SCOOP! E3 News: SyFy/Trion Worlds To Reveal Defiance, Crossover MMOG/Television Series (VIDEO/PHOTOS)

We want to give a big thanks to our good friend and fellow SciFi aficionado, Mike Willick of Rochester, New York for bringing this to our attention.

Next week, at E3 in Los Angeles, SyFy and Trion Worlds, Inc. will reveal the world’s first Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG)/live-action scripted television series, Defiance.  The best way we can think of to explain this is like this:  consider that a new Star Trek series debuted at the same time Star Trek Online debuted and that everything that happens in the storyline of the game is part of the storyline in the series as well and the characters crossover between both the game and the series.  This is a real-time, interactive universe and each medium is dependent on the other.  From The Hollywood Reporter:

Set on a future Earth, Defiance introduces players and Syfy viewers to a world ravaged by decades of conflict, where humans and aliens live together in a world the likes of which no one has seen. The game combines the frenetic action of a top-tier console shooter with the persistence, scale, and customization of an MMO, while its TV counterpart exudes the scope, story, and drama of a classic sci-fi epic. The game’s story will take place in the San Francisco bay area, while the TV series will be set just outside of St. Louis, MO. Because they exist in a single universe, the show and the game will influence and evolve each other over time, with actions in both mediums driving the overall story of Defiance.

THR has the full story here and we highly recommend you read it in order to truly grasp the full scope of the project and SyFy’s expansion of the brand with their SyFyGames division and why it’s such a big deal. We love THR and this is honestly one of the most comprehensive pieces they’ve ever done and we’d have to plagiarize the whole thing verbatim to do it justice and we’re not going to do that.

Here’s a great video that we uploaded to The Tastic’s new YouTube Channel from Trion Worlds explaining the whole concept and it includes a brief video clip of the new television series.  Also, if you scroll down, we’ve got a gallery of screenshots from the game as well.

We’re a little embarrassed about this as well because this news completely slipped past us not only when we initially read the press release from SyFy announcing their 2011 – 2012 schedule, but we also missed it when we published it on Friday.

As well, Syfy is partnering with game developer Trion Worldwide for a new entertainment franchise, Defiance, that will seamlessly pair a primetime series with an online video game, scheduled for 2011.

… And therein lies the problem with excessively long, press releases (this one coming in at 2,977 words); nobody wants to read the damned things and therefore we miss exciting news like this that gets buried between SyFy bragging about their increased audience numbers and something called Imagination Spotlight that we don’t care about either.  Seriously, they put their whole stinking upfront advertising event into this press release.  Not necessary and frankly, it’s annoying.

So, of course, we now eagerly await the press conference at E3 and when we have more details about a premiere/release date, we’ll let you know.

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