The Atlas
### Steam Store Description
From the creators of ARK: Survival Evolved comes ATLAS – a massively
multiplayer first-and-third-person fantasy pirate adventure. ATLAS will host
up to 40,000 players exploring the same Globe simultaneously, with an
unprecedented scale of cooperation and conflict! Stake your claim in this
endless open world as you conquer territory, construct ships, search for
buried treasure, assemble forts, plunder settlements and hire crew to join
your powerful growing armada. Start small then expand your spheres of
influence from a small island, up to an unstoppable pirate empire that spans
across the oceans. Wage battle against enemy fleets as you singlehandedly
command large ships of war using the captaining system (or divide up to the
responsibilities among your trusted lieutenants), or take control of any
weapon directly with your own character. Dive deep into the briny water to
explore permanent sunken wrecks and recover salvage, unearth the loot from
procedurally-generated Treasure Maps and challenge zones, or complete
challenging main questlines. Team up with other aspiring adventurers and sail
into the vast ocean to discover new lands rich with region-specific elements,
tame exotic natural and mythical creatures, raid forgotten tombs, confront
powerful ancient gods and even build and administer your own colonies, cities,
and civilizations to dominate the ATLAS in this ultimate quest for fortune
and glory!
MMO On the Grandest Scale
Physically sail in real-time across the vast oceans with the proprietary
server network technology. Explorers will voyage to over 700 unique landmasses
across 45,000 square kilometers, with thousands of Discovery Zones, and ten
distinct world regions each having their own unique resources, creatures,
secrets, and environment hazards! There is a separate PvE ATLAS for players
who don’t wish to play any PVP.
Construct the Ship of Your Dreams, Plank by Plank!
Build drydocks and start with a dinghy rowboat, basic raft, tiny sloop or
nimble schooner, moving on up to your own versatile brigantine or titanic
galleon capable of transporting hundreds of crew and extensive cargo. Name
your ship in big bold letters, paint and copy your own pirate flag and custom-
place all the pieces of your ship — which sails and where, planks and
gunports, every single structure piece has a physical Weight and Material —
to function exactly how you want.
Captain your Crew!
Recruit real players and AI crew from freeports or rescue seasoned crew from
destroyed “Army of the Damned” shipwrecks to man distinct stations on your
boat! Set sail and explore the ATLAS with them to gain experience and level up
their stats or gear, as well as levelling your Ship. Your crew are versatile!
Whether on land, or ship, or even riding behind your animal companions on
emplacements, they can man weapons of all kinds– cannons, swivel guns, siege
engines, turrets, and even gigantic mortars, many with dynamically swappable
ammo types including grapeshot, chainshot, spikeshot, liquid fire, and more!
Instruct them to board enemy ships and help you conquer the seas! Keep their
stomachs full and their pockets full of gold lest you want a mutiny in your
hands! Take on the Captain’s Wheel or divide up the command responsibilities
via Lieutenant Podiums to direct the Ship’s assignable weapon systems, sails,
and stations, including standing-orders or manual grouped fire. Or, walk up to
any station and take control of it yourself!
Pirate PVP to the Limit
Everything is up for grabs including player’s ships, their crew, their pets,
their forts, their land, and their booty. If you can get your hands on it, you
can take it. A ship’s permanent logbook tells the tale of their legendary
travel, exploits and ownership.
Be the Hero or Villain you were meant to be
MMO-scale character progression systems include, at launch, over 15
Disciplines with over 300 Skills, in a vast unlockable tree. New “Feat” system
allows for active and passive bindable character abilities, while new stat-
buff system allows innumerable abstract statistics to be modified by Skills,
Items, and Armor. And now, everything has scalable stats, including
structures, and can be progressively Upgraded!
This is Who You Are
Extensive character visual customization enables an endless range of realistic
(and not-so-realistic) characters, with a vast array of sliders, morphs,
muscle tones, and tweakable values. You can even per-pixel design your own
permanent tattoos (and then draw warpaint on top of that too!). If someone
exists in the real world, they should be creatable in ATLAS! Best-in-class
dynamic hair growth and real-time aging systems allow you to get old and…
pass on your legacy? (Or find a fountain of youth!).
Endless Adventure
Full Quest and Waypoint systems, with sub-quests and rewards, for major goals
— while procedural treasure maps and challenge zones also ensure there’s
always something new to find out over the horizon.
