Hegemony Is A New Voxel Sandbox MMORPG Built In Minecraft

Hegemony started out as a project tied to Minecraft and is now its own fully-fledged sandbox MMORPG, although it still keeps that voxel-y Minecraft feel. Intended to be an immersive "classic-styled MMORPG," the game is the handiwork of indie developer Envision Studios, which has been working on it for about four years.

Hegemony requires that players have an unmodified Minecraft client in order to work. Of course, that means that the game isn't exactly free-to-play if you don't own Minecraft, but everyone does by this point, right?

The game offers players most of the general features associated with classic MMOs -- trades to learn, combat tied to skill trees and weapons, and of course, a story. Thanks to its Minecraft base, the game also gives players a vast, open world to play in and makes full use of the Minecraft building mechanic.

While the game is free, the developers are looking to players to help finance some of the ongoing development, and have created a few donation tiers, one-time, and monthly. As expected, donating does come with rewards, including access to live testing at a later point.