ELYON hasn’t been having a very successful last few months after launching to surprisingly low concurrent player numbers. Despite its poor reception and ever-decling population (will ELYON be shutting down soon?) Kakao went ahead and published a large update last week that included the brand new Archer class. This should be cause for celebration – new content, new players… except there weren’t really any.

While the update brought with it a plethora of new shinies, (I urge you to navigate on over to the official announcement page yourself if you’re interested in everything introduced with the update,) the playerbase saw an increase of… well to put the increase in players into perspective, a week after the update, the game is still declining further than the previous week. Meaning the update specifically.. achieved absolutely nothing.

Players, for whatever reason, just didn’t seem at all interested. Which honestly isn’t a surprise, as that’s been the general consensus of the entire MMO thus far.

This is what happens when an MMO loses its playerbase. This is what happens when an MMO is about to shut down. Merging all of their servers together in an attempt to consolidate a severely depleted playerbase that no longer shows any interest in the game.
And to think: Players genuinely thought this was going to be a long-term sustainable MMO with untapped potential. I’m sure there’s looks of utter shock and bewilderment on the faces of the remaining players. Not that Kakao probably cares!

Now whenever I do a video on an MMO where I go on to discuss its dwindling population, I get met with quite a bit of criticism.
Comments like “This guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, our game isn’t dead,” or “Typical Youtuber doesn’t even play the game but thinks he can talk about the state of it.”
And you know what? I might not be able to discuss the state the economy is in. I might not be capable of discerning whether or not the playerbase is toxic or friendly at present. But when a publisher like Kakao make their live concurrent player statistics public, you best bet I can discuss the state the population is in.
And you know what dictates whether an MMO is dead or not? The current number of players logging in regularly to play it.

Looking at population statistics, you’ll notice the 24-hour peak sitting at a mere 1,600. This game isn’t even 3 months old yet – and it’s completely free to play. That is a substantial decline in terms of population, given that the game launched to 15,000 concurrent players initially.
Let’s take a look at Elyon’s direct competition: Disregarding New World, we have PSO2 New Genesis, Swords of Legends Online and Bless Unleashed, all which launched within a few months of it.
PSO2 New Genesis is split between multiple platforms, but Steam alone records 4,000 concurrent players today, with a peak of 60,000 players when it released.
That’s a sizable reduction in active players as well, but significantly more if you combine the Microsoft Store with Steam and the Epic Games Store.
Swords of Legends Online launched 6 months ago as a buy to play MMO – the only premium title included here, to 19,000 concurrent players, and is still managing a 700 player peak. This is actually pretty atrocious, but given it’s already been a half year, I guess it stands to reason. I’d expect ELYON to see an even steeper decline by that point.
And Bless Unleashed, which launched 5 months ago to 76,000 players is currently peaking at 5,000 active concurrent players. Not as high as PSO2 New Genesis, and arguably an even larger drop-off but every game with the exception of SOLO has out-performed ELYON.

As noted, Kakao published a blog post on their website discussing the upcoming server merges for their new MMO. All of the European servers are being merged into a single server, as are the North American servers.
Kakao noted that these merges are “something a lot of players are looking forward to,” and honestly, while that may be true due to the sheer lack of players left to participate in any form of content with, the unfortunate reality of the situation is that this is the final nail in the coffin for the game.
When a developer or publisher confirm their game has no players left to warrant more than a single server, they’re admitting to the fact that they understand there’s nothing they can do to save their game, and would rather consolidate every player onto a single server in an attempt to save money and reinforce spending.

This is a sad state to see the game in. Especially given how large a fan of Ascent: Infinite Realm I was. A:IR was a fascinating MMO. It took place predominantly within the skies.
You were required to make use of your aerial mounts. You flew from archipelago to archipelago, with each land mass having its own selection of monsters and quests.
There was a surplus of PvP everywhere, fully mounted combat, a gorgeous steampunk setting. Yet ELYON was such a departure from what A:IR was supposed to be that it ended up turning into something unrecognizeable. A basic Beatrice, if you would. The epitome–the very definition of mediocre.

At this juncture, there is nothing that can save ELYON.
ELYON transitioned from a buy to play MMO to a free to play MMO because players showed little interest in the title and they came to the realization that if they wanted to see any type of return on their long-term investment, they needed to allow as many players access as possible.
But merging all of their servers together 2 months after launching is proof of how poorly received this game was, and how short its lifespan will be.
This is the next Bless Online, the next Astellia Online. I rarely say an “MMO is dead,” but if this isn’t the very proof you need to justify that claim, then I don’t know what is.

It’s unfortunate to see how this ended, but really doesn’t come as too large of a surprise.
Sorry it didn’t work out ELYON, hopefully Bluehole and Kakao have better luck with their next title.

