There are relatively few role-playing games that take place in futuristic settings, and even fewer played from a close-in third-person perspective, so Black9 may seem like a typical sci-fi action game at first glance. But while you can expect to engage in plenty of hacking, slashing, and shooting in the game, Black9 is fundamentally an action RPG backed up by a flexible skill-based system for developing your high-tech mercenary character. And not only will Black9 have a complex, conspiracy-laden story for the single-player campaign, but Taldren's multiplayer plans for all three platforms--PC, Xbox, and PlayStation 2--will also include full cooperative play through the campaign and competitive modes that will let players develop persistent characters.

We recently had a chance to visit Taldren's studio in Costa Mesa, California, and meet with the designers, who cut their teeth creating the Star Trek-themed Starfleet Command series. Although the Starfleet Command titles are considered by most fans to be some of the best Star Trek-licensed games around, it's obvious that the Taldren team is happy to be working on its first completely original game. The concept for Black9 has been on the table since late 2000, but it wasn't until last summer that work stepped up on the project. Since it's a cross-platform title that's very different from its previous work, Taldren has had to quickly double the size of its staff.

One result of this long preproduction phase is that Erik Bethke, Taldren's CEO, had plenty of time to develop his ideas for Black9's story and setting. The year is 2080. The world's nations as we know them have collapsed, and the secret society known as the Illuminati is the major force behind a new era of prosperity, technological growth, and space exploration. Just to make things interesting, it turns out the there are nine different Illuminati groups (hence the game's title), and they have all acted in secret for hundreds of years but now have a much larger role to play. And most importantly for you, a highly skilled mercenary, the different Illuminati groups all have their own plans, and these potential employers can be played against each other for a profit.

Starting off in Black9, you'll make some basic choices to customize your mercenary. There are four body types to choose from: a standard human male Taldren calls Jake, a human female called Sahara, a male juggernaut called Groober, and an elfin girl complete with a tail called Alyssa (though you can rename the characters whatever you wish). Besides determining what your character looks like, these four body types can also affect your starting attributes. It works pretty much as you'd expect--the two standard human characters are equals and pretty average in terms of attributes, while the juggernaut is stronger than he is agile, and the catlike female gets a boost in nimbleness to offset her lack of raw power. Right from the start, you'll have some attribute and skill points to assign. Essentially, the four attributes (strength, agility, dexterity, and constitution) will have an overall impact on how effective your actions are, and the skill points deal with specifics. For example, a very strong character may be able to bash doors down, an agile character can jump higher and move faster, someone with high dexterity is good with his or her hands and can better use the game's futuristic nanotech magic, and a high constitution means more health.

Illuminati Hit Man

There will be different ways to develop a character in Black9, and Bethke expects them to provide players with at least a few ways to make it through a given situation in the game, although the multiple-path design admittedly won't go as far as the design featured in the futuristic role-playing game Deus Ex. You'll essentially be able to specialize in one of three disciplines: fighting, stealth and hacking, and nanotech magic. But you'll be able to use the game's skill system to create hybrid characters like a fighter-mage, a hacker-mage, or a fighter-hacker. Every character should have at least a basic grasp of general group of skills, but being an amateur hacker might not cut it in high-pressure situations--for instance, if you take too long to open a guarded door, you may be detected and captured. Nanotech spells are also a part of the skill system, but even some ordinary skills are justified in some way or another by the nanotechnology available in 2080--for instance, you can use nanotechnology to track an enemy's footprints on hard surfaces--and a few of these abilities simply heal injuries or replenish chi, your character's reserve of nanotech spell power.

Every character will have some good options for melee and ranged attacks. Futuristic fighters will inevitably rely on firearms of various types, but there will be potent swords as well. Since your character will have three weapon slots, you'll be able to carry different weapons for different situations, or pool all your resources into getting one really powerful gun. The game's 16 spells include melee, ranged, and area-of-effect attacks in four distinct schools. However, if you wish to advance far enough in a specific school of nanotech magic to access the powerful tsunami and earthquake spells, you may be faced with some difficult decisions in developing your character, as you probably won't be able to learn every single spell.

