An upcoming game currently featured as part of Steam Next Fest, Fellowship, takes the endgame dungeons of MMOs like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 and turns them into a standalone game–no monthly subscription fee required.
Described as a “multiplayer online dungeon adventure” by developer Chief Rebel, Fellowship looks to more specifically capture the feeling of WoW’s Mythic+ difficulty-scaling dungeon system and turn it into a game all its own. Dungeon parties consist of four players: a tank, healer, and two damage dealers. Players can choose from several different heroes in each role, all of which embody classic fantasy archetypes like warrior, paladin, monk, mage, barbarian, and druid.
Just like in WoW’s Mythic+ system, players will have a limited amount of time to slay a dungeon’s bosses as well as clear out a certain percentage of enemies. Higher difficulty dungeons will have additional modifiers, but will reward better loot upon a successful run, thus enabling players to push even higher difficulty dungeons in the future.
Anyone who has run a WoW dungeon in the last decade will feel right at home. However, what’s impressive about Fellowship is how it’s taken WoW’s Mythic+ system but distilled it down to its core, without 20 years of outdated UI elements, need for player-made add-ons to play optimally, or lengthy grinding to level-up new characters.
Its interface is clean and customizable and enemy attacks are easy to read and react to. Many of the add-ons players need to download in WoW in order to play well, like a threat meter, a way to track party interrupts, or a detailed dungeon map so players can plan effective routes, are baked into Fellowship by default. That makes it far easier for players who may have always been interested in playing WoW’s dungeon-heavy endgame, but found the entire thing too confusing and unapproachable, to jump in and understand what’s happening at a glance.
Whether there is a huge audience for a standalone MMO endgame experience minus the whole MMO part is still an open question, but Fellowship looks like it has a lot of the essential pieces in place. Fellowship’s open Steam Next Fest playtest will run from February 24 through March 3, with six different heroes for players to choose from. It does not currently have a release date. If you’re looking for other new games to try, check out our list of the best Steam Next Fest demos.