Gaming Target - News: Sammy announces 16-player online Kung-Fu Fighter

Written by Jonathan Nicklas on March 03, 2004

Sammy announces 16-player online Kung-Fu Fighter: Iron Phoenix will feature team based online fighting exclusively for Microsoft Xbox Live.

Sammy Studios announced Iron Phoenix, a team based online fighting game coming exclusively to Microsoft Xbox Live. Iron Phoenix is the first game of its kind, joining strategic team-play with weapon-based melee combat, and featuring characters, weapons and a storyline worthy of a Kung-Fu film. Developed by InterServ International, the game is Sammy Studios' first title for Xbox. Iron Phoenix introduces a new genre to online games, allowing up to 16 simultaneous players in team combat with Xbox Live enabled play. The game takes players into an engaging premise based on mythical legends of Chinese martial arts, placing them in many beautiful battle arenas and wide open outdoor environments. Iron Phoenix promises a huge variety of weapons-based combos and more than ten playable characters, and will include numerous online play modes traditionally found in online shooting games as well as a single-player mission mode. The game is slated for release Holiday 2004 and is not yet rated.

"Iron Phoenix will essentially bring a new genre to online gaming," said Tim Pivnicny, senior VP of sales and marketing, Sammy Studios, Inc. "As an online 3D fighting game, we're combining the strategic elements of team-based shooters with the visceral excitement of weapons-based melee combat. And we're injecting the experience with settings from the best of classic martial arts fiction, both new and old."

Iron Phoenix follows the fate of a set of legendary weapons created from shards of a massive meteor. Legend tells of a glorious meteor blazing across the heavens, lighting the sky brighter than the Sun. The meteor crashed to Earth with such force it reduced mountains to rubble, its radiant afterglow resembling a giant phoenix rising into the night sky. A great blacksmith forged the shards of the meteor into nine superb weapons, each the best of its kind. The weapons forged from the "Iron Phoenix", as the meteor came to be called, were said to possess magnificent abilities and would grant certain victory to any who wielded them. Over millennia, countless wars were waged over the right to possess these weapons. The years of bloodshed only served to increase the potency of their magic, and soon a new legend grew; a legend of the supreme power that would be achieved by the one who could control all nine weapons of the Iron Phoenix.

Additional information regarding this game can be found in our Xbox profile of Iron Phoenix as it nears a Holiday 2004 release.