Evochron Mercenary

For Immediate Release

September 17th, 2010

BOISE, ID, September 17th, 2010 --  StarWraith 3D Games LLC today announced the release of Evochron Mercenary, the sequel to its original freeform 3D space simulator. 

Evochron Mercenary rounds out a trilogy in the series, culminating in the game with the highest level of technology and most extensive feature set.  Set in a vast explorable universe, Evochron Mercenary offers an amazing level of freeform gameplay with many different objectives and paths to choose from.  Just a few of the available activities include building new space stations, designing ships, cleaning dirty solar arrays, placing satellites in orbit, bribing hostile pilots, hiring crew, spying, racing, trading, clearing paths through asteroid fields, escorting vulnerable transports, hunting for valuable shipwrecks, and of course, the advanced space combat that Evochron has become known for.

Evochron Mercenary is a freeform space-sim that focuses on 'lone-wolf' survival gameplay.  Players are free to seek their fortune as an independent mercenary in an adventure directed by their choices, abilities, and accomplishments.  Each player can bring their unique skills and interests to the game, forming clans for cooperative goals or remaining solo to complete objectives on their own in true freeform space-sim gameplay.  They can choose to fight for the military in battle filled war zones or take on objectives as a civilian.  A player's decisions and actions define their role in the game and establish their reputations, wealth, progress, and ranking.

Players pilot their spacecraft through a highly detailed and interactive universe filled with photon-rich nebulae, dangerous black holes, high gravity stars, massive stations, and diverse planetary landscapes.  Players are in complete control of their spacecraft while traveling in open space and during descents from space to planets.  With no required jump gates or trade lanes to restrict movement, players are free to explore the open space environment at their own pace using any travel path they choose.  Unified save-game profile architecture lets players keep the ships, upgrades, equipment, money, weapons, crew, and commodities they earn for use in both the single player and multiplayer modes (including connecting to different servers).  Saving is also available virtually anywhere without docking requirements.

A revised component based shipyard lets players design and build custom ships with double the number of available ship frames over the previous game, both civilian and military.  Frame storage space for civilian ships can now also be customized, letting the player change the capacities for crew, countermeasures, equipment, and secondary weapons for the role they want to play.  In addition to functional options, players can also customize the look of the ships they build by positioning and scaling various components.

The new multiplayer system offers in-game voice chat and supports group territory control, letting players join together to conquer solar systems for profit.  The in-game quadrant map provides real-time territory control data and credit is given for each Clan-vs-Clan kill and completed cooperative contract.  Controlling clans must defend their territory from other clans who can take the systems for themselves. Players can construct stations in newly discovered systems to expand their empires and introduce new trade locations, AI pathways, and resources to expand the game's universe.  Available build options include trade stations, constructor stations, research stations, energy stations, and ore processors.  Players can also deploy temporary structures including energy recharge stations, repair stations, sensor stations, fuel processors, shield arrays, and mining probes.

A new 'quest' system features multiple objectives spanning many solar systems throughout the game's universe. The quest will further train players for the game, provide details on the history of the game's universe, and guide players through systems useful for upgrading their ship.  Completing quest objectives also provides information on secret locations and hidden benefits in the game.

For stations, cities, and carriers, a new lobby mode is available for players to enter that gives them access to full chat controls (voice and text), inventory management, the shipyard, and storage hangars. Once inside a station, city, or carrier, a player is safe from attack.

The sound and music has been enhanced significantly from previous games and includes music by Rich Douglas that changes with the level of hostility around you.

New equipment and weapons includes specialized mining beams, anti-missile system, shield array recharger, particle cannon heatsink, afterburner overdrive, automatic countermeasure launcher, kinetic cannons, and station detonators.  Capital ships now also feature powerful new anti-shield torpedoes and flak cannons for improved capabilities against other capital ships and small attack spacecraft.

The enhanced realistic zero gravity inertia based 'Newtonian' style flight model includes complete freedom of movement (3-way rotation and 3-way direction control) with optional variable input. An advanced inertial dampening system helps keep flight control simple in space, atmospheres, and gravity fields.

The new graphics engine supports higher resolutions, greater detail, and new effects/technology.  Broad compatibility includes support for most 3D video cards with at least shader model 2.0 capability.  The new planetary engine includes far more realistic clouds, water, and terrain.  New gas giant planets feature moving cloud layers and powerful winds.

The game includes support for NaturalPoint® Inc.'s TrackIR™ head tracking system.  A PC with TrackIR connected knows exactly where the player is sitting and looking, by capturing their head motion with all six degrees of freedom.  Evochron Mercenary uses TrackIR’s unique input to control the view from the pilot's cockpit perspective, independent of keyboard, mouse, or joystick inputs.

Evochron Mercenary runs on the Windows® PC platform, including Windows XP, Vista, and 7.  The recommended minimum system configuration for the game includes a 2.0 GHz processor, 128 MB 3D video card, and 1.5 GB of RAM.  The game supports keyboard, mouse, joystick, and gamepad control options with remapping capability.  To learn more about Evochron Mercenary, please visit the official website at www.evochron.com

About StarWraith 3D Games

Founded in 1999, StarWraith 3D Games is an independent game developer dedicated to creating advanced first person 3D space-sims for the PC.  StarWraith 3D Games is primarily the effort of one determined space-sim enthusiast who has created several previous combat and mercenary space games including Star Wraith, Arvoch Conflict, and RiftSpace.  For more information about SW3DG, please visit http://www.starwraith.com

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Evaluation Copy Available Upon Request

High Resolution Screenshots Available Upon Request

Game website: http://www.starwraith.com/evochronmercenary/index.htm

E-mail: sw3dgames@gmail.com

Company: StarWraith 3D Games LLC

E-mail: sw3dgames@gmail.com

Website: www.starwraith.com