A flood of information is coming across the internet as Defiance begins to open their doors to the press. Today we get a preview of the game from Venturebeat with an interview with Nick Beliaeff, Trion Worlds Development Chief.

Like in other MMOs, you can create your own custom character, dubbed an Ark Hunter because you hunt after artifacts from the Ark. You can interact with thousands of people at t he same time and level up as you fight enemies and earn rewards. You can get a bunch of weapons, armor, and special abilities over time. And you can go on missions, deal with emergencies such as surprise attacks, and explore the world.

As you arrive, your job is to establish law in a Wild West frontier town with different factions of humans and aliens. In the town, there is a new gold rush as prospectors seek the energy of the Ark. Both human architecture and alien designs exists side by side.

I was able to grab an all-terrain vehicle and drive around in the Marin Headlands, north of the Golden Gate Bridge. The game was still in an early state as I could collide with another ATV without getting damaged. I stopped at one point and began shooting a bunch of monster crabs that came charging at me in waves. Then I saw a directional icon on the screen that signified a dynamic event. I drove the ATV over there and saw a bunch of humans attacking a gigantic alien monster. We had to shoot the thing’s underarms until its arms fell off and then vanquish it for good. It was a high-adrenaline game, but it wasn’t a particularly riveting or emotional battle.

For the video interview and a set of new screenshots follow the link below and check out the full article.

Source: Trion’s Defiance is one story told in an online game and SyFy TV show (hands-on preview)

Today we see an interesting development in the ongoing production of Defiance. With the cast finally, we get a little look into the making of Defiance. Here is the quote from the press release:

Trion Worlds and Syfy today released a short documentary video detailing the production of the upcoming transmedia event, Defiance™. Both a massive online shooter game from Trion, and a science fiction drama set to premier on Syfy next April, Defiance is a singular universe where gamers adventure as Ark Hunters in the new frontier of the San Francisco Bay Area, while viewers of the television show follow an immersive character driven drama set near St. Louis, MO each week. Together, the game and the show will combine and interact to provide the most immersive entertainment experience ever produced.

Inside the video we learn a lot about Defiance and it’s lore. The show’s main location, St. Louis, is actually a new city that was built above the ruins of the old. We finally learn and get a feel for the characters with their emotions and motivations. We also get to see some fantastic shots of the special effects from the show.

We grabbed some images from the video below to show off some of the special effects and different locals from the show.

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Continue reading to watch the video.

Visionary Production Team Assembles for Groundbreaking Venture Set to Launch in Spring 2013

NEW YORK, NY – April 25, 2012 – DefianceTM, the revolutionary transmedia event launching in Spring 2013, has commenced production on the series pilot in Toronto, ON. An unprecedented partnership between Syfy and Trion Worlds, Defiance is the first-ever convergence of television and Massive Multiplayer Online gaming, featuring an interconnected world and storylines that will co-exist on both platforms.

Defiance stars Grant Bowler (Nolan), Julie Benz (Amanda Rosewater), Stephanie Leonidas (Irisa), Tony Curran (Datak Tarr), Jaime Murray (Stahma Tarr), Graham Greene (Rafe McCawley), Mia Kirshner (Kenya) and Fionnula Flanagan (Nicky).

The cast also features Jesse Rath as Alak Tarr, Justin Rains as Quentin McCawley, Nicole Munoz as Christie McCawley, Dewshane Williams as Tommy and Peter MacNeill as Clancy.

The pilot is directed by Scott Stewart (Legion, Priest) and written/executive produced by Rockne O’Bannon (Farscape), Kevin Murphy (Desperate Housewives, Caprica; Hellcats) & Michael Taylor (Battlestar Galactica). Kevin Murphy serves as showrunner. Defiance is produced by Universal Cable Productions.

Other mavens rounding out the first-rate production team and lending their creative prowess to the ambitious project are visual effects supervisor Gary Hutzel (Battlestar Galactica, Caprica), alien language and culture consultant David J. Peterson (Game of Thrones), music supervisor Bear McCreary (The Walking Dead, Battlestar Galactica), writers David Weddle and Bradley Thompson (Falling Skies, Battlestar Galactica) and three-time Oscar-winning costume supervisor Colleen Atwood (Alice in Wonderland, Chicago, Memoirs of a Geisha, Edward Scissorhands).

Defiance is a visionary enterprise in collaboration with Trion Worlds, with the Syfy series and Trion’s multi-platform shooter MMO poised to debut simultaneously. Set in the near future, Defiance introduces a completely transformed planet Earth, inhabited by the human and alien survivors of a universal war. Forced to co-habitate, the disparate group struggles to build a new society among the devastation. The dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story.

