From the Toysit archive
Auto Assault
Auto Assault’s customized vehicles and mission-based online world, with an original paper expedition-design activity and its complete launch report.
The play at a glance
A vehicle as your character’s signature
Auto Assault imagined an online role-playing world built around vehicles. Its cover puts a rugged machine beneath three contrasting character portraits, and the original launch account describes players choosing characters and customizing chassis for their own fleets. The vehicle was part of the adventure’s identity as well as its action.
Characters, chassis and shared missions
The launch material describes a post-apocalyptic setting, three playable races and customizable vehicles. Players could undertake missions alone or together, craft items, and compete in arenas and contested outposts. These systems gave a vehicle two roles: something to personalize and something to take into the game’s challenges.
The box art helps picture that combination. Large wheels, an armored body and a prominent front assembly make the pictured vehicle look like a machine built for a rough fictional landscape. A reader might imagine the owner explaining every modification: what it carries, where it travels and which detail makes it recognizable from a distance. That imagined explanation is a way to explore design, rather than a list of the game’s actual upgrade options.
This is a historical service profile. NCsoft’s July 2, 2007 closure notice scheduled the end of service for August 31, 2007. The launch prices, subscription terms and veteran rewards in the original report below belong to that earlier period.
Try this: an expedition vehicle design bureau
Design a paper vehicle for a fictional supply trip. Start with a simple chassis outline and choose a destination: a hilltop weather station, a desert greenhouse or a harbor workshop. Add a cargo box, a scanner and lamps, giving each one a job in your story.
Make a vehicle passport with its name, destination and three annotations. A long roof box might carry rolled-up maps; a swiveling lamp might illuminate a sign at the station gate. Draw the cargo separately so someone else can check how it fits. The enjoyment is in making the machine’s purpose visible.
Now change the assignment. Perhaps the greenhouse needs taller plants delivered, or the harbor workshop has a narrow entrance. Sketch a revised version and circle one part you changed. Give the first and second versions different nicknames, then explain which destination suits each one.
This is an original Toysit drawing activity. The cargo, scanner, destinations and design revisions are your inventions, independent of the original game’s mechanics.
The historical record
Original Toysit coverage
The complete earlier product account and commentary are preserved below as historical coverage.
Massively multiplayer role playing genre with post-apocalyptic challenge, veteran rewards, and flat leveling to the max
Auto Assault launched commercial service in North America, Europe, and other markets worldwide. Auto Assault is the first massively multiplayer online (MMO) game set in a post-apocalyptic world featuring vehicle challenge on an epic scale and fully destructible environments.
Auto Assault is available at retailers in North America for $49.99. The Limited Edition, which includes a headset to utilize the game's voice chat system and a game soundtrack CD, will be available for $59.99. Both the standard and Limited editions of the game include the first month of online game play. After the first month, players will be charged a monthly subscription fee of $14.99. Sixty-day game time cards will also be available for $29.99.
In Auto Assault, players choose from three races and venture into a post-apocalyptic Earth wreaking havoc and vying for control over the few resources left. Players can design their characters and customize many different vehicle chassis to make their own unique fleet. Players may go on missions with others or on their own, craft unique items, and participate in player-versus-player challenges via the arena system and contested outposts.
Players are encouraged to interact with the game world by powering through buildings and leveling towns.
"Auto Assault gives players the best of action games, the best of role-playing games and a super-cool world to discover," said NCsoft's Robert Garriott.
A veteran rewards program, described on the website, has been established for players who subscribe to Auto Assault within the first thirty days of service.
Sources and editorial notes
NCsoft’s April 13, 2006 launch release was reviewed in a GameBanshee reproduction. A matching original manual was not recovered, so detailed driving controls and crafting recipes are omitted. NCsoft’s July 2, 2007 closure notice was recovered in the original site’s news script, preserved in a July 6, 2007 Internet Archive capture. It scheduled closure for August 31, 2007. No installation, private server or gameplay was tested.
- Original Toysit image — Existing same-site image reviewed and retained unchanged.
- NCsoft launch release, reproduced by GameBanshee — April 13, 2006 publisher press release reproduced by a third-party archive; reviewed for the broad vehicle, mission and crafting description.
- NCsoft: Important Notice, July 2, 2007 — archived original — Internet Archive capture of the official news script, July 6, 2007. Notice text read directly; it scheduled service closure for August 31, 2007. The linked artifact is script source, not an active game service.
- Original Toysit coverage — Complete historical account retained, including its original claims and wording.
Images and descriptions are retained as historical material. How Toysit covers toys.
Created for Toysit by Tabbloza — the artwork in our header.