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Global Agenda is an upcoming “spy-fi” MMO by Hi-Rez Studios that is currently in the early stages of closed beta. Global agenda is built on the Unreal 3 engine and set on Earth in the 22nd century where after a global disaster open warfare became a thing of the past forcing conflict into covert operations.

To quote Hi-Rez:

In the wake of severe global disaster, the political face of 22nd century earth has changed and player-created factions scheme against each other for power. Traditional full-scale wars a thing of the past, factions must rely on covert agencies, teams of elite special operatives able to seize and defend key facilities. The future of humanity is their battleground, where knowledge is power, technology is a race, and everyone has an agenda.

The players control the world of Global Agenda, forging alliances with their peers and executing lightning strikes against their enemies. They determine which factions to aid and which to oppose, while the only thing that stands in their way is other agencies.

So we have our setting, a world of extreme technologies and covert faction based warfare.

Gameplay

Ok, we know that Global Agenda is an online MMO that involves Factions and Fighting, but what makes this one stand out from the rest?

I think the main difference that this game offers is the style of combat, covert, so rather than trying to emulate large scale warfare like some other MMOs have tried (and in my mind failed) to do you have a world where you get the feeling of this huge conflict going on and that you are intricately tied up in it without needing those giant epic battles. Instead you get small intense skirmishes with opposing agencies over territory and technologies.

The other thing that it has to over (and from what you read its main selling point) other MMOs is it’s alliance based territorial PvP system. This is the system that drives the game, it powers a player run world where various Alliances and Agencies are fighting for control of territory, resources and technology all to aid themselves in defending against other agencies who want your resources.

Player Classes

Global Agenda offers 4 classes for your perusal: Assault, Recon, Medic and Robotics. Each class have a variety of styles and roles that they can play in a team.

Assault offers you power, ranging from a frontline tank with think armour and a kickass chain gun to a more supporting role lobbing grenades and explosives at your enemies.

Recon is your scout, he can offer styles like cloaking and melee assassination to the sniper picking off foes at long range.

Medic, guess what he can be a medic, yup your classic healer class. Problem with healer classes is that they tend to lack offensive power making them annoying to play on your own and they also tend to get abused by idiots who think having a healer in your team makes them immortal (it’s your fault when they die of course). BUT here we have an offensive healer specialising in strong poisons and wielding a Bio Rifle, should be interesting

Then we come to the Robotic class, one I can’t find too much info on but he’s your engineer building turrets to support a defensive line or combat drones to help push back the enemy.

From what I can gather you can change your loadout between missions and by the sounds of it this mean re-speccing which is always an awesome feature that allows you to change your play style as you need to and as you feel like it.

Costs

Now then, this is an MMO. Most high quality MMOs want your money and this one is no different and its pricing model stands thus:

You buy the game either through somewhere like Steam or I’m guessing in brick and mortar stores. Once you have it you can play to your heart’s content but it’s limited, Hi-Rez released a statement detailing how the pricing works and what you get for it. When you buy the game you get most of the content but to get access to things like Access to “Alliance vs. Alliance (AvA) World Domination gameplay” and “Ongoing Co-Op content at max character level”. Basically PvE you get with the game, for ongoing content and epic PvP you have to pay. Seems fair enough you pay for the game once and you then sub to get the ongoing stuff.

They have listed the game as costing US$49.99MSRP and the Sub is listed at $12.99 per month, $11.49/mo for 3 months or $9.99/mo for 6 months.

And So…

…This is looking to be quite the epic game with massive covert battles, fighting for conquest over an entire world, and as EVE Online has shown us, a well created territory system ends up with endless gameplay without the dominance of one group (not for long anyway) because when you’re the biggest, everyone is against you.

I’ll leave you with a video that shows more than I could ever explain in words.