When it comes down to it, the point of all these abilities is allow you to stand up to everything the Illuminati can throw at you. At first, these groups may just appear to be a good source of cash and experience, but the missions will quickly take a darker turn. There are three main Illuminati groups that will serve as your employers. Genesis is a group that has focused much of its efforts over the last few centuries into producing artificial intelligence. As these efforts have been largely successful, you'll spend a good part of the early game fighting the AI--specifically, mechanical troops in Genesis' moon base. Later, you'll end up in the care of the Shanghai-based Tea-Drinking Society, the oldest of the Illuminati groups and one that dedicates itself to longevity research. Finally, you'll find yourself fighting the Zubrin forces on Mars, where the Zubrin corporation has established a base dedicated to launching the first ships designed to carry human colonists to distant stars.

In the mercenary world of Black9, no allegiances will last for long. But depending on your choices and how successful you are in the missions, you may gain the trust of an Illuminati group long enough for it to sell you low-level versions of its best spells and hardware. For example, the Tea-Drinking Society's warrior monks have fire and ice spells that any nano mage character would envy, but wouldn't be available on the open market. While there will be rewards for dispatching enemies you encounter, Taldren is putting the biggest reward at the end of the missions. Between missions, you'll rest and stock up on items at your headquarters, a large station in which you may find hidden items like extra ammo, credit sticks, or skill bonuses. You'll also be able to browse shops to buy equipment, and later on your headquarters will even have a black market area with much more interesting items for sale.

From Macau to Mars

The game's 15 missions will take place in a mix of terrestrial and off-world locations. We got a good look at parts of the Genesis moon base. Though you might expect a moon base to consist of nothing but tight corridors and square arenas, we were able to visit an outdoor area--a green, hilly park that looked like it could have been found on Earth. Closer inspection, however, revealed that the park was covered by a ceiling that had a colorful sky projected onto it. You'll also visit an industrial complex in Seoul, the streets of Macao, the rooftop castles of Shanghai, a Mars starship base, and a secret asteroid location. Each mission will have several in-engine movies to advance the story, and you can expect missions to jump between locations as the Illuminati's hidden agendas pull you to and fro. There are even other mercenary agents you'll meet as allies in some missions and opponents in others.

We were able to spend only a short time with the Xbox version of the game, but it's clear that the controls resemble the kind you may have seen in other third-person console games. The Xbox controller's analog sticks are used to control your character's movement and the game's camera. The game is always played from a third-person perspective, except when the sniper rifle's scope is used. You have free control of the aiming reticle, and you can lock on to your enemies with a press of a button. But locking on isn't enough to hit a smart opponent hiding behind cover, and you can shift your aim slightly while locked on to make things more precise and get at exposed limbs. The PC controls will have a similar lock-on system, but will be directly transposed to the W, A, S, and D keys and the mouse.

Black9's graphics are based on the latest Unreal engine, and apart from varying levels of detail, all three versions should be quite similar. Taldren emphasized how modular certain highly detailed elements of the levels are, which allows it to quickly and easily create a lot of good-looking scenery, but we noticed that one result of this setup seemed to be a rigid tile system for indoor environments. The content for all three platforms is being developed simultaneously, and the programmers noted that there are few important technical restraints with the PlayStation 2 hardware that they've had to keep in mind while developing the game, particularly with the animation system. The game takes advantage of the Karma physics system available for the Unreal engine, and there are a few drivable vehicles in the works. There's even a planned street battle that will have cars driving around a few city blocks modeled in the Seoul level.

The action-RPG focus makes Black9 the perfect candidate for good multiplayer, and Taldren has some ambitious plans in this area. The game will feature full split-screen and online cooperative play for the campaign for all platforms, and the developer plans to add a number of more action-oriented competitive modes and even release the modified Unreal editor with the PC version. Xbox Live support is on the table, including the possibility of downloadable content. To ensure that even new players can jump into the competitive modes and take down the high-level guy rampaging with the flamethrower, the character progression will be quicker and somewhat less dramatic than in the main game. But the multiplayer seems to still be in planning stages, so we'll have to wait a few more months for firmer details.

Taldren has a promising concept in Black9. The game is about 40 percent complete, but we're interested to see how well its interesting concept will translate into gameplay. Black9 is scheduled for release this fall.