Intended as a spiritual sequel to Ultima Online, Project Drake (working title) aims to cross the sandbox experience of UO (and some of the Ultima games) with elements from Morrowind, Minecraft, Dwarf Fortress, and even Fable. Though not intended as an MMORPG, it will feature some form of online play.

The full game is intended to be set in randomly-generated worlds, in which the player will start out as an adventurer in a town. The typical action RPG strategy — walk around, perform short quests, kill monsters, acquire loot — can be followed from that point, but the player will also have the option of gathering resources, constructing buildings, and even founding towns. Finally, a overarching storyline about a secret that resides at the core of all the game worlds will serve as a kind of guiding context for in-game events to take place in.

The game boasts a hybrid engine that features 3D terrain, a fixed isometric perspective, and 2D objects. However, 2D sprites have normal and depth values attached to them, meaning that they can clip and be lit as though they were 3D objects. Even post-processing effects like bloom can be applied to them! Project Drake will also support party members, and of course multiplayer.

Project Drake is approaching a closed “proof of concept” alpha release that will entail killing knights for gold in a fairly enclosed area; the gold can then be used to shape the terrain and construct buildings. That would, I suppose, be where the Minecraft influence comes in.

I’ve set up a project entry for Project Drake, although apart from the project description, there isn’t much there; I’m not aware of a website to which the project developers are posting updates. Hopefully that will change in the near future.