dereth and several surrounding smaller islands and archipelagos on the fictional planet of Auberean. The game was played in a large seamless 3D virtual world which could host thousands of players' characters at a time.
Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings was a fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) for Microsoft Windows which was released on November 22, 2002 and shut down on December 30, 2005 before it was relaunched as a beta for active Asheron's Call subscribers in 2012. It is a sequel to 1999's Asheron's Call, although content, graphics and gameplay dynamics differed greatly from its predecessor.
Guild Wars is an online role-playing game franchise developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. The games were critically well received and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as "Massively Multiplayer/Persistent World Game of the Year" by the Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences, as well as Best Value, Best Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game (MMORPG), and Best Game. Guild Wars was noted for being the "first major MMO to adopt a business model not based on monthly subscription fees", its instanced approach to gameplay, and the quality of the graphics and play for computers with low specifications. In April 2009, NCSoft announced that 6 million units of games in the Guild Wars series had been sold. The sequel and fourth major entry into the series, Guild Wars 2, was announced in March 2007 and released on August 28, 2012. It features updated graphics and gameplay mechanics, and continues the original Guild Wars tradition of no subscription fees. The Guild Wars series had sold 11.5 million copies by August 2015
Star Trek Online is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Cryptic Studios based on the Star Trek franchise. The game is set in the 25th century, 30 years after the events of Star Trek: Nemesis. Star Trek Online is the first massively multiplayer online role-playing game within the Star Trek franchise and was released for Microsoft Windows in February 2010. At launch, the game required a game purchase and a recurring monthly fee. In January 2012, it relaunched with a tier of free-to-play access available. After a public beta testing period, a version of the game was released for OS X in March 2014. Due to technical issues with the port, support for OS X ended in February 2016. It was later released on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One in September 2016. The game has received several expansions since release and has gotten mixed reviews from critics.
Hong Kong action cinema is the principal source of the Hong Kong film industry's global fame. Action films from Hong Kong have roots in Chinese and Hong Kong cultures including Chinese opera, storytelling and aesthetic traditions, which Hong Kong filmmakers combined with elements from Hollywood and Japanese cinema along with new action choreography and filmmaking techniques, to create a culturally distinctive form that went on to have wide transcultural appeal. In turn, Hollywood action films have been heavily influenced by Hong Kong genre conventions, from the 1970s onwards.
Soul of the Ultimate Nation was a fantasy-based massive multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) produced by Webzen, a Korean-based company. It was operated in South Korea by Webzen and in mainland China by The9. The game was launched in Taiwan on April 19, and in China on May 24, 2007 as a paid online service and closed on July 3, 2013.
Guild Wars is a multiplayer online action role-playing game developed by ArenaNet, a subsidiary of South Korean game publisher NCSOFT, and released in 2005. As the original installment of the Guild Wars series, its campaign was retroactively titled Prophecies to differentiate it from the content of subsequent releases. The game contains a co-operative role-playing portion and a competitive Player versus Player (PvP) portion. In PvP, players may use either their co-operative characters or PvP-exclusive characters who are inherently maximum level and have account-based access to unlocked content.
Heroes of Jin Yong, first published in 1996, is a tactical role-playing game developed by Taiwanese game developer Soft-World's Heluo Studio, based on the storyline and characters from Jin Yong's wuxia novels.
Cabal Online is a free-to-play, 3D massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by South Korean company ESTsoft. Different localizations of the game exist for various countries and regions. Although free-to-play, the game makes use of the freemium business model by implementing an "Item Shop", both in-game and via web, allowing players to purchase special premium coins using real currency, in order to acquire exclusive game enhancements and features, useful items and assorted vanity content.
Might and Magic: Heroes Kingdoms was a real-time strategy massively multiplayer online game based on the Heroes of Might and Magic series. The game was announced in 2007 with closed betas running until 2009. It was released in France on 3 November 2009. It closed its servers on 1 September 2014.
Champions Online is a free-to-play superhero-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by Cryptic Studios. The game is based on the Champions license and its ruleset is loosely based on the HERO System The Game has been released on Steam and Microsoft Windows.
Atlantica Online is a free-to-play (F2P) 3D tactical massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) developed by NDOORS Corporation. The game is currently published by Valofe. The game's primary setting is a fantasy-themed alternate history Earth composed of a diverse blend of historical, cultural, allegorical, and mythological elements. The game world is primarily modeled after real-world geography with accessible locations on six of the seven continents as well as the mythical floating continent of Atlantis from which the game's name is derived.
Blade & Soul is a Wuxia-themed massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Korean NCSoft. Blade & Soul was released in Western territories on January 19, 2016. A Japanese animated television adaptation aired in 2014 from April 3 to June 26 on TBS and other stations.
Arc Games, is a video game publisher. Founded in 2008 as the North American branch of the Chinese company Perfect World, they currently operate their former parent company's titles outside China as well as publishing various video games.
Battle of the Immortals was a free-to-play massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) by Perfect World Entertainment. Beta began on April 14, 2010, and is open to all users with a Perfect World account. On April 30, 2010, the closed beta ended and the open beta began on May 4, 2010. The Guardians of Fate was released on February 22, 2012. Battle of the Immortals takes place in Western Europe, where the player takes the role of a hero to help revive Odin. Besides, Battle of the Immortals is published by Joygame in Turkey since July, 2012. The closed Beta started on September 18, ended on October 11. The open beta which started on October 25 is still on. The game closed all its servers on January 8, 2018.
Age of Wushu is a free-to-play 3D martial arts action MMORPG, created by independent developers and procured by Chinese company Snail. The game revolves around the wuxia-inspired lore surrounding martial arts and adventures in Ming dynasty China. The European version, Age of Wulin, which had been published by Webzen, closed in July 2017, with players being given the option of transferring to a new European server established as part of Age of Wushu, the version of the game published by Snail USA.
Gigantic is a third-person shooter video game developed by the independent game studio Motiga and published by Perfect World Entertainment. The game focused on team-based action combat with heroes battling alongside a massive guardian. Players must protect their guardian along with their team and attempt to destroy the opposing team and their guardian.
Dragon Quest Heroes II is a hack-and-slash game developed by Omega Force and published by Square Enix for PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, PlayStation Vita, Nintendo Switch, and Windows. It was released in Japan in May 2016, and worldwide in April 2017. The game is a sequel to Dragon Quest Heroes: The World Tree's Woe and the Blight Below.