Alright, I know what you guys are thinking. “Elyon is just another cheap, Korean pay to win piece of trash.”
And in all honesty, to some people it very well might be. This is an MMO that targets a very specific demographic of players. The same group that enjoyed games like Black Desert, Bless and even Astellia Online. Which, granted, were all Korean MMOs. So I guess it stands to reason.

Now welcome back to another episode of “Is it worth playing” – where we sift through every MMORPG available right now in an attempt to find the best MMORPG in 2021. Today, we’re taking a look at the newest free to play MMORPG. It’s so new, in fact, that it just launched yesterday.
We spent the 3 days prior participating in the headstart, however, so we got much further through the game than players that opted out of purchasing the game to get in early.

Elyon has quite the troubled history. It originally went under the moniker “Ascent: Infinite Realm” and was developed as an aerial MMO, allowing navigation through the skies with full aerial combat, aerial mounts and exploration taking place between a large number of different archipelagos floating atop the world.
After years in development hell, they rebranded and overhauled their game from a tab-target aerial MMO to a traditional action title set on the ground. This upset some players as it lost its unique aesthetic that drew players to it initially.
Nevertheless, after changing direction, after changing from a free MMO to a premium MMO then back to a free MMO, Elyon finally launched.

First and foremost, Elyon is built using Unreal Engine 3. Not Unreal Engine 4 or 5, but 3. After playing this game for over 40 hours total including the Beta tests, I can say with 100% certainty that maintaining an FPS where the game feels and plays smoothly is nigh-impossible.
Don’t get me wrong – it isn’t unoptimized to a point where you can’t enjoy yourself. Quite the contrary: It’s optimized pretty well. But you can’t go more than a couple minutes without seeing a spike in FPS, which is very noticeable.
Even though Elyon is built using Unreal Engine 3, the game itself is beautiful. Sure, it might lack the graphical fidelity of something like Black Desert, but this look and feels like an updated amalgamation of both TERA and ArcheAge, 2 games that were – in their prime – some of the most fun I, and a lot of other players ever had.
There’s a lot in the way of customization options. You can create some stunning looking characters. The character models look fantastic, the character animations look decent and special abilities all look great.
Sure, zooming in will reveal some horrid looking textures, but that’s the case for a lot of games.

And while the graphics are important to a lot of players, what’s even more important is the gameplay. Yes, if combat is poor, and combat is what you’ll be spending the majority of your time doing, then you won’t have any incentive – any motivation to play.
Thankfully, combat is where Elyon really shines. Elyon utilizes an action combat system. I’ve noticed that on specific melee classes, like the Slayer in specific, the combat felt very slow, very clunky and very unintuitive, but on classes like the Elementalist, which you guys should know I’d choose, I couldn’t be having more fun.
Abilities are large, they’re powerful, they’re impactful. They provide beneficial crowd control effects like slows, stuns and at times entire immobilization. At least as the Frost Elementalist.
I specced into an AoE ice build as I’m lazy, didn’t want to research another build, and ultimately feel like the CC with ice was beneficial to my team in open-world PvP as it provided my team opportunities to efficiently engage enemies and prevent their escape.
There are builds in the game, which allows for deeper customization of your character and class. As noted, I went ice but there are fire builds that have a substantially higher damage output than the build I’m using but this provides players a lot of opportunity to craft their class how they want.
This type of depth is something I feel is missing from a lot of MMOs. Sure, cookie cutter builds will always be the go-to, but it doesn’t have to be the case.

Speaking of PvP, yes there is PvP present within the game. I’ve covered this before, but after having put as much time as I have into the game, I can say with utmost certainty… that PvP can be dumb. Both open-world PvP and instanced.
I was tabbed out of the game while showing people something on stream when someone attacked me out in the open world. Thankfully a friend of ours who was running to meet me there saw me getting attacked and began to attack the assailant.
I tabbed back in to see what was going on, and started attacking them back. They immediately began to run away. Yup. Turned tail and ran away. As soon as they saw this wasn’t a 100% guaranteed win, they ran away like the childish coward they were.
These are the types of players that gank and camp lowbies. An example of the types of players you’ll no doubt encounter. Not all of them, granted, but of all the open-world PvP I participated in, over 70% of the encounters resulted in the enemy running away as soon as they saw they couldn’t win.
Which isn’t an issue – you run if you don’t want to die, that’s understandable. But not if you begin the altercation with the thought that you’ll be able to secure an easy kill. If you start it, don’t wuss out and run away. Finish it. I always did, even if I were 1v3ing.
Now I did encounter some players that stood there and fought, but it was just so uncommon and disappointing to see.
The instanced 3v3 we participated in was equally as bad. We ran several different matches. In one match, we began and instantly the match was over as all 3 players had given up and left.
In another match, 2 of the enemies had given up and left, leaving a single player to engage us 3v1.
And then in another absurd match, we were paired, at level 36, against a level 46 player that 1-shot all 3 of us. This goes to show me there is absolutely no balancing for instanced PvP at present. Any player, of any level, can simply queue for 3v3 and absolutely destroy you and your entire team.
At least from what I’d experienced. Which left a very sour taste in our mouths.

