Citadel Studios, developer of "Legends of Aria," has announced a new project called "The End." The game is a multiplayer survival game set in a "collapsed heaven" where players will fight in action RPG-style hack-and-slash combat and magic.

Players in "The End" will go on a solo quest for magical relics that will provide access to powerful equipment and spells. Combat is action-oriented rather than status-oriented, and magic is intended to feel like a "flag shooter" where splash damage and effects are prioritized over accurate targeting.

"Many spells are thrown to the ground rather than "sniped" or fired as projectiles."

"This provides a very unique and tactile casting experience and offers an element of first-person twitch, but has a skill curve that welcomes beginners and tests more advanced players.

Players with greater ambition can team up in warbands of up to five players to fight for control of a permanent and conquerable domain of the game. Warbands must first summon a "feud stone," which allows them to declare a feud with the defending warband, wage war for a period of time, and eventually participate in the "Battle of Hamlet."

While it sounds like a scaled-down version of realm vs. realm warfare in MMOs like Warhammer Online and the still-in-development New World, Citadel says that keeping the size of the legions relatively small is a way to ensure that players who cannot or do not want to belong to larger organizations Citadel says the reason for keeping the corps relatively small is so that players who can't or don't want to belong to a larger organization can still get in on the action.

"Warbands form the backbone of "The End" and are intended to ensure that small groups of friends and strangers can fully experience and participate in the gameplay," the studio explains.

This speaks to Citadel's desire to "subvert the concept of 'endgame' in the survival genre" by prioritizing individual achievement over large, powerful clans in "The End."

"We are heavily influenced by Norse sagas and mythology. What is most interesting to us is the concept of record, the legacy of great warriors being held and judged," says The Citadel.

"In creating The End, we have made the concept of the warrior's record central to the setting and theme, and have incorporated it throughout the design of the system and its content.

"The End will feature a Feat system designed to track each player's record in the eternal saga. From battles and territorial wars, purification and summoning, to the defeat of mythical creatures and ancient spirits in epic encounters, we will track your legacy as the saga honors victory and death.

The Feat system is also the basis for The End's approach to permadeath: players will always return, but legacies, feet, and the options they unlock may not.

It's still early days, but I like the underlying idea of a persistent survival sandbox with a more personal element. (No release goals have been set yet, but there is a website, theendsurvival.com, where you can follow along.