Dark Horizons is a series of mech shooter computer games, created by Max Gaming Technologies. Most titles in the series are set in a future, where a nuclear attack on the United States, causes a war fought with Mechanized Assault Vehicles (or MAVs) - large mechs, built specifically for war.
The series has spawned two video games (Dark Horizons Lore and Lore: Aftermath), two pen-and-paper role-playing games (Dark Horizons Lore d20 and Dark Horizons Universe d20) and several short stories, with at least one known upcoming video game in development - Dark Frontier.
Lore Series[]
Dark Horizons Lore
The Dark Horizons Lore series is set after the nuclear attack on the United States, during the war between the Federated States and the Eastern Confederation, and during battles that follow after the war. The series mainly focuses on mechanized combat and multiplayer.
Dark Horizons Lore[]
Released in 2004, for the PC, Mac and Linux platforms, Dark Horizons Lore was the first game developed by Max Gaming Technologies and the first game in the Dark Horizons Series. The game was published by GarageGames and developed with their Torque Game Engine.
For Lore's version 2.0 update, Max Gaming Technologies made several dramatic changes and updates to the game, releasing it under a new title Dark Horizons Lore: Invasion, in 2005. Invasion featured updated graphics, new features, new weapons and new maps.
Dark Horizons Lore was also adapted into into a pen-and-paper role-playing game, released in 2006, called Dark Horizons Lore d20. The game uses the d20 Modern and d20 Future role-playing systems.
Lore: Aftermath[]
A sequel to Lore was released in 2008, on InstantAction.com, titled Lore: Aftermath. Design and gameplay was very different from Lore though still keeping the spirit of sci-fi mech combat. It was praised among Mech game fans, who enjoyed the design and gameplay in Aftermath, which kept in the spirit of usual Mech simulations, though the game wasn't one of the most popular games on InstantAction.
d20 Tabletop[]
An adaptation of Dark Horizons Lore, was released in 2006, in the form of a d20 tabletop game simply called Dark Horizons Lore.
Universe Series[]
Video Games[]
Sometime after the release of the original Lore, MGT announced a new game under development in the series, titled Dark Horizons Universe. The game was to be an MMORPG made in the Multiverse Virtual Worlds engine. A tech demo was demonstrated at the 2007 Game Developer Conference accompanied by several screenshots and a gameplay video released online, however there has been no update on it since 2009, so it is considered to be stuck in development hell.
Another game in the universe was released in Early Access on Steam called Dark Horizons Mechanized Company which once again brought the idea of piloted mechs to the setting. The game reached a playable state but was eventually removed from sale by the developers due to a lack of updates.
Tabletop Games[]
A d20 tabletop game in the Universe series was released on 2006, simply titled Dark Horizons Universe.
Dark Horizons Universe: Battlegrounds is rumored to be in development as a tabletop mech vs mech war game.
Other Titles[]
Dark Frontier[]
In 2005, there was an announcement of a new game under development by MGT, which was said to be a spaceship shooter, set in the Dark Horizons Lore series. By 2010 the game had been announced as Dark Frontier. It was under development, using the Torque Game Engine Advanced and had been set to be released on PC, Xbox 360 and the Windows Phone 7.
External Links[]
- Playmech.com (defunct) - Official website of the series.
- MaxGaming.net - Official Max Gaming Technologies website.
- dhunivers.com - Official Dark Horizons Universe Blog.