This week Throne and Liberty, the Korean MMORPG that has been localized to Western regions by Amazon, was formally launched: a strategy with proven effectiveness, repeating the success of Lost Ark’s debut on Steam (2022) with another similar release that resulted in an initial peak of over 326,000 simultaneous players on Valve’s platform… on a weekday. One of the things that has caught my attention about this game is that those numbers more or less translate into its cities.
We are used to massive multiplayer games bringing together hundreds of people in peaceful cities that serve as social hubs: areas full of merchants and mission managers where one can stop to improve their character or do things on the other side of the screen while the game continues running. Throne and Liberty is no exception, of course, and during the first hours of the campaign you arrive at the huge space of Kastleton.
To give you an idea of how crowded Kastleton is, we must consider that it is the place where the game leaves you immediately after completing the tutorial; and that most campaign-related missions open there through different NPCs. It’s packed to the brim, and it also manages to render dozens of players in real-time with the Unreal Engine (even at the cost of your FPS).
Everything you see on stage, including the characters in the background, are players moving through Kastleton.
I don’t know about you, but I’ve always liked this bustling side of MMOs: it makes me feel like I’m part of something alive, more human than what we see in other games. And yet, a “problem” —maybe you don’t interpret it this way— that the genre has been dragging for years is how individualistic it has become. I mean, I see a lot of people there, but few interact with each other. Most messages in the chat are limited to looking for roles for a certain dungeon, recruiting allies for a clan, or similar.
20 years ago, jumping in front of someone and getting them to jump in response was fun. A “hey, I’m here and I see you!”
And still, Throne and Liberty allows you (like basically all its counterparts) to disable those social channels in favor of immersion. Function totally logical, mind you, and I would be the first to complain if it wasn’t present. But the reality is what it is: on the screen you have a massive congregation of people with similar interests who almost don’t talk to each other at all. Maybe you remember that time when one of the most fun things that could happen to you in a multiplayer game was to jump in front of someone and have that person jump as a response, but of course, I’m talking about twenty years ago.
From the era of Everquest, Runescape, or (this one I didn’t play) classic Neverwinter. In that pre-social media era, where MMOs were game and chat at the same time, it was easy to socialize because the anonymity factor was novel and being a game, everyone was united by the same stories and missions. There is still some of that in games like FF XIV and the infamous plaza of Limsa Lominsa, but it’s an isolated case: people gather specifically to replicate that kind of experience because around them, everything has become more individualistic.
Now, these games feel a bit more like open-world RPGs in the style of Final Fantasy XVI or Dragon’s Dogma 2: self-sufficient from start to finish. A cinematic story that makes it easy to disable communications and go all out to complete your objectives without paying much attention to the real people around you. It is true that at certain points you are forced to complete public events or dungeons, but you don’t really need to talk to anyone to check them off your task list.
Modern MMOs are a bit more like open-world RPGs with multiplayer
Is this a criticism? No, please, don’t take it as such. Throne and Liberty is pleasing to me, I think it is a highly recommended MMORPG. Until we start dissecting what its nature as a Korean free-to-play entails, at least. I just think that all genres evolve and this particular game has made me think that massive multiplayer games have lost some identity over time. Many people on the screen, but in the end what I’m doing has nothing to do with anyone else but myself or people who speak in code: LFG abyss tank.
If you have time, for pleasure, search on Youtube for some of those dissertations about old games to see how things have changed over time. The vanguard of the genre was much more social, for better and for worse. Personally, I think it has to do with how we use the internet in general. We have found so many ways to connect with others, that in the end the magic of interacting with a stranger through a game becomes irrelevant: perhaps that is also the reason why almost no one bothers to teabag in shooters anymore.
Impressions of Throne and Liberty
This is a question you can easily answer for yourself because Throne and Liberty is free-to-play and you can find it on the main platforms: PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X|S. I will also tell you with the same honesty that the review from 3DJuegos will take some time because these games are very long, constantly changing, and ultimately it’s best to offer you something interesting to read. But if you’re just looking for a quick exchange of opinions based on about 10 hours of gameplay, I’ll tell you that I’m enjoying this; but more because of the novelty factor than the design itself.
I’ll illustrate this with a quick and simple example: the character sheet of Throne and Liberty is a dedicated, comprehensive, interactive menu that is very nice, full of animations and illustrations for all weapons, which leaves other veterans of the genre like WoW or FF XIV in the dust; but those, with their simple windows overlapping the overworld, seem much more practical to me when consulting anything or making a change to my character. Less flashy, but equally functional (or better).
To level up your equipment, you have to spend materials and pray for luck.
Similarly, I have the feeling that the powerful visual aspect of Throne and Liberty and the satisfying feeling of exchanging blows with enemies enhance an experience that may become less enjoyable or potentially frustrating in the long run. You have a gacha system governing the growth of weapons, armor, and even your character’s abilities —this is, you spend the materials but the final results are subject to a random RNG factor— which is not very attractive to me; and so far I have not seen particularly charismatic characters in the story.
The character sheet of Throne and Liberty is a dedicated, comprehensive, interactive menu
It does, however, do well in things like giving you a lot of control when customizing the interface or informing you about certain things like in-game events or public events; it brings dynamism to navigation through the scenario thanks to its transformations into animals without any kind of casting time and it doesn’t hinder you when changing your character’s specializations, beyond the fact that you might have leveled up other things and the new ones are still low. I also think it’s important that it has no loading screens, and the few transitions it needs are elegantly done in the background and at high speed (e.g. opening a door to the outside from an enclosed environment).
Small big advances, in short, that paint something clearly more advanced than its competitors on the activity charts; although not everything is resolved with the same success. I suspect that in the long run the best experience will be in subscription-based MMOs, but hey: it’s still great content that you can try for free, and it’s worth it.
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