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For example, as I pawed my way out of the starter dungeon, I walked only a short distance before I ran into a monster that looked like some sort of rabid reindeer. Upon dispatching it, my character expertly cleaved off the animals head, sending it flying away in a spout of blood and gore. As I watched, the head proceeded to roll down a long hill where it finally stopped just short of another reindeer.

All gore and guts aside, the atmosphere of the game really does an incredible job of pulling you into the game. As you traverse through your initial starting area, you’ll find the secluded city of Rondel. Built into the middle of a massive, snow covered peak, Rondel is reminiscent of cities you might have seen at the beginning of the electrical age. Power lines run through the city streets and steam blasts out of vents on random intervals. Glowing fires can be seen in many of the buildings and armed guards walk down the stony alleys. If the Fallout franchise focused on swords and sorcery, this is the sort of town they might have designed.

Any game with a mob called "Satan's Reindeer" is okay by me.

Inside of Rondel, I found a number of my initial starting quests in easy fashion. The quest design in the game is reminiscent of what you see in Blizzard’s World of Warcraft; each quest leads you farther away from the city as you continue to march your way out of the starting area and into the full-fledged zones.

From level 1-10, you’ll be spending most of your time in the Rondel area, gathering quests and quickly completing them to help advance. Although death isn’t extremely common in early areas (none of the monsters in these areas are hostile so they won’t attack you first), try not to die often as there is a slight XP penalty for each death. This penalty is negligible, and the developers seem to have really been aware of the North American crowd and our anger towards extreme death penalties.

After a few hours of gameplay and getting the nuances of the game under control, you’ll hit level 10 and be eligible for your first class choice. Each of the races has two initial classes to choose from which essentially are split between melee and magic choices. For example, the Bartuk can choose the Warrior and the Shaman while the Kruxena pick between Rogues or Soul Hunters. Each race has different class choices, so make sure you pick an appropriate race for the eventual class you’d like to become. Eventually each of these race classes split off again into two more classes, and in the end each race has four inevitable classes to choose from.

Sporting my new level 10 Bartukian Warrior, I was feeling fairly invincible. As I carved through enemies I was previously having problems with, I slowly became aware that my in-game clock was seconds away from hitting 23:00, a time that inspires fear in any player of Requiem. This specific time signifies the arrival of the Nightmare mode; the sky grows dark and larger and even more gruesome monsters spring from the ground to rip open your innards. As I began sprinting for the nearest pathway, a creepy, devil-baby sprang in front of me and – in two hits – had dispatched me into the nether. I resurrected at the nearest spawn point and opted to wait out the fifteen minutes of Nightmare mode.

Player versus player (PvP) combat also plays an integral part in the Requiem formula. Although none of the servers were set to full-on PvP, players did have the option of entering PvP battlegrounds to engage in 8-vs-8, 16-vs-16, 32-vs-32, or 96-vs-96 warfare. I certainly wasn’t of a high enough level to engage in the more extreme PvP battles, but according to the Requiem website, “victors will be rewarded with special items that are key to obtaining the rarest weapons and armor.”

The atmospheric city of Rondel.

Finally, it would be improper of me to do a thorough preview of Requiem without mentioning the DNA or Beast Possession Systems. As you progress through Requiem, there will be a number of ways to augment your skills and abilities. Rather than creating a “Talent Tree” for characters to progress through, the Requiem developers came up with something called the DNA System, which allows players to augment their characters however they wish. Whether it’s through advancing statistics or giving bonuses to certain skills, the DNA system certainly provides players with a way of differentiating themselves from the masses.

The Beast Possession System also serves as a form of alternate advancement in Requiem. Once a player can possess a beast’s form (which happens in later levels), that beast form gains experience along with the player's character. As players collect more than one beast form, they can then choose to distribute the experience gained between the two beasts. If a player chooses, they can make one beast earn all of the beast form experience, thus making that particular beast possession into a veritable bad ass. However, players will never stop gaining experience in their normal form, and the beast form leveling is on top of whatever advancement they earn in their normal class.

For the most part, Requiem: Bloodymare seems to be a thoroughly localized version of a very well thought out imported MMORPG. Although a few niggling problems still persist in the translation and movement options, Requiem looks to be one of the first imported MMORPGs to finally encompass both the Western and Eastern mentalities when it comes to gaming. With solid translations and appropriate movement options, Requiem should appeal to gamers looking for a gritty, dark, and bloody world to rest their gaming souls.

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