Huxley returns from the abyss with video

by Justin McElroy { Dec 17th 2007 at 3:40PM }

We hope this doesn't make us negative people, but we had basically written MMOFPS Huxley off after not hearing much about it for more than a year. Now though, it's made its (semi) triumphant return from the grave with a new video captured in the Korean-developed game's closed beta accompanied by a truly, almost epically excruciating techno soundtrack.

What we see so far is a pretty, frenetic shooter in the vein of a Painkiller or Unreal, that seems just a tad bit uninspired. That said, we don't know how the MMO elements are playing into it, as what we have here is straight-up action. What say you? Has your interest been piqued? Or have the last, dying embers of your desire for Huxley been fully doused?

Tags: huxley, korea, webzen

Reader Comments (Page 1 of 2)

GoldenS1104 @ Dec 17th 2007 3:44PM

It's an interesting concept but the FPS part of it looks pretty sub-par.

Ocho @ Dec 17th 2007 4:39PM

The FPS part does look a little weak, but it's still looks a lot more interesting than combat in all other MMOs I've seen.

Of course, some people enjoy just pressing 2. Then 3. Then 2.

Chris @ Dec 17th 2007 4:48PM

Ocho ever played planetside ? best MMOFPS and after watching this still holds the title.

Anticrawl @ Dec 17th 2007 4:51PM

I do belive this is just the PvP aspect of the game. I'm pretty sure everyone figured the PvP system would just be Unreal 2004 with a few more people.

I wanna know how the game is gonna be like in the story, taking a group of friends with you from a nearby town and plundering the worlds and whatnot.

MasterInsan0 @ Dec 17th 2007 3:46PM

I wanna know how they plan on keeping the people that have no life from completely dominating the game.

kinshadow @ Dec 17th 2007 6:14PM

Every other MMO in existance says 'Hi'

Intentless @ Dec 17th 2007 3:49PM

Well there went my dreams of what this could have been...

Fanboy @ Dec 18th 2007 9:26AM

totally agree, looks like UT3 crap...

lothar @ Dec 17th 2007 3:50PM

I was wondering what ever happened to this title, after seeing that clip I really have no desire to play this one. Any FPS coming out post Halo3 and COD4 really has a lot of work cut out for themselves. I dont see anything in this thats drawing me in.

xFenixKnightx @ Dec 17th 2007 3:51PM

Joystiq did you see my Huxley search and then post this? lol! No, but seriously I was just checking on this like 10 minutes ago with no new updates on it. But now this haha. It looks pretty good but that music sucks ballz. Thanks!

xFenixKnightx @ Dec 17th 2007 3:56PM

Also...

This (fast gameplay) doesn't look anything at all to what I was expecting, and I dont mean that in a good way. We'll see but my interest has really gone down.

bill pullman @ Dec 17th 2007 3:53PM

"techno soundtrack"????

for shame, Joystiq. you guys sound like ol' grandpa: anything loud is rock n' roll -- anything with a synthesizer in it is techno... and you guys think yourselves hip.

Jeremy White @ Dec 17th 2007 4:14PM

Yeah, I also think this is Chemical Brothers or The Prodigy, meaning millions of people would probably disagree with what the excruciating part.

Forcepath @ Dec 17th 2007 4:31PM

You're correct, this song is actually The Prodigy - "You'll Be Under My Wheels" off of their album Always Outnumbered, Never Outgunned.

Seriously though, this isn't even close to techno. It is really oldschool Electro Breaks if anything, but it has always been hard to find specific genre placements for Prodigy.

Anyways, good eye on the song. The remix is much better than the original.

dan stabbingworth @ Dec 17th 2007 4:35PM

Here I was about to go on an electronic music rant and knowledgeable Joystigers had taken care of it for me. Nice.

the_insider @ Dec 17th 2007 4:47PM

Not that I'm too into the Prodigy but I thought I had to comment on the musical ignorance displayed here. But thanks guys, now I don't have to. The Joystiq grand-pa's are probably still enjoying the last Barry Manilow album...

fanboih8r @ Dec 17th 2007 5:16PM

Who the hell cares. If it walks like a duck, talks like a duck, it's a @#$%ing duck.

RDX @ Dec 17th 2007 5:24PM

Agreed. No one cares what asinine sub-sub-sub-genre this is.

If it weighs the same as a duck, then it's made of wood. And therefore...

gonk @ Dec 17th 2007 6:28PM

A WITCH!

bill pullman @ Dec 17th 2007 7:13PM

since you brought it up, Techno IS a specific sub-genre. anyone wanting to paint with a broad brush would use the phrase "electronic music". if you had any idea what techno is, you wouldn't be making any bizarre duck comments.

by your logic, country music is rock n roll, and video games are toys.

Forcepath @ Dec 18th 2007 9:17AM

I think you will find that most people who listen to electronic music care passionately about genres, as the difference between one sub-genre and the next are quite noticeable once a listener has spent any amount of time within the electronic music genre.

As a DJ, knowing the difference between most of these genres is actually fairly important, your ignorance is acceptable, but some people find it an important (and necessary) distinction.

nonamo @ Dec 19th 2007 8:41PM

I'm a huge fan of The Prodigy. They are mostly considered 'Big Beat' and are one of the pioneers of the sub-genre. Look it up on wiki-p if your insterested in similar artists, Junkie XL (JXL) esp.

fester @ Dec 17th 2007 3:53PM

I wrote it off a year ago-no single player.

