The action adventure game for PlayStation 2 from developers High Voltage is based on the massively popular Duel Masters trading card game, and will follow Duel Masters: Sempai Legends for Nintendo's Game Boy Advance console, already announced for release in October.
Duel Masters: Cobalt brings all the excitement of the collectable trading card game developed by Wizards of the Coast and more to the PlayStation 2, with stunning 3D animé-style visuals, which take their cues from the striking card art and the animated Duel Masters television series already massively popular in Japan, the US and the UK. The player takes the role of one of five characters, each aligned with one of the five powerful Duel Masters civilizations; Fire, Nature, Water, Light and Darkness. As campaigns are played through as each of the different characters, the player learns about each one, eventually unveiling the underlying story before bringing all the characters together at the end for the electrifying climax.
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As with the Duel Masters trading card game and Duel Masters: Sempai Legends for Game Boy Advance, collecting the cards, building a powerful deck, and duelling are at the heart of the game. However, instead of being only turn-based, Duel Masters: Cobalt offers the option of playing in real time, resulting in frantically paced and action-packed gameplay. Throughout the game the characters face many challenging opponents - some friendly, some less so - and visit a host of different locations before ending up at a great Tournament, the outcome of which will have implications reaching far beyond the 'normal' world!
"Duel Masters is an amazing phenomenon, which looks set to dominate in Europe in much the same way as it has Japan and is about to in the US," said Martin Spiess, Senior Vice President of Marketing, Atari Europe. "With Duel Masters: Cobalt the swelling ranks of Duel Masters fans who also own PlayStation 2 consoles can enjoy it in brilliant 3D with thrilling original gameplay. I need to start working on my deck!"
As players win duels and progress through the single-player game, they are rewarded with additional Duel Masters cards allowing them to enhance their decks and devise new gameplay strategies to ultimately lay waste to their opponents. Duel Masters: Cobalt also includes a 2-player mode so friends can save their deck on their memory card and challenge each other using decks and cards unlocked from the single-player game to decide who is the ultimate duellist!
Duel Masters' Accomplishments in Japan
- More than 165,000,000 Duel Masters booster packs sold
- More than 1,500,000 Duel Masters starter decks sold
- More than 2,000,000 Duel Masters theme decks sold
- Overtaken Yu-Gi-Oh! and Pokémon as the #1 selling trading card game
- The Trading Card Game has been the #1 toy in Japan since March 2003
- One out of four Japanese 8-12 year-old boys plays Duel Masters
- There are more than 1000 Duel Masters play events per month
- 26 episodes of the Duel Masters TV show have been produced; additional series will follow
US Launch
- By week 3 the Duel Masters Trading Card Game was out-selling all other Wizards of The Coast products combined in the non-specialist market place
- Sales of booster packs are growing faster than in Japan during the same period following launch
- TV show on Cartoon Network has a growing and loyal fan base with an 18% share of 6-11 year old male viewers
- www.duelmasters.com receives more than 500k page views per week
UK Launch
- Duel Masters Trading Card Game launched on 5th March
- Sales in Week 2 were 5 times that of week 1
- Already YTD to April sales show Duel Masters as the no.2 strategic card game
- TCG sales have far exceeded all expectations and sales data shows a more rapid incline than Yu-Gi-Oh at this stage in its life cycle
- TV show confirmed on Channel 5 (UK terrestrial). First episode airing on September 11th at 12.30.
- TV show already on Toonami: Weekdays 07.00 & 16.00/ Weekends 10.30 &16.00
Duel Masters: Cobalt for the PlayStation 2 is scheduled for European release in November 2004.