Ashen is a single-player action-RPG masquerading as a multiplayer game, or maybe it’s the other way around? It’s blurry, like the line between players and nonplayer characters. In Ashen, the players are the NPCs. New Zealand-based developer Aurora44 wants to make multiplayer games that aren’t obtrusive. The kind of passive multiplayer thatgamecompany popularized with Journey in 2012 is a touchstone, where players can forge fleeting alliances in the gaps left by the absence of text and voice chat. It starts at a technical level. Multiplayer just happens, and players don’t need to do anything. “We don’t want the technical requirements of connecting to people and figuring that all out,” says studio director Derek Bradley. “We don’t want that to get in the way of the player experience; we want them to be get as close to the world as possible, and one of the ways we do that is by making the act of matching up with people completely seamless and consistent with the world.” Ashen is an RPG where other players wear NPC masks
Huh! It's an interesting concept. I've been looking for a new MMO. This might be one to keep an eye out for.
