Nanovor MMO Evolves Thanks to Unity

When Nanovor first launched, it wasn’t a very exciting game. Players had to download the nearly 500 mb client and battle using bug-like creatures in a mostly 2D arena. Worse still, the background was solid black. No color, no flavor, and certainly not much depth. Even at that time I was asking myself, “couldn’t this have been done on a browser?”

Well it looks like the answer was ‘yes!’ Smith and Tinker, the development studio behind Nanovor, has recently launched a brand new version of the game called Nanovor Evolution. The new version has replaced the old one, meaning there’s no going back. This has upset a small pocket of veterans, but it was a logical step in taking the game forward. Nanovor Evolution was designed using Unity, a powerful yet easy to use game development tool. Now, Nanovor only requires a tiny browser plugin rather than a huge client. Better still, the graphics and gameplay have been vastly improved. The character designs, background, and environments are now fully three dimensional. The game can now compete directly with other turn based MMORPGs and pet themed MMORPGs like Bakugan Dimensions.

Nanovor Evolution is only the latest in a series of free to play browser based MMOs and MMORPGs to utilize Unity. Cartoon Network’s FusionFall was perhaps the first major MMORPG to use Unity and it has better visuals and more high quality content than most client based MMORPGs! Games like Nanovor Evolutions have superior graphics than client based MMORPGs like Hero Online from Netgame and Dragon Oath / Zentia from ChangYou. There’s also Tiger Woods Online by Electronic Arts. That’s a major video game publisher throwing its weight behind Unity. The game has beautiful golf courses, and can be played in short bursts thanks to the auto-save feature which remembers player progression through a course. Silverlode Interactive, the studio behind the MMORTS Saga also has a Unity based browser game. It’s called Captains of DarkTide and is set at sea. Players can command a variety of ships, visit distant ports, and fire broadsides against one another.

Unity is not just a browser game tool, it can be used to create large single player games as well. But for a variety of reasons, I believe it will generally be put to use to create browser games that look and play as well as traditional client games. When more and more studios discover the versatility of the tool, they will flock to it. How long till social MMORPGs and facebook games use Unity? The developers of Nanovor Evolution already have several job listing on their site for Unity developers. Expect other companies to follow.