I've noticed two trends in gaming, recently.  First is the resurgence of the loot-whore dungeon crawl, which I'm going to attribute to the success of Torchlight and Borderlands, plus the knowledge that once Diablo 3 hits that market is going to be impossible to break into, so get in now.  The other is the free-to-play, team driven, class-based drop-in/drop-out shooter, which Team Fortress 2 is largely responsible for, despite only going free-to-play earlier this year.  Wrath of Heroes in an entry into the latter.

Based on the scenario combat from the Warhammer Online MMO, Wrath of Heroes features 3-team combat, 6-on-6-on-6.  Rather than generic classes, Wrath of Heroes uses named characters (each representing classic Warhammer classes) to duke it out, and BioWare Mythic is hoping to have as many as 25-characters when then get to launch.  Still a game largely in progress, the BioWare Mythic is designing the characters on two principals:  "What is needed?" and "What is fun?"  As such, the development is seeing characters designed on the premise of awesome-to-play, potentially overpowerd character types, and characters who focus on grieving a potentially overpowered character.  The combo promises to help keep the battle field evolving as teams continue trying to rock-paper-scissors each other into submission.

Combat plays similar to MMO combat, for those of you who are familiar.  For those who aren't, each character has a basic attack and four unique powers.  The powers each feature individual cool down rates to keep them from being spammed, but the main attack will always be available. Players can change characters on respawn, keeping the evolving battle I mentioned earlier constantly flowing.

There's not a ton of outside details yet, largely because the game is still in early, early stages.  There's been discussion of collectible costume pieces and weapons, unlocking favorite characters (free-to-play characters will be on a rotated schedule, so your favorites can be unlocked for constant play via monetary or time commitment), and such, but nothing is set in stone yet due to the early development stage.  The good news is that BioWare Mythic is taking submissions for the closed Beta, so you can rush over to the Wrath of Heroes web site to get your name on the list.

HAWTwired Hype Level: 8/10

So much promise in a game still far away, plus the free-to-play doctrine, may make this title a dark horse success.