Two Years In, Famed "Ten Man" Chinese Indie Game Shaping Up Real Nice

Project M is a name you probably won’t recognize. But the name Storm Totem should ring a bell for gamers in China. Two years ago, a ten-man development team built up quite a buzz when they began to undertake an ambitious project: developing a fully 3D action RPG.

At the time, it might have sounded like a Diablo clone; both the game and the team itself were named Storm Totem (a nod to Diablo developer Blizzard, whose name sounds similar in Chinese). Moreover, the developers themselves referred to it as a 3D version of Diablo. But the project was just getting started and it didn’t look like much of anything. Then, it disappeared from most people’s radar.

The developers haven’t disappeared though, and they exploded back onto the scene today with a new video that’s very impressive and suggests that the game — which has been renamed 神话纪元 but is apparently code-named Project M in English — will be released this year.

In the intervening years, the devs apparently attracted some serious investment, and expanded their ten-person team to a staff of forty. The game may have been inspired by Diablo, but comparing this video to Diablo 3 — an official 3D version of Diablo that Blizzard will release this year — it’s pretty clear there are big differences.

Of course, the video also leaves lots of questions to be answered. It’s clear the game looks good, but we don’t see any real gameplay in it, nor is there any information about the story (assuming there is one). The game is apparently “more than half” finished, but with the expanded team, a 2012 release seems to be in the cards. The developers aren’t looking to publish the game themselves, though, and will be looking for a big name to help them distribute the game once it is finished.

[via Sina Games, Game.China.Com]