About Syfy

Syfy is a media destination for imagination-based entertainment. With year round acclaimed original series, events, blockbuster movies, classic science fiction and fantasy programming, a dynamic Web site (www.Syfy.com ), and a portfolio of adjacent business (Syfy Ventures), Syfy is a passport to limitless possibilities. Originally launched in 1992 as SCI FI Channel, and currently in more than 98 million homes, Syfy is a network of NBCUniversal, one of the world’s leading media and entertainment companies. (Syfy. Imagine greater.)

About Universal Cable Productions

Universal Cable Productions creates innovative and critically acclaimed original scripted and digital content across multiple media platforms and outlets for domestic and international distribution. UCP produces “Covert Affairs,” “Fairly Legal,” “In Plain Sight,” “Psych,” “Royal Pains” and “Suits” for USA; “Alphas,” “Defiance,” “Eureka” and “Warehouse 13” for Syfy; and “I Just Want My Pants Back” for MTV. Universal Cable Productions is a division of NBCUniversal.

About Trion Worlds

Trion Worlds is the leading publisher and developer of premium games for the connected era. Powered by a breakthrough development and publishing platform, Trion is revolutionizing the way games are developed, played and sold. Trion’s world-class team delivers high-quality, dynamic and massively social games operated as live services across the biggest game genres and devices; including the critically acclaimed blockbuster, Rift™ and the highly-anticipated End of Nations™ and Defiance™. Trion is headquartered in Redwood City, Calif., with offices in San Diego, Calif., Austin, Texas, and at Trion Worlds Europe in London, UK.

According to Deadline.com, we are finding out two more cast members for the Syfy show have been hired. Today we learn that Mia Kirshner and Fionnula Flanagan have joined the show. You may know Mia Kirshner from Vampire Diaries and Fionnula Flanagan is most recognizable as the mysterious Eloise Hawking from Lost.

Check out the first public view of Defiance gameplay.

From the Hollywood Reporter, we learn that Graham Green of Dances With Wolves fame joins the cast of SyFy’s upcoming TV show Defiance.

Greene will play Rafe McCawley, a self-made success who owns and operates the largest mine in the territory. His status as the richest and most powerful human in Defiance comes with a price, however, as he struggles to navigate both familial and political alliances in the new world.

Stay tuned for more information regarding Defiance!

Jaime Murray

Julie Benz

Stephanie Leonidas

Tony Curran

 
Trion announced today in a Press Release that Syfy has announced four new cast members for Defiance! We already heard about Julie Benz, but today we learn that Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran and Jaime Murray join the cast as well. For the press release and a bio on each actor please keep reading.

New York, New York – March 13, 2012 – Syfy has announced additional casting for its upcoming epic science fiction drama Defiance, inking Julie Benz, Stephanie Leonidas, Tony Curran and Jaime Murray to co-star in the first-ever series to unite television and MMO gaming. The pilot, slated to commence production this April in Toronto, is directed by Scott Stewart (Legion, Priest), and written/executive produced by Rockne O’Bannon (Farscape), Kevin Murphy (Desperate Housewives, Caprica; Hellcats) & Michael Taylor (Battlestar Galactica). Kevin Murphy serves as showrunner.

Defiance is a visionary enterprise in collaboration with Trion Worlds, with the Syfy series and Trion’s multi-platform shooter MMO poised to debut simultaneously. Set in the near future, Defiance introduces a completely transformed planet Earth, inhabited by the survivors of a universal war. Forced to co-habitate, the disparate group struggles to build a new society among the devastation. The dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe where their respective narratives will inform one another and evolve together into one overall story. Defiance is produced by Universal Cable Productions.

Benz portrays Amanda Rosewater, the idealistic mayor of a bustling mining boomtown, one of the world’s few oases of civility and inclusion. As the newly appointed mayor, she is determined to maintain peace in the community, an ambitious task in this deadly new world.

Leonidas plays Irisa, an exotically beautiful warrior who is part of an alien race called the Irathients. After Nolan (Bowler) killed her criminal father, he adopted the girl and raised her as his clever – and lethal – right-hand.

Curran will portray Datak Tarr, part of an elite alien race known as the Castithans. Datak grew up in the slums of his home planet, but despite being part of the under-privileged class, he schemed his way onto one of the alien arks, saving himself before his home planet was destroyed.

