War of the Immortals is a free to play MMORPG from popular publishers, Perfect World Entertainment. The game delivers high-octane action, intense Player V Player combat, and a number of other interesting features and mechanics.

The first thing you’ll notice launching War of the Immortals is the highly detailed cinematic in the background, displaying a Warrior and a Mage standing in awe at a huge floating city surrounded by dragons. A cinematic which definitely sets the tone for a game that sets you off on explorations of mythical locations such as Valhalla and Atlantis. Once you’ve managed to claw yourself away from the stunning visuals, you can create your character. Straight out of the gate War of the Immortals stands out as it offers an impressive 8 playable classes. The available classes are Berzerker, Champion, Duelist, Enchantress, Heretic, Magus, Ranger and Slayer. The game takes an interesting approach as it allows you to view your chosen class in end-game armor, allowing you to make a choice based on your end-game appearance, which is the gear you’ll spend the most time wearing. There is a small lack of description as without checking the website, you’re not really sure what the classes main role is, but as you select each one an animation is displayed that gives you the basic idea. As well as the standard character creation options such as face and hair, you can also choose your birthday which influences your Zodiac sign, these have various effects down the line but none of them are over-powered when compared to the others.

Once you load into the game world, you can use both WASD and mouse clicks to move, you’re also instantly introduced to the auto-pathing quest system, where you click the quest name and the game will automatically take you to the desired location. Usually I would say this subtracts from a players immersion but we’ve all played MMORPG games before and we’ve all done hundreds, if not thousands, of quests. So it makes a nice change to be able to just get there and get it done.

The first few quests introduce you to the main aspects and mechanics of the game, with the main focus being on combat. You learn pretty quickly that your character is a total beast, practically any class can take on 9-10 of the Valkyrie Servants, giving you the impression the game is going to deliver on the promised action-based combat. As you progress through the starting areas you level up, gain access to plenty of gear and fight some really cool monsters. This is another area War of the Immortals excels in, the design of the enemy monsters, character armor and NPC armor is all very fantastical, focusing on over-sized armor with more spikes than a legion of roman spear-men. Once you’ve covered the basics you get your first real boss fight against a Lava Dragon, this fiery beast is ten times the size of your character, so it’s a pretty impressive fight that you usually have to wait until end-game to experience in other MMORPG games.

While you’re playing you’re also awarded with many new player benefits. As you play, at certain intervals, you’re rewarded with various buffs and other items that make your progression much faster. This means players that play for a good length of time each session find it easier to progress the longer they play, an almost opposite approach to other MMO games. Another aspect to the new player experience is a trademark feature of PWE games, players are rewarded with Newbie Item Packs at various levels, which can include new weapons and armor, as well as healing items and other consumables. These features combined make the game very easy to get to grips with and means new players soon progress to the more exciting parts of the game.

Towards the end of the new player tutorial you get introduced to the companion system, which is easily one of the most exciting aspects of the game. You can capture certain monsters once their health reaches 0, monsters that you can capture can be summoned to aid you in battle. Each monster you capture is totally unique, and even the same species of monster can have unique stats and effects when compared to others of the same species. Monsters level and progress in the same style as your character, earning more attribute points and learning stronger skills as they level up. Your companions can also evolve once certain conditions are met, giving a large boost to stats and in some cases, changing the appearance of your companion.

The first 20 levels comes across like a big tutorial, you’re given basic quests to kill X monster and visit X NPC, but after that, it feels like the game evolves. Once you reach level 20 you gain access to some really cool looking mounts, that make traveling to towns and quest locations much easier, and you also get to customize your characters progression tree by allocating the stat points in the areas you choose. This allows for total control over your characters end-game build making practically any class highly versatile.

Overall War Of The Immortals offers a unique new player experience that any player will feel comfortable with. The starting areas of the game are filled with fantastical monsters and NPC characters, the level designs are detailed and fluid, and the combat animations make each fight truly exciting.

Rating: 7.0

by Smith