Earthrise is a science fiction MMORPG set in a distant, post-apocalyptic future. Mankind has managed to survive a Third World War, even though most of the planet is now uninhabitable. A new society in which cloning, nanotechnology and quantum engineering have made immortality a fact arises on the island of Enterra. A data vault named the Librarium contains every person’s consciousness, and if someone dies, their consciousness can be uploaded into a new, cloned body.
A unified government with strict laws rules over the citizens from the capital, Continoma. The government also has full control over the cloning process and influences the decisions about who can continue to live and who is terminated. This is considered a crime against humanity by some, and armed factions (the so called rebels of Noir who have settled in -and under- the easternmost regions of Enterra) fight for resources and power. While both these factions are busy fighting each other, a neutral third party, consisting mostly of criminals and opportunists, benefits from the lack of control by seizing power and claiming bits of land for themselves.
Earthrise has a flexible skill system with over 100 skills, abilities and tactics, and no class restrictions. Equipping weapons and ‘devices’ unlocks new skills. The quest system is designed as a mission system, most of the quests can be repeated every day, but campaign quests are tied to organizations or factions and can’t be repeated.
It is mainly a PvP (Player versus Player) game but crafting and trading are important too. Players need to find resource sites and defend them from other interested parties in order to gather the materials, process them and then create useful items that can be sold from them. The quality of the end product depends on the quality of the resources and ingredients, as well as the factory they were processed in. The best factories are also the most popular and will therefore be guarded by other players or bandits. Thus, gathering resources has an impact on both the combat system and the in-game economy.
The immortality in Earthrise comes at a price. The player has to ‘insure’ him or herself to hold on to their belongings if they need to move to a new body after death. The combat involves fast action and dynamic targetting. There are hundreds of different weapons and customizable armour pieces to choose from.