By Adam Hartley

The main thing that puts me off massively multiplayer online gaming is elves.

This is not to knock anybody who gets their kicks from living huge swathes of their lives in the polished fantasy worlds of World of Warcraft or Lord of the Rings Online: Shadows of Angmar, it's more a personal matter of taste. As a kid I used to love reading Tolkien, but as an adult the movies and games derived from his fantastical imagination tend to leave me somewhat cold.

For this reason more than any other, I was genuinely thrilled to see Sony Online Entertainment’s upcoming spy-themed, first person shooter MMO, The Agency, due for release on the PC and PS3 in 2008. It's mainly because, as an adult, I’ve still not outgrown Ian Fleming’s world of James Bond. Spies are cool, glamorous and sexy. Elves are none of these things.

In The Agency players will choose a character from one of two factions - UNITE or paraGON. UNITE is formed of suave, martini-sipping James-Bond types using flashy high-end spy-tech, while paraGON is a collection of Jack Daniels slurping mercenaries making use of whatever is to hand. The two agencies are not opposed to each other or fighting each other, but operate together as ‘friendly rivals’.

The traditional (and, in my opinion, tedious) class system of a traditional MMO game has also been radically rethought for The Agency with a far more user-friendly 'You are what you wear' system deployed. Depending on what equipment you are sporting, you could be a combat, support, or stealth specialist. Easy and fun! Not complicated and dull. See what SOE did there?

The Agency is also being touted as, first and foremost, a shooter – albeit one set in the persistent world of a massively multiplayer online game – and as such is bound to appeal to the hordes of FPS and spy-genre fans out there who have perhaps never before considered getting stuck into an MMO. At least, this is SOE’s hope for the game and I, for one, think they just might be on to something here…

Check back soon for our full preview of The Agency and interview with SOE Seattle’s studio manager, Matt Wilson. For now, feast your eyes on the latest screens and art from the game right here.
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