14 DAY TRIAL // Developer S2 Games is currently attempting to offer a fresh multiplayer online battle arena experience with Strife, its brand new (and currently in open beta) offering.
The developer is banking on its over four years of development experience acquired while running Heroes of Newerth, one of the Dota spin-offs, alongside Riot Games' League of Legends and Valve's Dota 2.
The game has cartoonish and lively visuals, a lot of humor, pets, customizable items and a lot of dedication behind it, and you can check out our Strife preview for a more detailed look at what it has to offer.
One of the other strong points of Strife will be a single-player campaign, which the developers are testing the waters with.
Prophecy of Darkstone: Child of the Dawn is the first in a series of single-player episodes that will follow the backstory of each of the heroes from Strife's extensive roster.
"This single player campaign is something people have been waiting for. Bringing the lore and the story of the heroes from Strife to life through mini adventure gameplay is treading new water. We're going to gauge community reaction from the open beta as we move forward with future games," said S2's Special Projects Director Brad Bower.
The developer says that the campaign was inspired by fan emails during the game's closed beta, demanding for an opportunity to explore some of Strife's rich backstory. The entire concept of duking it out in an arena setting in Strife revolves around the notion of the heroes getting ready for an imminent invasion, so many of its players wanted to know a little more about that.
"There are a lot of complex politics and relationships that exist between these heroes. Right now only the S2 team knows this internally. A lot of the interesting aspects of storylines are lost by simply reading lore," Bower told Shacknews.
"We want people to fully experience it through the eyes of the characters. We believe the best way to tell a story is to let them play it, rather than have a comic book or a story on a website," he concluded.
The first installment in the episodic series of mini-adventures, Child of the Dawn, presents the story of Bastion, a child who begins life as a servant in a king's castle, and who eventually makes the world of Strife aware of the impending threat.
The developer plans to release a new episode every couple of months, following a different hero and gradually unveiling the story behind the MOBA video game.
You can sign up for an account and play the game for free on the Strife website.
