Newly Found Frostkeep Studios Announces Fantasy Survival Game Rend

Ex devel­op­ers from Bliz­zard and Riot Games found­ed Frost­keep Stu­dios. They have been work­ing for just about a year and are final­ly announc­ing their first game

Rend will be a sur­vival fan­ta­sy game with RPG ele­ments. The game will have both PvE and PVP modes with clear win/loss con­di­tions and “mas­sive, cul­mi­nat­ing war expe­ri­ences”.  The stu­dio is hop­ing to pro­vide a tra­di­tion­al sur­vival expe­ri­ence while intro­duc­ing new ele­ments and fix­ing the usu­al prob­lems that come with the genre.

“With our first game Rend, we are deliv­er­ing on the fan­ta­sy play­ers expect from a sur­vival game while also chal­leng­ing the tra­di­tion­al mold by intro­duc­ing new expe­ri­ences and solv­ing many of the genre’s accept­ed play­er pain points” 

Frost­keep has also list­ed the key fea­tures of Rend on their web­site.  

Key Features:

• Three Play­er Fac­tions: Dur­ing char­ac­ter cre­ation, play­ers imme­di­ate­ly choose to align with one ofthree in-game com­mu­ni­ties, includ­ing the sly and cun­ning Con­clave (pur­ple fac­tion), the proud and bru­tal Order (orange fac­tion) or the mys­ti­cal and intel­li­gent Revenant (green fac­tion). The fac­tions engage in all-out war in a com­pet­i­tive race from hum­ble begin­nings to awe-inspir­ing heights of pow­er in a har­row­ing strug­gle for sur­vival and domination
• Choose How You Play: In the game, play­ers must race against oppos­ing fac­tions to gath­er the lost souls of Rend and deliv­er them to The Cre­ator. Play­ers decide how they will con­tribute and par­tic­i­pate with­in the game ecosys­tem – from har­vest­ing, gath­er­ing or craft­ing roles to more intense assas­sin, sol­dier and hunter role options. Regard­less of play style, there is a role, place and pur­pose for every type of player.
• The World Tree & Divin­i­ty Stone: Each faction's progress is marked by the World Tree, track­ing lost spir­its col­lect­ed and stored with­in each Divin­i­ty Stone. Locat­ed with­in the roots of the World Tree, this giant crys­tal stores the lost souls gath­ered by play­ers. Once enough souls have trans­ferred to a faction’s Divin­i­ty Stone, that fac­tion ascends and is offi­cial­ly declared the win­ner. If a faction’s Divin­i­ty Stone is destroyed, that fac­tion is wiped off the serv­er until anoth­er fac­tion achieves vic­to­ry or all are destroyed.
• Mas­sive, Cul­mi­nat­ing Expe­ri­ences: Every week, dur­ing a serv­er event called The Reck­on­ing, play­ers must join forces to strate­gi­cal­ly align and plan how their fac­tion will pro­tect and defend their base and Divin­i­ty Stone. The Reck­on­ing takes place at a pre-deter­mined time adver­tised dur­ing serv­er selec­tion. When this takes place, the mag­i­cal shields pro­tect­ing each faction’s base will low­er, mak­ing them sus­cep­ti­ble to ene­my attacks from crea­tures – the Lost – and oth­er play­er fac­tions. With each sub­se­quent reck­on­ing, the Lost crea­tures will grow stronger and more pow­er­ful forc­ing each fac­tion to rethink their strategy.
• Serv­er Life­cy­cle & Meta Pro­gres­sion: After a win­ning fac­tion is declared or all fac­tions are wiped off a serv­er, par­tic­i­pat­ing play­ers will receive rewards in the form of meta-pro­gres­sion points. These points can be spent on sub­se­quent ses­sions on that serv­er to unlock fur­ther cus­tomiza­tion and pro­gres­sion options for new char­ac­ters. For play­ers who find that the win/loss cycle is not for them, pri­vate servers options will be avail­able that present a mul­ti­tude of rule set options allow­ing them to the expe­ri­ence every­thing they (and their friends) are look­ing for in the game.
• Dynam­ic Envi­ron­ments: The land of Rend is a prov­ing ground with a real-time envi­ron­ment fea­tur­ing a day-to- night cycle, weath­er, tem­per­a­ture sur­vival and an idyl­lic nature that gives way to hunt­ing crea­tures while play­ers stalk and fight each oth­er for resources. Play­ers will be chal­lenged as they explore the mys­te­ri­ous­ly beau­ti­ful and bru­tal envi­ron­ments of Rend – from majes­tic grass­land val­leys and an uncom­pro­mis­ing cave sys­tem to a dan­ger­ous, frozen hellscape area called the Eter­nal Waste­lands that holds pow­er­ful fabled arti­facts (and crea­tures). With each area hav­ing its own spe­cif­ic resources and per­ils, play­ers will be able to find the lev­el of chal­lenge that appeals to them.
• Weapons: Rend uti­lizes a tight and respon­sive shoot­er-style com­bat sys­tem fea­tur­ing a wide array of weapon types. As play­ers use dif­fer­ent weapons, they will increase their skill and even­tu­al­ly unlock cus­tomiza­tion paths to spe­cial­ize in dif­fer­ent uses of that weapon. For exam­ple, a play­er who is high­ly expe­ri­enced with bows may choose between a more sta­tion­ary, long-range sniper role, deal­ing mas­sive dam­age in a sin­gle shot or a quick and tena­cious hunter role capa­ble of hound­ing and chas­ing down tar­gets on the run.  Play­ers can fur­ther cus­tomize their play style with weapon mod­i­fi­ca­tions, adding lights, scopes, addi­tion clip capac­i­ty, and more.
• Tal­ent Sys­tem: Play­ers can decide how they will cus­tomize their char­ac­ter and expe­ri­ences to match their play style and needs of their fac­tion through a deep tal­ent sys­tem. Play­ers can explore being an Assas­sin, Sur­vival­ist, Sol­dier, or Mys­tic. Each role is accom­pa­nied by an exten­sive skill tree that allows play­ers to build a unique set of capa­bil­i­ties to set them­selves apart from every­one else
• Skill Sys­tem: In Rend, play­ers can con­tin­ue to cus­tomize their expe­ri­ence fur­ther as they skill up their pro­gres­sion for in-game activ­i­ties like har­vest­ing, craft­ing, weapon­ry, hunt­ing, mag­ic, armor, explor­ing unfor­giv­ing areas of the game and more. Play­ers can carve out unique and vital roles with­in their fac­tion as they spe­cial­ize in the activ­i­ties they enjoy most.
• Base Build­ing: Each fac­tion must con­struct a base of oper­a­tions to call home. Craft­ing and research sta­tions, resource refiner­ies, stor­age spaces and more will be housed inside a defen­sive fortress archi­tect­ed by play­ers in the fac­tion. Dur­ing The Reck­on­ing, fac­tions will be called upon to pro­tect their base against the Lost and ene­my play­er fac­tions.  If the Divin­i­ty Stone in the cen­ter is destroyed, that fac­tion is wiped from the server.
• Future Fea­tures: Rend will con­tin­ue to expand to include more fea­tures and con­tent as request­ed by the play­er com­mu­ni­ty, includ­ing more crea­tures, weapons, game sys­tems, spells, skills, cus­tomiza­tion options, game modes, and addi­tion­al cus­tom serv­er options

Rend is cur­rent­ly slat­ed to launch in ear­ly access on Steam this spring.