The Wheel of Time
Published By: GT Interactive

7/30/99

Article Discussion Forum

The Wheel of Time is an action/strategy game based on Robert Jordan's best-selling series of fantasy novels. Created with an enhanced version of the stunning Unreal engine, The Wheel of Time mixes first person 3D action with strategy (and even a bit of role playing). The single player and multiplayer experience is seemlessly woven together to yield two drastically different types of gameplay.

The World Where WoT takes place:

The world in which The Wheel of Time takes place is lifted directly out of Jordan's pages; it's huge and consists of many different environments. How you navigate the world will depend largely on which game - single player or multipayer - you're playing. The single player experience, with a few exceptions, will see Elayna traversing the world mainly by foot (with a couple notable exceptions). In the multiplayer experience, your character will have more access to travel via Ter'angreal, Portal Stones, and the Ways. However you move around, though, you'll quickly discover that means of locomotion can easily become the least of the your worries...

During your travels, you quickly discover that four locations are crucial to your success in the game. Not surprisingly, these locations are the homes of The Wheel of Time's main characters. Some of these places are ripped directly from the pages of Jordan's books, made flesh with Legend's unparalleled pixel-pushing ways. Other places are specific to the game, conceived and executed with the intent of expanding this game world even further.

Story

In a nutshell, here's the story behind the game: Long ago, in the Age of Legends, mankind unwittingly released the Dark One into the World. Powerful magic managed to seal him away again, but the "seals" to his prison were lost in the chaos that followed. Thousands of years later, four opposing forces have uncovered these seals, each with their own agendas.

How you deal with the Dark One's looming threat is largely dependent on which game you play. If you take up the quest in the single player experience, then you'll be cast as Elayna, the Amyrlin Seat, as she scrambles through a story of intrigue and deception in a last ditch attempt to retrieve one of the seals stolen from her by opposing forces. On the other hand, you COULD choose to jump into Wheel of Time's multiplayer scenario and take up the mantle of one of four characters (Elayna, The Leader of the Children of Light, the Hound, or The Forsaken) as they battle for the ultimate power. Each of these characters has his or her own motive for wanting the remaining seals, and not all of them are good. It's up to you to choose the light or the dark path and achieve your goal - no matter the cost!

The Designer

The Wheel of Time is being designed by Glen Dahlgren, the author of the award-winning adventure game Death Gate, another translation of a complex fantasy world to the PC. His design credits also include Frederik Pohl's Gateway and Gateway II: Homeworld. That said, he's a 3D shooter fan from way back, starting with Wolf 3D up to Duke and Quake. The Unreal engine finally gives him the opportunity to realize his vision: a beautiful world that feels like stepping into a piece of fantasy fine-art and a game that combines the clean immersive experience of Quake with real depth and a detailed storyline.

The Engine

The Wheel of Time uses a highly enhanced version of the cutting-edge Unreal engine to bring Robert Jordan's world to life. In addition to the Unreal engine's core capabilities like 24-bit color (with MMX), multiple dynamic (and colored) light sources, complex geometry, smooth character animation, real moving/rotating brushes, seamless level transition, and a powerful scripting language, Legend Entertainment has endowed the engine with a host of WoT-specific effects. The particle system and weather effects they created for WoT provides the world with rain, snow and wind, and makes for some cool explosions and smoke effects. WoT is going to benefit from all of the multiplayer improvements to the Unreal engine being created in Unreal Tournament as well.

The Music

Legend is taking the soundtrack to The Wheel of Time very seriously. This game's fantasy world and real-time action demand an unprecedented hybrid soundtrack of Celtic-rock music: a mixture of traditional Celtic/medieval acoustic melody with contemporary progressive rock. To this end, Legends has approached two artists who represent mastery of each genre: Robert Berry and Lief Sorbye.

Here are some in-game screenshots:
(Click on the pictures for a larger shot)

Here are some screenshots of the female character in the game:
(Click on the pictures for a larger shot)