The Emulator Geek

The rumoured online version of Metal Slug now has a fixed name. This exclusive for the PC series will be known as “Metal Slug Zero”. The game will feature both Offline & Online gameplay. SNK Playmore stated that the reasons for choosing Dragonfly:

“The reason why we (SNK Playmore) have chosen DragonFly as our partner owes to our judgment that it is the most popular game developer in Korea. As such, following the deal that we have made regarding ‘Metal Slug Online’, we have also entrusted DragonFly to develop King of Fighter Online and Samurai Showdown Online games…” “…I am happy to be able to deliver excellent work with an excellent partner. I wish that we can do well with DragonFly on those three games,” said Soichiro Hosoya, director of SNK Playmore game titles, during the presentation.

“I’m very happy that we (DragonFly) are able to make the SNK’s pride and joy IP’s. As much as Metal Slug, King of Fighters and Samurai Showdown all receive high consideration around the world, we will do our utmost to create respected global online games,” said Park Cheol-Woo, president of DragonFly.”

The timeline will be set several years after the events of Metal Slug 5, starting from approximately 2035. The plot is that General Morden has given up on conquering the world with conflicts, and instead tries to set his new plan in motion; to annihilate the entire human race by destroying the ecosystem. Also, Martians, Venusians (the new race of aliens that appeared in Metal Slug 6) and Ptolemaic threats have not been confirmed to be neutralized completely. As such, nations around the world become highly dependent on the Regular Army forces. With the growing necessity of the Regular Army, new addition of troops to the Peregrine Falcons and Sparrows, both being small and little-known special forces branches that are often given near-impossible missions, are expected.

The game will be in 3D, but the gameplay itself will still be in side-scrolling form. Marco, Tarma, Fio and Eri are back, and a few new characters are slated to be introduced as well. More new characters are planned to be added during game updates. And, as stated before, this will be an online multiplayer game. Four people are able to play simulatenously in a game. New enemies are to be included as well.

All items will be able to be collected as cards and stored in a cardbook called “Metal Book”, which will be ranked depending on how many cards that the player has collected from levels F from the lowest to the A at the highest. When 100% is reached at level A, the player will be able to proceed to the next episode and access newer systems and contents, while the rank is reset to F. This process will be repeated for player advancements.

The prototype of the game was finalized in March of 2008. Official homepage of the game will open in May. Alpha build of the game will be revealed in July, with the beta version planned to be shown in October. By December of this year, they plan to run an closed-beta testing.

http://www.metalslugzero.com/