14 DAY TRIAL // Massive Action Game has been announced at E3 by Sony as being the biggest ever multiplayer experience, exclusive to the PlayStation 3. The developers will be the people behind SOCOM, Zipper Entertainment and the game will most likely be marketed as a modern world military simulator.
The big selling point for Massive Action Game is that 256 players will be able to play it at the same time over the proprietary servers that Sony will set up. The game is completely scalable and can support any number of players between 4 and 256, mainly because the development team believes that the main draw of a multiplayer shooter should be to offer an experience where it is easy to get into and play. For MAG the idea is that any gamer will be bundled with another 7 players into a squad, which will have a leader that has access to the command structure of his side. The two sides in the game will be equally matched in terms of squads and an overall commander will coordinate moves for each of the armies.
As soon as the game was unveiled, some commentators began to wonder if compromises in the graphical department were needed in order to make it possible for 256 gamers to shoot at each other at the same time on maps that are bigger than any seen before in a multiplayer game.
The PlayStation blog sought to dispel any fears by saying that "it may be massive but it is an action shooter at its core. You can run around and shoot enemies, throw grenades, and drive vehicles just like any other shooter except with MAG you'll do it with up to 256 players." The server architecture and the game structure will be streamlined to make sure that the experience is in no way affected by the big scope of the game.