Myrkridia Confirmed, And More - July 10, 1998 - [Malory]
Hiro had a chance to visit the Macworld Expo, where Myth II was on display, and managed to gather these excellent story tidbits from Bungie's Doug Zartman:
From Doug I was able to get parts of the story. It seems that a
couple avatara that are alive *might* make an appearance in Myth II.
Soulblighter will be in charge of the enemies, so he will be like
balor was in the first -- the main enemy.
Myth II takes place 60 years after Myth. King Alric has won and has established
a peaceful kingdom. Everything is going very well until
towns on the border of his kingdom start having strange things happen in
them. This is where Myth 2 picks up.
What I wasn't able to get was how big a role the Myrkridia play in Myth 2
(although it should be large) And who is the unborn man who ressurects them.
Doug didn't want to wreck the story for people so when we started asking
about Soulblighter and the Myrkridia he gave us vaguer and vaguer answers
until he simply said "I don't want to wreck the story, so I'll have to be
ambigous about that one." [ editor's note: I clarified this with Hiro in a later email and it appears that the Myrkridia will indeed play a role in Myth II as stated by Zartman ]
The #7 though, will have something to do with it, according to Doug.
Oh, and don't forget about the Fallen Lords that survived. Why would Doug
have to be ambiguous about them too if they didn't play a part in the story?
Hrmm....
So far there are two single player levels (these two are NOT the first and
second levels).
They are:
Into the Breach, a medium size level in which you first must walk down a
road which leads to a small town (you get attacked by around 10 warriors on
the way). Upon reaching this town you must battle with a contingent of
Stygian Knights and Archers (who shoot fire arrows at you). Once you have
defeated them, you get reinforced by around 12 warriors, 2 dwarfs, and 4
archers. Now you must go up to a drawbridge. The enemies raise the bridge,
and now the screen shifts to a Dwarven Pathfinder (No, It's _not_ Oleg) [ editor's note: I grabbed the name in an earlier screenshots and it turns out it's Oni! A coincidence, mayhaps? nah... ]
which you must then sneak inside the castle. This is difficult if you do not
know what you are doing, because there is a door you have to get through
which only raises when peasants pass through it, and it is pretty hard to
survive if you attack the 4 warriors standing guard on either side of the
door. Once inside you must climb to the top of the battlement (where the
device to lower the drawbridge is), sneak past the archers, and blow up the
crank. Now your troops can storm the area that the
battlements were protecting and then exit into the barons castle through a
gate that has now opened. Oh, on a sad note, the pathfinder dissapears after
he blows up the device that lowers the drawbridge.
The second level available for Single player was:
The Baron, a small size level in which you must first split your warriors up
and send 4 to each corner (4 does not matter but you need warriors in the
two corners near you or the baron might escape) and then wait, or if you'd
rather attack, you can walk forward into a long hall (complete with rug and
pillars!) and have fun killing some Stygian knights and archers. Once it
says "The Baron should be getting to the exits about now", The baron comes
down the center or one of the sides (it is random I believe) and tries to
exit through a hidden door in either of the two bookcases on the sides or
through the area where you started the level. You must kill the Baron, and
then you win the level
Oh, by the way, on the finished versions of these maps there will not be
evil archers and warriors, these are just until they are done with the units
that will go there. (this is according to Doug).
We now know ALOT more than we did before about the story of Myth II (considering we knew nothing before :-)
Lost Comments and Nitpicks - July 1, 1998 - [Malory]
The transfer of The Keep's content to its current location here resulted in much lost content, especially on the story pages. Now that I'm beginning to receive the same comments again, perhaps it is time to briefly sum up what various readers have already added to the debate.
Firstly, there was the discussion of my theory. Most seemed to agree that the Myrkridia returned, but in what form not many agreed upon. One fascinating point was that perhaps the Myrkridia were spiders, as the only living creature in The Tain, where the Myrkridia were supposedly entombed, were the spids. One fellow, who's name escapes me at the moment, offerred a very lengthy document to prove this. I've mentioned that the Myrkridia, if they are in the game, have probably not been shown in any of the screenshots. Some tended to disagree -- perhaps the Feeb is one? Others said that the Myrkridia were right under our noses the whole time. As the screenshots we've seen have all been of humanoids, couldn't they be the Myrkridia? No one said they were big hulking beasts.. mayhaps they are only cannibals.
It was widely agreed that Soulblighter would play an important role, but which one? I've always said, as you can see below, that SB will eventually ally with the light, and most of the evidence tends to lean towards this. Many claimed that perhaps Soulblighter himself ressurrected the Myrkridia and found them uncontrollable and so was forced to ally with Alric to defeat them. A slight variation says that the Myrkridia were ressurrected by someone else, for The Codex (not this site, the actual book) says 'a man not yet born' will do the dirty deed.
