According to a report by the Korean website Money Today, NCSoft's Throne and Liberty MMORPG could be published by Amazon Games in North America and Europe. According to the source of the report, discussions between the two companies are still ongoing, but the probability of collaboration for Throne and Liberty is deemed to be high.
This wouldn't be the first time Amazon Games has struck an agreement with a South Korean developer to publish an MMO in Western countries. It already happened with Smilegate's Lost Ark, which launched on Steam last February and racked up some incredible player numbers, including the #2 place on Steam's all-time concurrent peak chart and the impressive milestone of 20 million global players. Granted, some of those were bots that have since been banned, but Lost Ark remains even now in the top #5 most played games on Steam.
Throne and Liberty was unveiled by NCSoft back in March. The MMO was originally meant to be Lineage Eternal, the next chapter in the company's most prized IP, but the developers eventually decided to make it a separate franchise altogether.
Not too much is known about the game, other than the studio's intention to create challenging PvE content such as raid-like boss fights. The developers opened a bit more about a slew of next-generation features that should make the game feel more alive, though.
For example, there have been various attempts to make field play less monotonous. Even in the same area, the terrain may change as the weather changes, the flow of battle may change depending on the direction of the wind, and you may encounter new mobs over time. Hunting methods and purposes are constantly changing accordingly. The field, the environment, and the player, these three factors influence each other, and we put a lot of effort into making the play come out in different ways, even in the same area.
In Throne and Liberty, environmental factors such as day and night, rain, and wind change every moment. For example, when shooting a bow, the direction and strength of the wind affect the range, and if you use lightning-type magic when it rains, a skill that only attacks a single target when it is sunny is changed to a wide-area skill. There are also things that affect the terrain. In siege warfare, there are several ways to infiltrate the castle, including through the castle's underground sewers. However, when it rains, these places can fill with water and turn into an unusable route.
Conversely, the player can also influence the environment. If certain conditions are met, the player can change the environment to the desired shape when necessary, such as causing a solar eclipse or rainstorm.
The game was scheduled to launch this year on PC and later on consoles, too, though the aforementioned report surmises a delay into 2023 is possible.
About the author: With over two decades of experience in gaming journalism, Alessio Palumbo has led the gaming vertical at Wccftech since August 2015. He started working at a young age for Italian websites like Everyeye.it, Gamestar.it, Nextgame.it, and Multiplayer.it before kickstarting the indie English-language publication Worlds Factory as its founder and Editor in Chief. In the last decade, he has coordinated the overall output of Wccftech's gaming section, managed PR relations, assigned reviews, produced daily news coverage, edited gaming content as needed, and delivered game reviews. Arguably, his trademark content is the long series of exclusive developer interviews that have been cited by Wikipedia and by the biggest news media and gaming publications. His passion for technology also makes him knowledgeable when it comes to gaming hardware and tech. His favorite genres include RPGs, MMORPGs, and action/adventure games.
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