Before we get started, you should look up "wuxia" ("wu-sha") now if you're unfamiliar with the term, to save yourself some time later. The short version is that wuxia is a genre of Chinese fiction centered around martial arts, with heavy themes of honor and chivalry. While somewhat historical in nature, with the genre also comes more fantastical elements such as rooftop jumping, triple jumps (so fun), super-fast running across both land and water, and more.

I start this way because the best way to describe Perfect World's martial arts-infused MMORPG, Swordsman, is very much based within the wuxia genre. Perfect World wanted the experience to be as authentic as possible, so they took a few key steps to ensure it, starting by basing Swordsman's story on the works of famed Chinese novelist Louis Cha (more commonly known as Jin Yong). More than simply referencing the 90-year-old's work, the author served as an advisor for the script and assisted in writing duties. To make sure the actions that in-game characters perform are true to life, all character actions were motion captured from real martial artists. The last key component of this immersion is the developer's choice to retain the game's original Mandarin voice-overs for the extensive cutscenes that will tell the story of the game, with localized subtitles for each region in which the game is to be released. The game's producer explained to us that this was done to retain an air of authenticity that could get lost in a dub.

Swordsman starts off in a way that may seem familiar — your village is destroyed and the people slaughtered. Which is always fun. This causes your character to set out on a journey to join one of ten famed martial arts schools to train with and seek revenge. Before I get to the schools, character customization is worth some discussion. All MMOs offer character customization, though Swordsman looks to offer a larger amount of customization than many others. There are so many options for facial structure and features that Perfect World literally states that you can create characters with looks that range from "stunningly beautiful to powerful and ugly." Based on the demo I saw during E3, I can confirm that both of these are true. A randomize button is available in case you want to toss a coin or find an interesting base character to build from. Given the sheer number of options, it's nice that character appearances can not only be saved, but exported and shared with other players.

As I said, you'll be joining your choice of ten different martial arts schools in which to hone your skills, each one of which will specialize in different weapons and combat styles. Thus, your available skill trees will vary from school to school, as will your arsenal of combo attacks. In battle, you'll be able to switch between a variety of combat styles at will, seemingly enabling you to change from, say, a tank class to a healer class if you so desire. Combat is extremely skill-based, and it seems as if gear plays a minimal role in victory. Better gear will aid you in battle, of course, but movement, positioning, and good old-fashioned skill is what will win the day. Typical MMO roles are present here, though with some tweaks: tanks focus on holding a foe at bay, rather than simply grabbing its attention. Healers aren't meant to stand out of danger, but rather, armed with largely AoE (area of effect) healing spells centered on the character, are meant to run into battle to assist allies. Which sounds iffy on paper, though I suppose the idea is to make all character classes mobile and learn the importance of dodging.

Dodging and other special abilities deplete your character's stamina bar, and while special attacks have cooldowns, they're fairly short, encouraging you to string together several different attacks. The most powerful attacks are built up as you collect yellow orbs in the field, filling your rage meter. Hitting level ten rage allows you to perform a powerful area-based attack (that's quite stylish too!).

During the E3 demo, our group got to run through an instanced dungeon. While we were intentionally over-leveled for the encounters, it gave us a chance to get a feel for the fluid combat and flow of a dungeon. It seems like many dungeons offer optional treasures, each guarded by a likewise optional boss. Easy to skip, but if you really want what's in there, feel free to chop down that bamboo and battle your way to the goodie box. Dungeons, interestingly enough, can be tackled not only with a party of 4, but even solo. The rewards are said to be better while in a group, and the difficulty is seemingly tuned based on the number of players involved. Speaking of groups, no MMO is complete without a guild system. Guilds in Swordsman offer perks besides just having friends to play with — in addition to guilds having their own home base, you can rally to war with other guilds. Being in a guild will also entitle you to unique equipment only available to those in guilds. Guilds can be aligned with one of two factions — mercenaries or bandits — each of which will offer a different series of quests and mini-games.

If PVP is more your style, Swordsman has you covered, as it will be launching with four distinct PVP modes. So far, we only know of two: Battlefield and Arena. The former is a large-scale PVP battle with many players involved. Arena is a smaller-scale battle — think party versus party. Like the main PVE game, PVP is skill-based. Arena matches can even be set up in such a way that all players have equal stats so that it's literally only about skill. You can still wear your choice of gear in this setup, but it's purely there for cosmetic purposes.

Swordsman has been in closed beta for several weeks and should be available in open beta by the time you read this. If you're a fan of wuxia, martial arts, action-based combat, or just want a really pretty MMO set in the days of the Ming Dynasty, head over to playswordsman.com to register and see why over 80 million Chinese players have flocked to the title.