First Look: The Secret World: Character Creation & Societies

Do you question the status quo? See patterns where no one else does? Do things that go bump in the night excite you? If you answered yes, The Secret World might be the game for you.

It’s unlike any other MMORPG on the market, imagine a world where “everything is true.” Magic, myths, conspiracies and dark horrors all exist (UFOs and sci-fi apparently excepted). It’s a world where the work of Stephen King and H.P. Lovecraft is real and the events of Fringe or The X-Files have become reality, a place where secret societies of supernatural heroes and corporate organisations fight a hidden war against the dark, and each other, that’s quickly merging with the ordinary world.

In The Secret World it’s all about your society and the bigger picture; you’re not the lone hero, you’re part of an order fighting for the future of mankind. There are three, the Illuminati, the Templars and the Dragons. The beta limits you to the Templars, so that’s what I played. These aren’t the Knights Templar of the history books; they’re an older society with roots in ancient Babylon, righteous, traditional, honour-bound, and unaffiliated with any religion. They don’t merely participate in the war against evil; they are the war against evil, and they’re the least secretive of the three. Their leaders joke you can find them in the yellow pages under “Crusaders.”

Then comes character creation, usually the first hands-on moment of any MMO, where you build the hero or scoundrel you’ve always imagined. Not here. With only a few mundane choices, creation is very quick but very unfulfilling; I felt like I was hunting for the least-ugly combination, and my character ended up looking like a confused, bewildered ship captain rather than anyone I’d pictured. Worse, out in the world I kept running into other players who looked exactly like me, right down to the clothes. The good news: I’m told the release build should add more options to make characters more distinguishable. I hope so, the world is fascinating enough that the avatars deserve to keep up.