Since the popularity and success of World of Warcraft, it’s not uncommon to see other MMO titles dancing at its edges, trying to capitalize on the formula that earned ten million concurrent subscribers. As such, the MMO market has seen a lot of regularity from it, with systems and mechanics becoming familiar in the wake of such a massive following.

However, Ukrainian developer EFORB LLC has taken their creation, SKIES, to Kickstarter to change the face of the landscape a little bit more. Unlike many of the current MMO titles, Skies has no built-in story for players to participate in. There simply a setting, a framework from which the world is built, then players are left to their own devices to make what of the world they can. Set in a post-apocalyptic world of solar-nuclear ruin, the last remaining human shelters have opened, giving humanity the chance to recover and rebuild the world that was previously covered in ash, dust, and darkness. What players do with this newfound freedom in this solar ruin of a world is entirely up to them, including the economy, combat, and combat arenas to claim mastery over.

Given such lofty goals, SKIES is a very ambitious project. Currently in a semi-functional alpha stage of development, there’s a lot of content still planned rather than in already existing - so there’s a lot still unknown. Given that the world intends to be large-scale and functionally self-developing, there’s a lot that can go wrong for the project, but its premise certainly piquest interest.

Sitting at a production goal of $350,000, there’s a lot of content to be made from what is, to be fair, a small budget for an MMORPG. That said, the atmosphere and content seem solid and - despite being ambitious - the goals aren’t entirely unreasonable based on previous Kickstarter success stories. Players who think that emergent, free worlds are worth exploring can find and fund the Kickstarter page, and watch the trailer and view some initial screenshots below.