Intense Action
Tactical melee combat systems with blocks, parries, dodges, character motion,
optional shields, stunning and strength-varying strikes, directional attacks,
and more for use in either first or third person perspectives. Fists, swords,
maces, blackjacks, daggers, and much more give you tremendous options to pick
the right weapon for the job. Meanwhile, period-appropriate-weaponry with
skill-based active reload systems include flintlock pistols, muskets,
blunderbuss, and more — just be sure to keep your powder dry!
Claim What’s Yours
Form a company, claim territory and apply taxation and behavior rules to that
which you own: be a benevolent governor, a feudal lord, or a ruthless
dictator. Territory ownership is visualized on your dynamic zoomable World
Map, with Fog of War obscuring uncharted regions and Shroud of War hiding
enemy territories out of sight range. Contest other government’s ownership of
land, structures, or ships to expand your empire! The top large-scale Spheres
of Influence on the Official ATLAS’ are visualized in real-time on the
PlayATLAS homepage. Design your own custom flag per-pixel to apply to your
claims, to be famous (or infamous)!
Creatures Great and Small
More than 50 creatures at launch varying from breedable utilitarian farm
animals & shoulder mounted parrots and monkeys that offer unique buffs, all
the way to magical mermaids and gigantic sea monsters of legend. Creatures can
be found in their logical regions, but take skill and tactics to tame using
new mechanics, while also gaining the most benefit and fertility from their
natural biomes. Ferry these temperamental creatures across the vast oceans in
a virtual Noah’s Ark to trade in exotic locales.
Freeports to Meet & Greet
Level-capped starter zones allow you to learn the ropes and meet new players
in a safe space before you venture out into the great unknown. Where the wind
and destiny takes you beyond that, is up to the gods!
Build Your Empire
Overhauled building systems include automatic foundational elevation
adjustment, dynamic tile type swapping, improved snap detection & previewing,
integrated plumbing systems, per-pixel-paintable everything, beast-of-burden
harness attachments for field-gun and carriages, and much more! Survival
systems newly include, among other aspects, Vitamins benefits and
deficiencies, with recipe & cooking skills and varying ingredient qualities.
Powerful Mod and Server Functionalities
Want to build a World War II Spitfire? Or a Flying Fortress bomber with fully
walkable interior and gun stations, carrying troops loaded with machine guns
and rocket launchers? How about a Tank? An Aircraft Carrier to play out the
Battle of Midway on an expansive scale? How about an Arcadian Steampunk
Airship floating through a cloud-world? These examples and much more are
provided with the ATLAS Dev Kit, where you can make effectively create
whatever large-scale MMO action game you want to see happen, all supported by
the database-driven network technology that powers ATLAS. Unofficial ATLAS’
can be of any size and configuration, while a visual map tool lets server
hosts layout their own complete custom world of islands, continents, terrain
features, spawns, resources, hazards, underwater zones, dynamic weather, biome
configurations, ecology, and an infinite number of other configurable features
— all dynamically streamed to the client during gameplay. The possibilities
are endless!
Far, Far More
Stay tuned for more details on the extensive features and content of ATLAS.
This brief sampling is just the tip of the iceberg (though be sure to watch
out for those in the polar regions, as they’re extremely dangerous to ship
hulls!!).
A Brief History of ATLAS
Long-ago, far above the watery world of ATLAS there once existed a magic-
powered “Golden Age”– where great Empires of the Sky lived at peace
alongside magical creatures, flourishing upon floating continents above the
clouds, all powered by a magical source of energy known as the Heart of the
Goddess, granted by the powerful beings who dwell in the stars beyond.
However, a powerful warlord known as Xevos sought to unite the human
civilizations over the magickind, and launched a war that broke the Heart into
pieces, unleashing a wave of destruction that shattered the floating
landmasses and plunged them into the waters below.
Many generations later, as living memory of the “Sundering” has faded into
legend and the once-plentiful magical energy has long since dissipated,
descendants of the protectors of the Heart of the Goddess — known as
“Pathfinders” — emerge from their provincial oceanic lives to explore the
new continents and islands, and seek out the power they may yet contain.
Across the vast new world they’ll encounter hostile creatures, technological
remnants of the Golden Age past, and ultimately the undying spirit of Xevos
himself and his soulless “Army of the Damned”, still intent on recovering the
pieces of the Heart of the Goddess to raise the continents once again under
his vision.
If the latest generation of Pathfinders can outwit and outgun Xevos and his
legions, and recover the Heart pieces for themselves, they will be faced with
the very same choice: whether to attempt to restore the old world, or build a
new better one…
The Atlas