Elyon provides a traditional PvE experience. You have instanced PvE content to run either by yourself or with a group of players.
But there is a lot of grind present within this game. An unnatural amount of grind. Which is why I said if you enjoyed Black Desert, you’d probably enjoy this.
Leveling involves moving from quest NPC to quest NPC, running out to kill a few monsters, then running a few blue daily quests that consist of killing 50, maybe 100 of the same monster to get the required XP to level.
The grind becomes tedious very fast. I don’t mind killing monsters. But I don’t want to have to kill the same group of monsters hundreds of times just so I can continue with the story and level.
I spent enough of my life grinding Eureka in Final Fantasy XIV. If I wanted to relive that, I would’ve just pulled out my relic weapon. That is more than enough PTSD.

Finally, the cash shop.. seemed a little concerning from what I saw. I did a dedicated video on the cash shop though that I urge you to go and check if you’re interested in seeing what it actually has for sale.
But suffice it to say, while there are plenty of great cosmetic items.. the Luminus look alarmingly pay to win.

✔️ Elyon is a beautiful MMORPG with some great looking open-world environments.

✔️ The combat is very fast, very flashy and depending on your class, a lot of fun to play.

✔️ There’s a lot of open-world content to do that promotes playing with other players.

✔️ It’s entirely free to play, which means you lose nothing other than some time by trying it.

❎ Yet as it’s a free title it will likely become pay to win very fast.

❎ The combat, while great for some classes like Elementalist, also feels atrocius for certain others.

❎ The open-world PvP is a massive zerg and gank-fest, with trolls around every corner.

❎ Instanced PvP was overwhelmingly unbalanced.

❎ The narrative was underwhelming and too short.

❎ The game itself is far too grindy, often having players repeatedly farm the same monster hundreds of times.

❎ I hate RNG when upgrading. Especially when it destroys your gear upon failure.

❎ The cash shop, and more specifically the Luminus system is concerning. I covered this in a dedicated video uploaded earlier this week if you’re interested in that.

❎ The game is free to play, which means it lacks the polish of a premium title.

But that was pretty much my experience in Elyon. There’s a narrative, although it’s pretty short.
You level by moving from hub to hub, killing a plethora of different monsters to progress through the game. It’s very grindy, but thankfully – at least depending on the class you choose, the gameplay can be a lot of fun.
You spend a lot of the game looking over your shoulder to see if someone will gank you. Grouping monsters together to cut through as many as you can to get the grind over with as fast as possible.
I haven’t hit endgame, and likely won’t as the leveling gets progressively slower as you continue to obtain higher levels, but honestly? I’ve been having fun.
Sure, this game has its faults. It does. But you know what? It’s free, and there are going to be hundreds of thousands of players playing this in its first month.
Yeah, it might end up pay to win. It might end up absolute garbage. But guess what? It doesn’t cost anything to jump into and play. To enjoy what little the game might offer you while waiting for Endwalker next month. And Lost Ark next year.

The second Closed Beta for Elyon just finished, and with the game launching next month on September 29th, I thought I’d detail my experience through both the Beta tests. Discuss things I think are worth noting before investing money into purchasing the game. And mention what I believe Elyon does right.

Let me start off by saying that I do not think Elyon should be a buy-to-play MMO. I’ve seen people compare this to both Bless Unleashed, which launched recently, and New World, which is launching around the same time.
And while the combat and graphics are definitely an improvement over Bless, and I daresay the combat is better than both Swords of Legends and New World as well, I don’t think, at its core, this is the better game of the aforementioned titles.
I think Elyon would work better as a free title. It definitely doesn’t feel like a premium title, and I’m afraid that is going to be reflected in its sales and subsequently its playerbase.

Don’t get me wrong; Elyon isn’t in any way a bad game. On the contrary, it’s actually pretty fun from what I’ve played. But I wouldn’t pay $40 to play it. Just like I wouldn’t pay $40 to play FlyFF or Secret World Legends, even though I’ve had fun with both titles in the past.