One of the more solid theories offerred (first to voice it was Max VaM) to support that Soulblighter will be an ally was to point out parrallels between the Marathon series and Myth. The title of Marathon 2 was "Marathon 2 : Durandal" and Myth II's title is "Myth II : Soulblighter." In both these games, the character mentioned in the title was one of your primary foes in the first game. Durandal in M2 becomes an ally because he must, so perhaps the same will apply to MII (I'd like to take this opportunity to point out that Marathon 2 is "M2" and Myth II is "MII" :-)
Other discussions covered Alric and his role. In Myth:TFL, Alric was supposedly killed, yet an article says that he will be present in Myth II. Still, others tended to disagree -- what if the reference to 'King Alric's peace' (see below) did not imply that he was alive; it simply mentioned the peace that he had created by defeating Balor. It was also pointed out that at the end of Myth, when the Great Devoid is destroyed, a head which looks remarkably like Alric's flies past the maimed warrior and his zerk friend. Two possiblities were offerred -- 1. That it wasn't Alric, just another of the Nine or 2. That somehow Alric was able to survive even as a head, and reattached. Heck, Balor's head was quite the talkative one, wasn't he?
Then there were those who had theories of their own. Some took it further than the already unorthodox 3 sides (you, Soulblighter and the Myrkridia) and theorised there would be 4 sides present. One humorous idea was that Soulblighter trained a group of followers in his Oriental mad skillz so as to defeat Alric (this was brought on by the widely accepted theory that the wooden warriors were samurais).
While much more was lovingly included in the story page, I believe this summarizes the finer points for those of you who missed them. All very interesting, isn't it?
Myth II Story, Revealed! - May 31, 1998 - [Malory]
Well, at least some of it.
As first reported by VR, Gamecenter has posted a couple articles on Myth II. What they (VR) failed to mention, though, is that the folks over at Gamecenter seem to know what the storyline will be. To quote:
"Myth II's story revolves around the Fallen Lord
Soulblighter, who survived the last game and now
intends to regain his power. Alric must forge
dangerous alliances in order to defeat him, until a
terrifying new enemy enters the fray to cause even
more destruction and chaos."
And, from the second article:
The Myth II story picks up where The Fallen Lords
left off: Soulblighter escaped you at the end of
Myth, and now he's back to cause more chaos and
destruction. The Bungie guys hinted, however, that
things aren't as simple as they seem. Don't be
surprised if a third force enters the fray, forcing
you into some unholy alliances to survive. At this
early stage in the game's development, though, the
story is still evolving and not all the characters
have been finalized. We were shown four character
classes: Massive Nordic-like ogres; a warlock who
casts spells, including poisonous cloud dubbed
Cloudkill; a troop of fierce black-armored knights,
and Conan-style creature called Trog.
Ooh, a Trog! I've updated the Units page with this info. Now, back to our story...
Firstly, the two articles seem to contradict each other in that the first one states you must forge dangerous alliances to defeat Soulblighter, while the second says you must forge dangerous alliances to defeat this new enemy. I'm predicting the latter, as it makes more sense.
You can imagine my amazement when I realised that I may have been right in both my predictions of the story. ;-) My guess now is that, at the beginning, you are at war with Soulblighter and his armies. Some time during the game, however, the Myrkridia appear and bring destruction on the land. For both you and Soulblighter to survive, you must ally with him to defeat the Myrkridia.
The reason I doubted my Myrkridia theory at first was because of the new screenshots which all showed units which did not look at all like they could be the Myrkridia as they were all of a different race. This new theory, however, fits in nicely. Bungie is willing to reveal some of the Dark units, Soulblighter's, but is keeping the enemy that appears out of nowhere secret.
As well, in my chat with Freewill referred to below, he mentioned that he heard that the Stygian Knights & co. become allies.
Only time will tell who this "third force" is, though I predict it will be the Myrkridia. But we know, at least, that you are going to fight Soulblighter at first and that you are going to ally with him along the way. At least, that's what it looks like.
You can find the Gamecenter articles here and here.
Myth II Story, Reconsidered - May 29, 1998 - [Malory]
As each new screenshot and article comes in, I am beginning more and more to think that the simplest explanation for the plot of Myth II is probably the best. Let's consider the facts here.
Firstly, let us discuss the Myrkridia. Because of the phrase "dark and ancient evil springs forth from the past," many people, myself included, believed that the Myrkridia would be ressurected. This theory was based on several things which you can read below.
However, there are other things to consider now.
There are the new units, the Maul, the Warlock, the Stygian Knights and the archers. They are all, I believe, Dark units, yet none of them appear to be Myrkridia. The Myrkridia were a race of flesh-eaters, not a nationality or religion.
Next, we have the title, Myth II:Soulblighter. Why would SB's name be prominently displayed if he didn't play an extremely important role? He obviously does, though I am still trying to debate between him being an ally or an enemy. You would think, though, that if the Myrkridia returned, the game's title would be focused on that instead of Soulblighter. Furthermore, Satan reported from E3 that the title screen was a Raven, a symbol attributed to SB.
