A Ghost No More

 Fantastic Pixel Castle (that's the developer) has shared some early prototyping for their future MMORPG under the project name "Ghost".  Ghost for Ghostcrawler who recently left the Riot MMO project to start this new adventure.

 Ghost is also a ghost no more as we actually get to see some early glimpses on what they are working on.  For anyone keeping track, yes that is more information in a few months time than we've gotten in the years of Ghostcrawler when he worked on the Riot MMO.  The Riot MMO is still a thing though apparently.

 What I liked about this Milestone 1 update was that it talked about wanting players as part of the process while admitting the natural problems that arise from that such as "this game looks like garbage" when showing off early prototype content.  It was reassuring to hear a developer talk through the reality of letting the players ride along with development.  There is a good head on their shoulders here.

 I also like that they went with UE5, a known game engine, instead of what every other "I quit my company and started my own MMO" project seems to do thinking they can build their own engine.  UE5 is powering so many games so good to see another one on the list.  It should help the team move along faster than some others in the past few years working on their own engines.

 And proving it is helping the team along the post highlights some screenshots and feedback from early prototyping (note: this was using premade assets in the UE store so is not representative of the game).  They want to focus on combat and their concept of red/blue zones (static vs procedural) and had both up and going in the prototype.  It is refreshing to see a team that appears focused on a core idea and are "failing fast" through it.

Prototype gameplay with UE assets

 This was a cool step of a game's life that we don't get to see all that often.  This update was a fun read and I am looking forward to more.  This game is years away but its looking to be an enjoyable ride to take along with the team.  They also have a podcast, Word on the Street, that I' m going to check out.