New MMORPGFPS to utilise Valve's Half-Life 2 engine

It would seem that one of the game’s industry’s longest and least catchy acronyms: MMORPG is about to get even longer. The MMORPG is dead, long live the MMORPGFPS! [pronounced: mur-mor-pig-fups] After Bioware announced that it would be using the Unreal 3 Engine for a new game in the works (most probably an RPG and most probably with online features), Smiling Gator Productions has confirmed that it has completed a licensing agreement with Valve to use the Half-Life 2 Engine (Source) in its first project.

It is hoped that Twilight War: After The Fall will manage to marry this impressive graphical power to a massively online sci-fi universe packed with crowds of eager gamers and alien creatures. As regular readers of SPOnG will be aware, many MMORPGs have fallen by the wayside over the last few months; so Twilight War could well find a welcoming vacancy awaiting it when it’s released on PC in early 2006. Especially as a title that combines full RPG gameplay with a well-respected FPS combat system.

It’s still a long way off: and the path to a fixed shipping-date is riddled with fiendish traps and pitfalls, but if Smiling Gator can make the most of the technical quality and visual polish provided by the Source engine, Twilight War could become something quite special. We’ll let you know when more is known: have a peep at the concept art in the meantime.