The Date Everyone Wants To Have – TERA’s Release Date Announced

We’ve spoken with them, convention after convention. We’ve talked about it in several of our Lore Cast episodes. We even went to them during PAX Prime ’11 to speak with them. Finally, after months of coverage, multiple interviews, and just side-line anticipation; we’re pleased to announce the date of TERA‘s release in North America: May 1st, 2012.

Here’s the official release statement from En Masse Entertainment, themselves:

SEATTLE – January 17, 2012 – En Masse Entertainment™, a publisher built by gamers, focused on delivering fun and innovative online games, announced today that its award-winning and highly anticipated action MMO title,TERA™, will launch on May 1, 2012. The upcoming release of TERA will be available in Standard and Collector’s Editions at retail and online stores. Marking a new era in gaming, TERA sets a new standard by delivering true action combat to players who want more than the stale and repetitive gameplay that exists in today’s MMOs.

The recipient of multiple industry honors and accolades, including “Best PC Game” and “Best MMO” at last year’s E3 expo, TERA is a new breed of online game that combines all the depth of a traditional MMO with the visceral gratification of an action game. In TERA, players must actively aim, dodge and block, as the game’s real-time combat system takes into account player position and skill, not stats alone.

Players begin by creating a character from seven races and eight classes as they join in an alliance to save the world from bloodthirsty armies of monsters who threaten to destroy the very gods who hold their world together. TERA also introduces a revolutionary political system in which players wield power in their province based on their in-game political prowess or player versus player combat skill.

This excites all of us here at Lore Hound, seemingly to especially light Beararms’ fire, because he’s been waiting for this information since he played it during PAX Prime last year.

Speaking of PAX Prime ’11, here’s our latest interview with Brian Knox, Senior Producer of TERA:

You can even see our first interview with David Noonan, Lead Writer of TERA, way back at PAX Prime 2010 here.

As the development cycle rotates into Beta testing for TERA, we will give more coverage however we can.

Here’s the official release trailer, and check out the screenshot gallery afterwards: