Early last year Digital Extremes announced the development of Dark Sector, a futuristic massively-multiplayer online RPG to be based on the Unreal Tournament engine. Taking advantage of new technologies being added to the UT engine, this space-based RPG will feature the deathmatch-style combat that DE is so famous for, as well as space flight and combat, role-playing features and huge multiplayer environments.

As this game is based on an engine that has already been ported to the Mac OS, we were naturally curious to see if there were any plans for a Mac OS version of this title. We have asked several times before, of course, but the game wasn't far along enough in the development cycle to make such a prediction. Here is DE's latest response to our query:

Thanks for your interest in the game. There is a very good chance that DS
will be developed for Mac, but no official promises....:)

In related news, GA-Source has conducted a short Q&A with the lead level designer for Dark Sector, Juan Eeklels. They discuss many elements of design and gameplay, including comparisons to previous titles created by Digital Extremes:

How different will Dark Sector be from Unreal Tournament, in terms of visuals and gameplay? How will it be similar?

In terms of visuals Dark Sector will be more complex than Unreal: Tournament. Our programmers are seriously adding cool features to this engine that will 'up' the standard for FPS games. This is where people will realise how scalable and powerful the UT engine actually is. As for gameplay in Dark Sector, it's receiving a similar treatment. We are incorporating a whole myriad of additions to it, from your regular deathmatch to spaceflight. The similarities will lie in the deathmatch and teamplay type games incorporated into Dark Sector.

Are there any titles that have served as guide for Dark Sector?

Dark Sector is the result of all people at Digital Extremes laying bare all their desires of what they wanted to see in a game. Now, all of this obviously stems from years and years of playing games across many platforms. And watching great movies on the big screen. Hopefully (and judging from the email responses we get from all over the world we are pretty dead on) this is what lots and lots of other gamers want to see as well.

Dark Sector Web Site

Dark Sector Q&A at GA-Source

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