Champions Online - Avaliable in Stores Now

Champions Online is now available in stores in North America.

(New York, NY) September 1, 2009 – Atari Inc., one of the world’s most recognized videogame publishers, and Cryptic Studios, creators of the acclaimed City of Heroes and City of Villains are proud to unleash the ultimate superhero universe: Champions Online™ is now available for Windows PC online and at stores across North America and will be available in Europe on September 4, 2009. Based on the award winning pen and paper role-playing game, Champions, from HERO Games and powered by the groundbreaking Cryptic Engine, Champions Online taps into a rich universe of heroes and villains with unparalleled intrigue and adventure.

Cryptic Studios, already a leading developer and publisher of massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs), has taken the genre to new heights with Champions Online’s fast paced, “real time” action combat and the power of total customization. Through Champions’ unique character customization tool the player can create and individualize every component of their hero: name, back story, costume, powers and abilities can all be modified in countless ways. In addition to allowing players to transform into the ultimate hero, gamers can craft an enemy of the extreme opposite, concoct a villainous history for their ultimate foe and guarantee themselves a truly unique experience.

“Champions Online is a great addition to Atari’s line-up,” said John Needham, CEO of Cryptic Studios. “After considerable anticipation and excitement, we are thrilled to present Champions to fans and gamers worldwide, and look forward to seeing what players create with the game’s limitless customization options. We are already hard at work developing new content and updates that will expand the Champions Online world even further.”

Champions Online brings epic heroism back to the MMORPG genre with depth that will certainly challenge the most experienced online gamers, while its fast paced action promises to engage new entrants to the online superhero universe. Enter a world where the diabolical genius Dr. Destroyer has returned to wreak havoc. After he single-handedly destroyed the city of Detroit, many thought he had perished in the colossal explosion, but he is back to inflict his evil plans on the unsuspecting world. Join with Defender and the legendary Champions to stop Dr. Destroyer and his minions in an ultimate showdown of good versus evil.

Ten Ton Hammer has an interview up to mark the occasion.

Ten Ton Hammer: How are things at Cryptic on the last few days before the official launch?

Bill Roper: Things are good – we’re wrapping up the beta and trying to push for some last minute fixes. It’s been really good especially from the standpoint that we’ll have a lot of stuff based on the things we’ve done this week since the open beta started – there’s been lots of good feedback. We’re finding lots of bugs that we couldn’t find without having the concurrencies of 10 or 15 thousand people. You test a lot of stuff with bots but then once you get live players on it always causes aberrant behavior.

And then there’s some balance related things too. We weren’t really able, even in the closed beta, to get significant statistical numbers at different level ranges, such as being able to look at the XP curves. We knew it wasn’t right but when we got all the people on in open beta that was when it became apparent that it was really broken.

Whenever you do testing and you make changes, you tend to swing the wheel far over for course corrections. I think that’s one thing that a lot of people don’t realize is that you have to do that. People will ask, “why not make just little changes?” If you think about sailing a ship it’s kind of like you’re going really far to starboard, so you need to swing the wheel hard to port to make a big course correction. Then you can say, OK we went too far, let’s move it back over.