Editor-in-Chief Darryl Gangloff watched a live Secret World demo at the Game Developers Conference. Here's what he found out about this upcoming modern day horror MMO.

The San Francisco Children's Museum may seem like an innocent location, but dark forces were at work behind its walls during the Game Developers Conference. It was at this venue that I had the opportunity to watch a live demo of The Secret World, Funcom's highly anticipated modern day horror MMO.

“Today we're going to showcase The Secret World,” said Ragnar Tornquist, senior producer and game director, as the lights dimmed. “It's currently in alpha, which means it's running on live servers in Europe. We're going into closed beta in two months. We're entering the final phase of development.”

And with that comment, a video began playing on the screen that set the stage for this world full of secret societies, urban legends and unspeakable evil.

An introduction to The Secret World

During the short introductory trailer, dozens of sentences flashed on the screen that gave members of the press a taste of the game's setting. Here are the ones I was able to frantically type before they disappeared:

• Some secrets should remain forever buried.
• This is how our end begins.
• Dark conspiracies converge.
• As a hidden world is finally revealed.
• We are in the fourth age. Powerful cabals rule the world.
• The hosts were here before us.
• Eleven days are missing.
• The Earth is hollow.
• There are portals in time and space.
• The bees are returning.
• The old gods are awakening.
• The Ark of the Covenant is an engine.
• The end of days are here. Everyone must choose a side.
• There is a secret world.
• Everything is true.

“In The Secret World, everything is true. Every urban legend,” Tornquist said at the end of the video. He explained that players will be able to join one of three secret societies: the Illuminati, the Templars and the Dragon. These groups fight united against the darkness while they compete for ancient resources.

“It's a game without levels and classes. It's completely skill-based,” he said. “It's not a single-player game. It's an MMO through and through in every sense of the word.”

We'll get to how players progress without levels in the overview of the live demo. First, Tornquist outlined the four key tenets behind The Secret World throughout its four years of production:

1. The game's present day modern setting infuses everything. “It's a world where all these myths and legends are brought into our present day,” he said.
2. Players can build their own characters through freeform progression without levels or classes.
3. The secret war and backroom dealings between the secret societies are a major factor in the game, including PvP. “The knives are drawn under the table with smiles above the table,” he said.
4. The story is “embedded in everything in this game.” It's told not only through the cinematics and dialogue, but the missions as well.

"This is an MMO. It's a game about a living, vibrant world,” Tornquist said. “It's solo-friendly, but you'll always be with other players. You'll never be alone. It's open and chaotic.”

Starting the live demo

To showcase that open and chaotic world, Lead Content Designer Joel Bylos took us on a tour of the game that started off with a zombie attack in the town of Kingsmouth. A cutscene begins with our character, a blonde woman holding two pistols, talking to a man in a cowboy hat as he picks off zombies with a rifle.

"This forest crawls. Gets my fingers itching for two matters. One,” the man says as he shoots a zombie in the head. “The other, to figure out a way to keep 'em down. It ain't right the way the dead walk the Earth. They deserve their six feet, the same as everyone else. Now I'm sworn to keeping guard here, and you've got places to be. Nothing's stopping you from culling the herd as you go. Hell, figure out what makes them tick and how to make that ticking stop and I'll buy you a beer at the Apocalypse. So go on, kid, saddle up! The end of the world waits for no man.”

The cutscene ends and is followed by Bylos giving us some details on the game's mission mechanic. “What are missions for? They're for guiding players to content and teaching players mechanics,” he said. The team wanted missions to have a dynamic feel to them, so they're comprised of tiers. If you complete a tier and abandon the mission, you can always come back and pick it up at the same tier. You won't need to replay content.

As our group runs down a two-lane road while battling random zombies, Bylos shows off some environmental mechanics by jumping on an abandoned car to set off the alarm. Drawn by the noise, zombies run out of the woods. Our character then shoots a gas can to set the enemies on fire. The beginning missions teach players about these mechanics, which are used throughout the game.

The group then takes on an early boss, which happens to be a huge, mutated zombie called Corpsegorger. Further missions will explain his origins, which demonstrates that storylines are an integral part of The Secret World.

A waypoint then pops up on the screen to point us toward our next destination. Bylos explains that some missions have waypoints, while others don't. Many missions will require thinking and deduction, which means players will need to do a bit more work than simply running toward a marker on a map.

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