Buffy MMO will be 2D first, 3D later

Speaking to Massively, Multiverse's Corey Bridges has shed a little extra light on the company's just-announced Buffy the Vampire Slayer MMO.

Bridges noted that the game would be released in a 2D, Flash-based version first, with a full 3D version to follow.

"What we're doing with the Buffy game then is releasing it in stages," he said. "It will start as a 2D Flash-based MMO where you can go on missions and interact with other players. This will extend once we have the 3D client working."

Bridges also confirmed that the two versions of the game would connect: "We're going to have these shared spaces where 2D and 3D people can interact," he said. But they would also diverge: "We're planning to have content that can only be done by 2D players, and content that can only be done by 3D players."

"The easy thing is to say that it will be more casual in the 2D version of the game, and more deep... in the 3D version." Multiverse is "planning for" avatars being able to switch between both versions of the game.

The 2D version will go into public beta "really soon", according to Bridges: "I'd love to get that out to players by the end of the year," he said.

Bridges also took the opportunity to apologise for the non-appearance of the company's planned Firefly MMO, although he was "contractually bound" not to say anything about it.

He said that Multiverse was already in development with Buffy, whereas it had only done pre-production work on Firefly. It was looking for another company to develop the Firefly game.

"I can say that it's not an issue of someone being at fault. Neither Multiverse or Fox, or anyone in specific made an error in this. There are just some issues that need to be worked through. Hopefully things will get back on track before too long," Bridges said.

"Believe me, nobody could beat us up [more than] we beat ourselves up about this. We're not at fault, but there are a lot of dashed hopes here."