So, where does this leave us? The most basic thing I can think of is that Soulblighter returns after Myth:TFL and leads his armies against Alric's peaceful kingdom. The new Dark units could easily be part of the rabble that is Soulblighter's army. It seems to fit nicely into everything we've seen so far.
Yet More on 'Soulblighter is an Ally' - May 25, 1998 - [Malory]
Zoren(holley@itsnet.com) pointed out to me that our narrator himself opens the Codex and reads about the Myrkridia being ressurected. It is in the journal entry from Flight from Covenant:
"Against my better judgment, I opened the Codex last night to a random page and read about the life of a man not yet
born, who would resurrect the Myrkridia and visit horrors on the world without equal in history or myth. I believed
every word. I have resolved to destroy the thing before allowing it to become an instrument of the Dark."
It definetely makes sense now that the Myrkridia will return in Myth II.
However, the issue still remains about Soublighter being an ally of the Light. The passage "a man not yet born" really got me going. This could mean one of two things. It could have the literal meaning of a man not yet born, or it could refer to Soulblighter. Soulblighter, as we know from Myth 1, is also referred to as Twice Born. So, could this be Soulblighter's rebirth? If it is, then he certainly isn't an ally...
This, however, can be countered as Soulblighter is known as Twice Born because he was once one of Connacht's generals who found a way to achieve immortality. This was his second birth as the evil Soulblighter.
All we can do is speculate about Soulblighter's role for now, but I believe that the Myrkridia will definetely be involved in Myth II.
More on 'Soulblighter is an Ally' - May 24, 1998 - [Malory]
Well, since people seem to find my theory very interesting, I decided to think about it some more and I came up with further information to back it up.
Firstly, one of the complaints about Myth has always been that you couldn't play for both sides (i.e. Light and Dark). Other RTS games let you, such as Warcraft 2. Now, wouldn't it be interesting if you could be both Light and dark at the same time? You could control minions from Soulblighter's legions and your own Light units mixed together.
Also, just think of the possibilities for the plot! You would constantly be on guard from both the Myrkridia and of Soulblighter stabbing you in the back. Hmm.. and at the end of the game, when the Myrkridia have been defeated, if they are at all, would Soulblighter turn on you?
I was just reviewing the Screenshot of the Week and I noticed that it states "This shot shows the well-fortified gate of a keep you have to infiltrate." You have to infiltrate it? That means the archers on the wall and those strange wooden warriors are your enemies. Could they be the Myrkridia? Since we have absolutely no idea what the Myrkridia look like, it could very well be. Wouldn't be a surprise if they turned out to be almost human?
I'll add more information to this page as I get it.
My Analysis - Soulblighter is an Ally - May 23, 1998 - [Malory]
The first obvious indication of what the plot of Myth II is lies in the title: "Myth II : Soulblighter." Obviously, this tells us right away that Soulblighter will play a major role.
But what role? Bungie's Myth II Webpage gives us a few clues:
"Welcome to a world of dangerous alliances, where dark and ancient evil springs forth from the past, overshadowing even the menace of the Fallen. Welcome to Myth II: Soulblighter."
Could Soulblighter be that dark and ancient evil? In Myth 1, or rather Myth : The Fallen Lords, the title indicated the enemy, TFL. Logic says that this time Soulblighter is the enemy. Interesting, since Soulblighter was involved in the last game and cannot really be the force that "springs forth from the past."
My radical theory is that Soulblighter actually plays for the Light, but this remains to be seen. The term "radical alliances" sparks a sudden lightbulb in my mind. Could this refer to an alliance between the Light and Soulblighter? Aha, now we're getting somewhere.
When I first read "dark and ancient evil springs forth from the past" it reminded me of the Myrkridia, our friendly "race of flesh-eaters too horrible to describe to children," as the manual indicates. I'd like to quote from OGR to back up this theory:
"Though the land of Myth is rid of Balor and his fearsome legions, all is not right in the new order. As foretold in the first game, King Alric's peace is threatened by an unexpected enemy with a boundless appetite for destruction and this time it will take more than throwing a head in a hole to stop them."
An unexpected enemy with a boundless appetite for destruction? Unexpected would mean.. well, unexpected. One would think that Soulblighter and his armies would be expected. Could appetite somehow associate with flesh-eaters, the Myrkridia? Who knows...
Could Soulblighter and Alric form an alliance to defeat the Myrkridia? Sounds possible to me...
Besides the enemy in Myth II, we also know a little bit about our side. The exerpt from OGR's Myth Site also sheds some light on the matter. They refer to "King Alric's peace." Wasn't Alric killed in the original Myth? Well, apparently not, since he'll be leading the Light in Myth2.
