GunZ: The Duel | |
---|---|
Developer(s) | MAIET Entertainment |
Publisher(s) |
MAIET Entertainment |
Engine | Realspace v2.0 |
Platform(s) | Microsoft Windows |
Release | June 2005 (Beta Edition) |
Genre(s) | Third-person shooter |
Mode(s) | Online multiplayer, online campaign |
GunZ: The Duel (Korean: 건즈 온라인), or simply GunZ, was an online third-person shooting game, created by South Korean-based MAIET Entertainment.
It was free-to-play, with a microtransaction business model for purchasing premium in-game items. The game allowed players to perform exaggerated, gravity-defying action moves, including wall running, stunning, tumbling, and blocking bullets with swords, in the style of action films and anime.
In Quest mode, players, in a group of up to 4 members, went through parts of a map for a certain number of stages, which were determined by the quest level. In each stage, players were required to kill 18 to 44 creatures, and the game ended when every member of the player team died or completed all of the stages. Quests could take place in the Prison, Mansion, or Dungeon map.
Players could make the quests tougher and more profitable by using special quest items to increase the quest level that could be bought from the in-game store or obtained during a quest. Quest items in-game were stored in glowing chests that spawned where the monster that it came from died; certain items could have been dropped depending on the monster killed. Players ran through these to obtain an item randomly selected from the possibilities of that monster. The items obtained depended on the monster that the chest came from. By sacrificing certain items in combination, players could enter a boss quest. Boss items were obtained through pages and other boss quests, and pages were obtained through the in-game shop. The quest system was designed to reduce the amount of time needed to prepare for boss raids that are typical in many other online games.
A significant and unique part of the gameplay was the movement system. Players could run on walls, perform flips off of them, and do quick mid-air dodges in any horizontal direction. Advanced movement and combat techniques were commonly referred to as "K-Style" or Korean style; a variety of techniques fell under this category. These usually exploited the game's animation and weapon switch systems through a series of animation cancellations to allow the player to perform another action rapidly after the first. One example was the wall cancel; unlike the normal limited method of running on walls intended by the developers, the player can simply jump, dash while mid-air in the direction of the wall, and when close enough to the wall, slash or stab it depending on if the player was using a dagger or a sword. This would cause the player to gain height and momentum by back flipping upwards off of the wall once. With each successive timed wall cancel, it is possible to stay in the air near walls and travel along them indefinitely using this method. This, in addition to the fact that these techniques were possible as a result of exploiting flaws in the animation system, has resulted in them being controversial but they became largely accepted as part of the game.