Murray potrays Datak’s beautiful and proper wife, Stahma, a high-ranking Castithan before her home planet ceased to exist. Clever, imaginative and darkly opportunistic, Stahma is perhaps more dangerous than her husband.

The four join New Zealand born actor Grant Bowler, who is well-known for the recurring role on Ugly Betty (2008) as Wilhelmina Slater’s love interest, Connor Owens, and for the role of Cooter, the leader of the werewolf biker gang in the HBO series True Blood (2010) and Captain Gault in ABC’s Lost (2008). Bowler plays Nolan, the new law keeper in the boomtown and former Marine who fought in the alien conflict. After losing his wife and child in the war, he becomes a wanderer in the dangerous new world, eventually joined by Irisa, a young Irathient he raises as his own and as his lone companion in the lawless badlands.

The versatile and dynamic Benz is known for her wide variety of film and television roles, in 2006 winning a Golden Satellite Award for Best Supporting TV Actress for her role as beloved ‘Rita Bennett’ on Showtime’s award-winning series Dexter. Last fall, Benz recurred on the CBS medical drama A Gifted Man, opposite Patrick Wilson and last spring starred in the ABC series No Ordinary Family, opposite Michael Chiklis. In 2010, she starred on ABC’s smash hit Desperate Housewives for a multi-episode arc as “Robin,” a stripper with a heart of gold and a master’s degree in education. Throughout her career, Benz has won the hearts of many devoted fans starring in an array of genre classics including Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Angel, and Roswell, as well as the Steven Spielberg-produced miniseries for Syfy (then SCI FI Channel), Taken. In addition, she has guest starred on many hit TV shows, among them Royal Pains, Supernatural, CSI and Law and Order. On the big screen, Benz starred in the Roadside Attractions film Answers to Nothing, opposite Dane Cook, which was released in December 2011. Benz also had a great turn with Jack Nicholson in As Good As It Gets and starred with Rose McGowan, Pam Grier, Judy Greer and Rebecca Gayheart in Jawbreaker, the first of many cult-hits that would soon follow.

British actress Leonidas is known for her many television appearances, most recently in Whitechapel, Eternal Law, and the BBC’s Dracula, as well as the award winning ITV film for television Wall of Silence. Stephanie made her film debut in Sally Potter’s Yes, followed by Ate de Jongh’s Fogbound. Other film credits include the lead role of Helena in David McKean’s Mirrormask, Luis Llosa’s feature film Feast of the Goat, Ben Sombogaart’s Crusade in Jeans: A March through Time, Luna and most recently Andrew Douglas’ U Want Me To Kill Him. Stephanie has also appeared on stage in the lead role of Dani in Marianne Elliott’s The Sugar Syndrome at the Royal Court, receiving rave reviews, and most recently portrayed Adela in Gadi Roll’s House of Bernarda Alba. She is repped by Thruline and ARG in the UK.

Born in Glasgow, Scotland, Curran rose to fame in the BBC series This Life. Since then, the actor has appeared in a number of major film and television roles including The Invisible Man, The League of Extraordinary Gentlemen and Guillermo de Toro’s Blade II. Curran is a graduate of the Royal Scottish Academy of Music and Drama.

Murray is an English-born actress best known for playing Stacie Monroe in the BBC series Hustle and Lila Tournay in season two of the Showtime series, Dexter. She has also had recurring roles as H.G. Wells in Syfy’s Warehouse 13, Gaia in the Starz series Spartacus: Gods in the Arena and Olivia Charles in The CW series Ringer.

We get some more information regarding the TV-Show portion of Defiance. We learn today that Julie Benz, former murder-victim on Showtime’s Dexter, joins the cast for Defiance on Syfy.

In 1996, Julie auditioned for the role of “Buffy” in the series “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” (1997), but lost out to Sarah Michelle Gellar. However, she was offered a small role as a vampire girl in which she did such a good job that her part was expanded to a few more episodes in playing the vampire “Darla”. With that, Julie Benz’s career had finally taken off. She reprised her role as “Darla” in the Buffy spin-off series “Angel” (1999) for two years and has had several small roles in various film productions. She also had a small, but memorable, role playing a receptionist in the movie As Good as It Gets (1997).

Even after her role on “Angel” (1999) wrapped up, Julie continued to find work on television in playing many guest staring roles in numerous popular TV shows from “CSI: Crime Scene Investigation” (2000), to “Supernatural” (2005), to playing the lead and supporting roles in various made-for-TV movies. Most recently, she landed another notable role on the TV-cable series “Dexter” (2006) playing “Rita”, a troubled divorcée and lover of the title character played by Michael C. Hall.

