Do You Want a Second Life in Identity, the Upcoming MMO Which Painstakingly Recreates Modern American Life?

Identity is, as that non-descript yet ontological AF title suggests, an upcoming MMO set in a modern American region based on real landscapes and city scenes, encouraging players to roleplay as business people, crime figures, cops, or just whoever, and good god is it ambitious:

From small business ownership to corporations and a living market, everything is possible for the business person in Identity! The vast majority of items you'll find in shops are created by players either in their home workshops or in large factories. Everything from furniture to weapons and vehicles are crafted by other players. Crafted items also allow for a huge variety in customizations so that few pieces will look the same and they can be branded with your mark or the mark of your company who owns the recipe. Many shops and businesses can be owned and controlled by players, while you're also able to create your own corporations which can own some assets and employees.

No mention of a cash-out function like Second Life, Sinespace, etc., but if you follow Identity's official Twitter, you'll see all kinds of impressive player-made content already being uploaded to the game world's store. The revenue model is interesting too: You can purchase early access at a number of price points -- $15 gets you a "Passport" access to the world, while $100 gets you in at the Biker level (Includes: Passport, Founder Hat, Beta Access, $1,000 Game Cash, Studio Apartment, One Car Garage, Used Motorcycle), and so on. According to the site, nearly 20,000 people have already paid for access, raising over $800,000 in funding. (It was put into production after a successful Kickstarter.)

Identity sounds so ambitious it seems to fall square into the "too ambitious for its own good" category, but there's reason they developers can pull it off:

For one thing, Asylum Entertainment, the small Canadian studio building Identity, already created a kind of successful test run for it, in the form of extremely popular mod of Arma 3 called Altis Life (some player video above). For another, it's being built on SpatialOS, the well-funded backbone for truly massive MMOs: 

"We're very excited about this collaboration," said John VanderZwet, Asylum Entertainment's CEO. "With SpatialOS behind the scenes, Identity will not only have a more interactive and immersive environment, but we now have the power to host thousands of players in a single world instance should we choose to do so. Our artificial intelligence will also have more processing power for more in-depth hunting and tracking of animals."

Identity is a crowd-funded massively-multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) focused on freedom of actions in a modern American environment. In a world with hundreds of players living together, it's those players who fill each role of society including police, business, drug production, weapon trafficking and much more. As one of the only games of its kind to focus on content over linear progression, it is completely free of leveling and is redefining what it means to be an MMORPG.

While crime and punishment is at the forefront in Identity, civilian life is also in-depth. A cinema plays real movies around the clock, players can own fully customizable and functional real-estate, design and create their own items such as clothing, play competitive paintball, sing karaoke and more. In a game full of action and drama, Identity also immerses its players in a believable and interactive world.

From what the official website suggests, it should be launching its first module any week now, and we'll soon know more how much Identity lives up to its name.

Hat tip: Nerd Much.

Comments

[Dusky]

Meh. First release is next March. The alpha-invite packages are not worth looking at for less than $150 USD. No sex. No cash-out economy. No actual content creation, simplistic customizing of game assets (pre-loaded textures or paint colors).

This is a cops and robbers game, inspired by GTA. Your character can be killed, with your inventory dropping to the ground to be collected by your killer. Murders will be common to give the player class of EMTs something to do.

They will allow players to work as government employees and/or political leaders. There will be a player controlled government that can set taxes to be paid by the community, and set the laws to be enforced by the police players (LOL!).

There will be no subscription fee, but there will be plenty of in-game purchases, and casinos that are not player-owned. Maybe a dopamine addiction lockbox or gacha system will be thrown in too, why not? Everyone else is doing it.

Not interested.

[sirhc deSantis]

A Hello Kitty shirt? Well, thats me sold.

[NorthernKiara]

I don't understand why people are interested in creating "the real world" in virtual worlds. Fantasy, imagination, originality, and creativity are what attracts me to a virtual space.

[Eve Preiss]

This is what Sansar should have been.

[Estelle Pienaar]

Sounds like Second Life minus fantasy and creativity....

[Clara Seller]

I made it through about 4 minutes of the above YouTube vid. Seriously, ewww.

The website promo was more impressive. It's seems like so much wasted talent and potential to shoot for such a low and creepy social bar. Seriously, ewwww.

[sirhc deSantis]

Well NorthernKiara, Estelle Pienaar And Clara Seller put it better than I did. Why when we have unlimited space for making ideas would we want to limit it to basically cops and (initial rude term deleted) scum. Or vice versa. GTA crowd and waste of potential. Second point being Silicon Bro (even if Canuck so go Habs go) echo shouting box. Merry Christmas also.

[Carlos Loff]

Nahhhhh, dont thonk sooo, nahhh

[bobby]

Hey there,
Here's the updated link: https://www.nerdmuch.com/games/5184/new-upcoming-mmos-2018-mmorpgs/

Thanks again!

[Hamlet Au]

Done!