Organic_Shadow @ Dec 17th 2007 3:54PM

And this should excite me to basically pay to play a sub-par UT3 how?

Was interested in the concept of this game a while back. Now I am a little relieved that it was no big deal, but also a little disappointed that the FPS MMO genre is having the hardest time in the world getting any momentum. Planetside had a lot of potential and fell short. This seems to be following that pattern from what I can tell from the video.

When is someone going to make a MMO BF2 without it being too sim-ish like WW2online?

Brian Fantana @ Dec 17th 2007 11:18PM

I agree man. It looks like a generic Unreal Tournament. Yuck.

anilramcharand @ Dec 17th 2007 3:54PM

Wow, I hope this game is filled with ads so there won't be a monthley fee. ^_^

Sloar @ Dec 17th 2007 3:55PM

Those embers are dead. And I'm not talking just dousing them with water. It's like when you'd pee on the fire to put it out. After that soundtrack, it's probably more like puking on the fire to put it out--although I've never seen that actually done. But you can imagine what that would be like. It would be like...Huxley.

BananaBoat @ Dec 17th 2007 3:58PM

I was looking forward to both Huxley and Hellgate London as the only chance FPSMMO's had. So far Hellgate is a disaster, and Huxley is looking like a b-list title at best. Oh well, what could have been.

l0tus @ Dec 17th 2007 3:59PM

...looks boring and uninspired. reminds me of the run and gun multiplayer in quake 3.

p.s.: go back to listenting to dave matthews band and save the musical criticisms for someone who knows what they're talking about. not saying i love that song, but someone does. it's been used in several games and movies, including one of the need for speed series.

Alex @ Dec 17th 2007 4:02PM

My hopes for this just died...wtf is with the speed(i'm kinda hoping they sped the vid up to match the music, but even that means something is f'd up) seemed like some big map/area but there was hardly anyone there...the list goes on

Mike @ Dec 17th 2007 4:04PM

While initially excited about this game, It looks like they took the boring multiplayer of quake 3 complete with the "Success you hit the enemy with that bullet" sound and upped the graphics. In all fairness though by the 2nd third of the video i was spinning glowsticks and droppin e

Intentless @ Dec 17th 2007 4:06PM

Should have remained hidding in its abyss...

Oew @ Dec 17th 2007 4:15PM

The song is "You'll Be Under My Wheels" by The Prodigy.

But, yeah, I was kind of hoping an MMOFPS would be a bit more tactical. But I guess in the future, everything is fast paced.

Hashbrown_Hunter @ Dec 17th 2007 4:25PM

Good song.

Well then I guess everything in the future is lame.

Hashbrown_Hunter @ Dec 17th 2007 4:15PM

I got a headache from watching that for 2 minutes. And I'm out of Tylenol...and interest.

Sedeas @ Dec 17th 2007 4:18PM

I was designing a mmofps for a while, around the time that Huxley was unveiled. I didnt think their direction was the way to go then, and now Im vindicated.

Leilock @ Dec 17th 2007 4:21PM

There isn't enough Mountain Dew in the world...

J.R. @ Dec 17th 2007 4:21PM

Huxley, is that you? T.J., that's Huxley! God, I haven't seen her in forever. She was so fine back in the day. I wonder how she looks now.

Hey Huxley, how have you been? Oh, car accident, huh? Yeah, uh, couldn't have fulled, me. You still look, uh, great. Yeah, you'll be just fine.

Damn, was going to be such a fine game. Oh well.

noffsin6 @ Dec 17th 2007 4:31PM

I'll reserve final judgment until the final product is ready (and I see some game footage without horrible techno music that makes me want to puke). That said, it looks like more like a Halo wannabe than what I expected. Unless the MMO elements really bring something new to the game, I'll probably pass.

ThornedVenom @ Dec 17th 2007 4:33PM

This definitely looks like Unreal Tournament in an MMO.

I'd go crazy if I had to grind for hours like that.

Matt B @ Dec 17th 2007 4:41PM

That guy hax!!

ChekhovsGun @ Dec 17th 2007 4:57PM

This is making me interested. After all, it looks more like Unreal Tournament than UT3. UT2008 with character development, anyone?

horngreen @ Dec 17th 2007 5:09PM

Wow I was expecting SOOOO much more back when this was first announced. Now it looks hopeless. Oh well no biggie I guess. I do wonder why is it that so many of these fast paced shooters always seem to have the human to scenery proportions ALL wrong. I remember in the Quake demo on the 360 sometimes the characters looked like they were 12 inches tall in parts of the game. This one seems to have the same issues. Oh and that music takes the cake.

recently @ Dec 17th 2007 5:18PM

Ungh...I was so looking foward to this game...annd that just went out the window.

JonFitt @ Dec 17th 2007 5:41PM

Ugh. I'm not in the mood for a twitch shooter in the UT mould. I'm getting too old for that retro stuff.

Why would I want to play a game where I'd need to be taking Speed to be any good only to be owned by some 11 yr/old with the reactions of a conga eel, with more symbols in his name than letters, bunny hopping in circles?

Seriously, tactical shooters are where it's at.