Ex-Blizzard employees working on competitive online survival game Rend

Rend is an upcoming competitive online survival game in developement by a studio made up of ex-Blizzard workers. In it, three factions of players will compete with one another for lost souls, often leading to full-blown battles.

A group of ex-Blizzard employees formed a new development team, Frostkeep Studios, and have already announced their debut project. It’s called Rend and it’s a competitive online survival game designed for PC. In Rend, the players will join one of three factions: the sly and cunning Conclave, the proud and brutal Order, or the mystical and intelligent Revenant, competing for lost souls. Members of all three will start up with little more than their own hands as weapons, but in time they will develop in strength and power. Depending on their preferred playstyle, the players will be able to serve different roles in their team. Here is an excerpt from the official description that explains the basic rules of Rend:

Each faction’s progress is marked by the World Tree, tracking lost spirits collected and stored within each Divinity Stone. Located within the roots of the World Tree, this giant crystal stores the lost souls gathered by players. Once enough souls have transferred to a faction’s Divinity Stone, that faction ascends and is officially declared the winner. If a faction’s Divinity Stone is destroyed, that faction is wiped off the server until another faction achieves victory or all are destroyed.

As for the latter, destroying an enemy Divinity Stone will be possible during a weekly event, during which each faction’s base will become susceptible to enemy attacks. Winning a game will be rewarded with meta-progression points. Rend is due out early 2017. Find out more about the game or signd up for pre-alpha by visiting its official website.