Defiance Game Launch Trailer Brings The Action

By David Wharton | Updated

Defiance is one of the more ambitious science fiction projects to come along in a while. The Syfy TV series launches on April 15th, with Farscape’s Rockne S. O’Bannon as an executive producer and a cast that includes Dexter/Angel’s Julie Benz and Warehouse 13’s Jaime Murray. But Defiance is also an MMO, with the game existing in the same universe as the series, each feeding into the other. You don’t have to play Defiance the game to enjoy Defiance the show, but if you do get involved in both, the interplay between the two could be a lot of fun. And based on the action-packed launch trailer up above, Defiance the game looks like it might be worth checking out.

A third-person shooter MMO, the Defiance game casts players as an “Ark Hunter,” a mercenary sort who is always on the look for alien technology that occasionally crash to the Earth’s surface. See, Defiance is set in the aftermath of a long war between humanity and an invading species who had come to our homeworld to colonize after fleeing their own system. Between the war and some runaway terraforming tech, Earth is a very different place than it once was, with humans and aliens now forced to live and work with each other. Or, in the case of Ark Hunters, occasionally shoot each other in the face so they can’t steal your haul.

The game is set in the San Francisco Bay area, while the series is set among the ruins of St. Louis. The launch trailer above definitely gives off a Borderlands vibe, and in my estimation that’s a good thing. If Defiance can channel half as much addictive fun as that series, it should be in good shape. Of course, it’s notoriously hard to launch a successful MMO, so this could also go pear-shaped very quickly. Fingers crossed.

Defiance is now available for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and on Steam.