Nexon Europe Limited, the European branch of top free-to-play publisher Nexon recently announced that they plan on launching ‘Combat Arms Europe’ via a closed beta test starting in late October of this year.

Combat Arms is a multi-player first person shooter that has already received praise far and wide, and features non-stop action in various battlefields where players engage enemies in different game modes.  Not just your typical FPS, Combat Arms takes the genre to a new level by allowing for massive character customizations, as well as a weapon modification system.  This modification tool allows players to attach various enhancements to their weapon(s) of choice including, scopes, silencers, and extra ammo.  Combat Arms also features a unique backpack system which allows players to combine various sets of weapons, thereby creating their own customized bringer of death.

My own personal experience with Combat Arms matches up with company jargon – it is rather easy to pick up and learn the basic and more advanced controls, thereby allowing just about anyone to have a fair chance at fragging goodness.  Racking up some in-game spendable cash is easily obtainable, but also providing a decent challenge.  Experience points and cash are handed out based on the number of victories and kills shots made.  Once accumulated, these cash points allow players to rank up and acquire mounts and new weapons and equipment.  As with most MMO’s, Combat Arms features a full clan system, allowing players to recruit, manage, and communicate with other clan members.

“The FPS genre is traditionally an area for hardcore gamers with a steep learning curve, but Combat Arms takes it to another level, offering a low barrier of entry with its free-to-play offering and low system requirements,” says Sung-Jin Kim, Manager of Europe Business Team at Nexon. “Yet, the sophisticated graphics and in-depth gameplay mechanics do not fall behind the FPS titles that are out in the market, and can therefore accommodate beginners as well as hardcore gamers at the same time. The response to Combat Arms in the North American region was huge, and we have experienced a great demand from the European audience to set up a service for Europe. Now we are happy that we are just about to bring the title to the European continent, starting with the closed beta in late October”.

Nexon’s Combat Arms is free-to-play and financed via various cosmetic microtransactions.  If you’re living in North America, or don’t mind a bit of lag with your frag, you can pick up the combat arms client at: http://combatarms.nexon.net/.  The client is currently available only to PC users, but runs just fine in either Parallels or VMWare on Mac.

While most of Nexon’s titles focus around ‘fun’ and ‘play’ offering a first person shooter is certainly a great way for Nexon to expand it’s portfolio and start bringing in a completely different type of gamer.  Response thus far as been mostly positive, from an often skeptical target audience.