In the aftermath of a catastrophic third world war, Earth lies in ruin, and mankind is all but extinct. In a small corner of the world a new society has risen in the years following, populated mostly by the clones of those stored in a massive DNA database compiled at the end of the war. A corporate government has created a seemingly Utopian civilization, but its heavy-handed control over society, its resources, and even life itself has forced a substantial opposition. These rival factions accuse the government of crimes against humanity in its rampant willingness to abuse the cloning process to its own gain. It is at this crossroads that players will find themselves: fight as a champion of the new world order, or take up arms with Noir, the shadow government sworn to overthrow the totalitarian rule.

Featuring a unique skill-based advancement system and player-driven economy, as well as extensive, meaningful player-vs.-player combat, Earthrise gives you innumerable choices to forge your destiny. Whether you're a noble soldier in the raging conflict between the Utopia and the rebellion, a criminal hiding from the law or a world-renowned engineer whose power extends into intricate trade and politics, your actions will echo throughout the game world.

Masthead has employed its own engine to craft the stunning graphics and atmosphere in the game, as well as to handle its dynamic combat mechanics. Explore the diverse and sprawling capital city of Sal Vitas and surrounding unclaimed territories. Fight with advanced PvP mechanics featuring customizable power armor, huge mechanized exoskeletons, and an arsenal of weapons to control contested lands and their resources. Influence the market-based economy by working for the corporate world or trading on the black market, all based in immense and highly customized crafting and offline play systems. Players will shape the society in the beginning of a new mankind; or they will create their own dystopia.

Masthead Studios is facilitating a smoother development process of Earthrise’s UI by eliminating steps between design and execution with the help of Scaleform’s GFx. “This software has provided our art team with the artistic freedom that we want,” said Atanas Atanasov, CEO of Masthead Studios. “The tools allowed us to create a rich, interactive and dynamic user interface without losing time.”

“While designing the UI for Earthrise we wanted to give our artists the power to directly create the look and feel of the game without depending on programmers to implement their vision,” continued Atanasov. “We chose Scaleform GFx middleware because it’s fast and optimized for the game’s implementation of the Flash rendering engine.”

Using Scaleform GFx and proven visual tools such as Adobe Flash Studio, developers can access an artist-driven dynamic UI and animated texture production pipeline. Scaleform’s hardware accelerated vector graphics technology is scalable and deployable across multiple platforms, including the leading console and PC systems. To date, GFx has been licensed for such blockbusters as BioWare’s Mass Effect for Xbox 360 and Crytek’s Crisis for PC, and is now integrated into most major 3rd party game engines such as Epic’s Unreal Engine 3 and Emergent’s Gamebryo.

Key Features:

• A unique post-apocalyptic setting where the cloned remnants of mankind battle to survive and rebuild. Yet while humanity may have evolved, human nature remains as treacherous as ever…
• Highly customizable characters with over 100 different skills, abilities, and tactics. No artificial "class" restrictions get in the way of making the character you want.
• Fast-paced action combat featuring dynamic targeting, customizable power armor, huge mechanized exoskeletons, and hundreds of high-tech weapons.
• Sophisticated Player versus Player (PvP) mechanics that let you fight for the established order, join the revolutionary underground, or carve your own bloody path as an independent criminal.
• Territorial conquest and defense that matters. In your domain, you create your own rules – or let anarchy reign.
• Character progression that keeps you advancing in your career even when you’re not logged in.
• An advanced market-based economy with in-game supply and demand based on player activities.
• Deep crafting mechanics that let you design and manufacture unique items from customizable blueprints and raw resources.

Earthrise is scheduled to launch in 2009.