Paradox Interactive today officially announced Salem, a free-to-play Massively Multiplayer Online (MMO) game based in the harsh world of colonial Salem. The game focuses on crafting and player colonies as players discover the new world in a sandbox like environment. The game is being developed by the team at Seatribe and is scheduled to go live in 2011 on the Paradox Connect platform.

Salem has already garnered a lot of interest from the gaming community since it was previewed behind closed doors to members of the media in late January. Known for its controversial permanent death feature, an essential game mechanic that introduces risk as players progress in the new world, Salem is a fresh twist on the MMO genre giving players control of their towns in the game and introducing frontier justice in the open Player-versus-Player (PvP) environment.

"Salem is a free-to-play MMO game that is going to add something new to the genre with the concept of generations rather than just a single character through the game," said Tom Söderlund, Project Lead for Paradox Connect. "If your character is killed in the game, and believe me it can be dangerous in Salem, their descendent has the ability to pick up where your character left off. The concept of revenge and towns policing themselves and even sanctioning hits on griefers is going to be a really compelling aspect. We know we’ll see some interesting things when the community finally has a chance to play Salem later this year."

View the developer interview here.