BETA TEST FOR ARCANUM COMING THIS SEPTEMBER

Sierra Studios and Troika Games today announced a public beta program for their upcoming role-playing game Arcanum: Of Steamworks & Magick Obscura. The public beta will begin in September, and will give gamers access to some of the 19 major environments within the land of Arcanum, along with scores of dungeons and quests to explore. Testers will also be given a private online forum on which to discuss the game with the developers, give feedback and suggestions, and report bugs.

To fully incorporate feedback from the beta program, Arcanum will be released in February of 2001. In addition, Sierra and Troika will release a playable demo of the game this winter.

More information about Arcanum can be found at www.arcanum1.com Arcanum is the first game to come from the development house Troika Games, LLC, started by former Fallout(r) team members Tim Cain, Leonard Boyarsky, and Jason Anderson. The experienced Arcanum development team reunites many of the original development team from the critically acclaimed Fallout(r) and Fallout 2(r) RPGs.

Arcanum creates a compelling new world where magic and technology coexist in an uneasy balance. As Arcanum opens, the mechanical age has only recently arrived in this ancient land where Humans, Elves, Dwarves, Orcs and other races have learned to coexist in the new sprawling industrialized cities. But this radical shift from magic to technology has created a potentially explosive situation. While the townspeople and other thinkers begin mass production of light bulbs, batteries, eyeglasses and guns, the Mages grow leery. This tightly-wound setting is the starting point from which the character must set out on his quest. Arcanum allows gamers to assume the role of multiple pre-existing characters or create their own, and provides many paths to explore the game world, ensuring the highest degree of replayability. Meanwhile, the multiplayer component extends the life of the game and appeals to a large fan base that enjoys cooperative and competitive play.

Sierra On-Line, Inc. is one of the original developers and largest worldwide publishers of interactive entertainment and productivity software. Sierra is a division of Havas Interactive, a global leader in interactive content, and is one of the world's largest publishers of education, entertainment and home productivity software. Its divisions, Blizzard Entertainment(r), Coktel, Knowledge Adventure(r), Sierra(tm) and Flipside.com(tm) are famous for releasing critically acclaimed and award winning titles. Havas has operations in the US and in Europe and is a subsidiary of the French publishing house Havas, part of Vivendi Communications.

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