Defiance has been given a thirteen episode order and I’m being told that production is due to start within the next few months (probably April) in Toronto, Canada. Writers Tim Walsh and Craig Gore have also signed up to the project along with director Scott Stewart.

Along with this news we get some insight on how the show will start off:

Defiance opens up with a flashback scene, set in the present day, which is narrated by main character Jeb Nolan. Through the on-screen scenes and the narration the audience will learn exactly what happened to Earth. In the present (presumably 2012 or 2013), alien ships enter Earth’s atmosphere, these aliens (who prefer to be called Votans rather than aliens) are fleeing their own solar system which has been destroyed and have come to earth seeking a new home. Shortly after their arrival negotiations begin between the aliens and the government(s) of Earth. After six years of negotiation, no agreement has been reached and a war begins between the two sides. By this time, Jeb Nolan (now sixteen years old) has enlisted in the military to fight for his people against these invading aliens.

We also get some interesting news regarding some of the cast:

Jeb Nolan

Much of this role is already known, given that Grant Bowler has already been cast. A former Marine who lost his family in the war, Nolan is the self appointed lawman of Defiance. He was 10 years old when the Votans first arrived. Upon returning to St Louis after the war to find Defiance, he becomes the local lawman of the town as he feels it is his town and he has a duty to protect it.

Amanda

The Mayor of Defiance, the character has been described as being in her 40′s, Human and very sexy. A source likened her to the character of President Roslin from Battlestar Galactica

Datak

The right hand to Amanda, Datak’s role could be likened to that of White House Chief of Staff. He is married to Stahma

Stahma

Datak’s faithful wife, this role was described as being very Lady Macbeth. Stahma is not satisfied with Datak’s station in Defiance and feels he (and by extension, She) should have more power. She comes from old money and is very cunning and arrogant, with a sense of entitlement.

Check out the rest of the article and find out more on the plot of Defiance.

According to Deadline, Syfy has found it’s lead for the DEFIANCE TV show, Grant Bowler! It’s great to hear that things are moving along nicely with the TV show.

I’ve learned that Ugly Betty and True Blood alum Grant Bowler has been tapped as the lead in Syfy’s new original series Defiance. The project is a live-action drama, written/executive produced by Farscape creator Rockne S. O’Bannon, which was developed concurrently with an online video game by Trion. “Grant’s charismatic charm and his depth as an actor make him the perfect anchor as we build the ensemble for this sweeping adventure series,” said Syfy’s president of original content Mark Stern.

Trion Press Release after the break.

The announcement was made today by Mark Stern, President of Original Content, Syfy and Co-Head of Original Content for Universal Cable Productions, which is the studio for the project. “Grant’s charismatic charm and his depth as an actor make him the perfect anchor as we build the ensemble for this sweeping adventure series,” said Stern. “We’re very excited to have him join us on this incredible journey.”

The New Zealand born Bowler is well known for the recurring role on Ugly Betty (2008) as Wilhelmina Slater’s love interest, Connor Owens, and for the role of Cooter, the leader of the werewolf biker gang in the HBO series True Blood (2010) and Captain Gault in ABC’s Lost (2008). Bowler’s other notable roles include movies such as Atlas Shrugged (2011) and Killer Elite (2011). He will next be seen in indie movie, City of Gardens (2012). Bowler is represented by Don Buchwald & Associates / Fortitude in USA and Sue Barnett & Associates in Australia and managed by Untitled Entertainment.

Penned and executive produced by legendary sci-fi TV writer Rockne S. O’Bannon, (Warehouse 13, Alien Nation, seaQuest DSV and Farscape), Defiance will be directed by Scott Stewart (Legion, Priest). It is slated to commence production April 2012 in Toronto.

Set in the near future, Defiance introduces a world where humans and aliens must learn to live together on an exotic new Earth that has been transformed by alien terra-forming machines.

Bowler plays Jeb Nolan, the law keeper in a bustling frontier boomtown that is one of the new world’s few oases of civility and inclusion. Nolan is a former Marine who fought in the alien conflict and suffered the loss of his wife and child in the war. The trauma transformed him into a lone wanderer in the wilds of this new and dangerous world, bringing him to the town where his peacekeeping skills make him a valuable addition this new community.

The dramatic tapestry of the series and the intense action of the game will exist in a single universe, evolving together over time to tell an overall story that is more powerful together.