Elyon features a large, open world. There are no loading screens separating any of it. What you see, you can reach. You can move without limitation, with the exception being the levels of the monsters in each area.
While open worlds can often feel barren, empty, void of content and purpose, Elyon attempts to remedy this by providing a slew of different blue side-quests quests that are entirely unrealated to the typical yellow side-quests, sending players all over the world in an attempt to complete them.
However, I did note that these were typically “kill 50 to 100 of the same monster,” with monsters being heavily consolidated into groups. These were essentially required if you wanted to level, as – at least from my experience – I repeatedly hit walls that prevented me from progressing with the story.
It didn’t matter than I did every main quest, every yellow side-quest I could. I would always hit a point where I needed to accept additional kill quests to continue. Yes, could pop an XP potion or grind dungeons, but leveling should be seamless. Uninterrupted.
It should be an experience you can tackle at your own pace. You shouldn’t be required to stop and grind content that is absolutely irrelevent to the leveling process. This made leveling much more of an arduous process than I would have otherwise liked.

Speaking of leveling, a large part of MMOs – at least to me, is the PvE experience. And PvE typically involves dungeons and raids.
Dungeons in Elyon, all the way up to level approximately 40 if my memory serves, are entirely solo, meaning you’re not required to group up with other players until that point. Level 40. That’s a large percentage of the game already gone – already experienced by that point.
As an MMO, if you’re actively discouraging players from participating in content together, if you’re purposefully forcing them apart… you’re losing out on, you’re missing a core facet of what makes your game an MMO. And that was highly disappointing for us.
Our group wanted to do content together, and other than grinding in the overworld, we just.. couldn’t. There was no purpose to having a group, other than to make killing monsters a little faster.

Now, thankfully the action combat cushions the impact of being required to grind a little due to not only how fast it can be at times, but also by how impressive the special effects look overall.
This is the single area I believe Elyon really excels. While other games like SOLO provide a better leveling experience, and New World provide a better PvE experience, Elyon really captures the “action combat” feeling better than any other title launching this year.
Thus far, Mrs Stix and I have tested the Elementalist, Mystic and Slayer classes. As a Mage main, the Elementalist felt absolutely fantastic. Being given the freedom to aim your abilities is a completely different experience in a video game.
I love tab-target games, don’t get me wrong, but the difficulty–the challenge of successfully landing your attacks provides a different type of satisfaction.
This was.. less so the case when we played the new Slayer class, unfortunately, as I feel as though while the Mage classes were incredibly fun, the melee – or at the very least the Slayer felt slower and significantly clunkier.
Watching my Slayer fumble her way around enemies, with me attempting to repeatedly land hits that just flung me right past them got old. Fast. I’ve found this very same issue in Vindictus recently as well with the new Tessa character.
Maybe I’m just not that good at melee classes in action MMOs, I dunno. But this is one of the reasons I prefer Mages. That, and mobility. I always feel as though you’re highly immobile when playing melee.

Something you should all know about Elyon, though, is that while the combat is a lot of fun, and the world is expansive, you’ll constantly be on the lookout for other players. This is because Elyon is an open-world PvP MMO.
During the first Closed Beta, as a friend of ours Hikari noted on MassivelyOP at one point, we were stream-sniped, having players of the opposite faction move around the world in an attempt to engage us in PvP. This would consist of 3 to 5 people at a time, often overwhelming the two of us.
Well, sometimes we had a friend of ours, who goes by the name Maki on Discord there as well, but well… he accompanied me many years ago in Aion and uhh.. suffice it to say, the encounters never went over very well in our favor.
We gave as good as we got, and we never ran from a fight, but that just made things more frustrating. Especially when we’d attempt to help other players out in the world.
We’d see people of the same faction as us trying to do a quest, only to get ganked by a couple opposing faction players, often camping them, griefing them. That’s the thing about open-world PvP: While it can be a lot of fun, it also brings out the worst in people.
I’ve never been a fan of ganking people, and seeing groups of friends group up together to run around “roflstomping” solo players is just… dumb. But hey, they’re the target demographic for PvP games, right? So this type of behavior should be expected. It’s just not really for me.

The cash shop really didn’t look that bad from what we saw in the Beta. And, I know, “didn’t look THAT bad” is still kinda bad. But from what people have been saying about the Korean cash shop.. if we end up going the same route as Korea, which we very well might, then we’ll have something to worry about.
You can’t expect Kakao to infest the cash shop with pay-to-win in a Beta that is supposed to garner attention and future sales for the game, right? Right. So discussing the cash shop in its current form seems a little redundant. This isn’t what we’ll have shortly after the game launches.

Graphically, Elyon looks kind of like an updated amalgamation of TERA and ArcheAge. The areas are gorgeous, your abilities look stunning and your characters… well.
If the thumbnail for this video didn’t capture your attention due to the thumbnail, then I guess the character models probably aren’t too important to you. But they are for a lot of people!
And while Elyon definitely has a decent character creator, providing plenty of sliders to customize your character into something relatively unique, it doesn’t offer the same depth as other games like Black Desert or even an older MMO like Perfect World.
There are plenty of costumes, though, allowing for a more complex selection of customization options. And we all know fashion is the endgame..

But, that is.. pretty much it.
We poured approximately 25 to 30 hours into the game and this was pretty much everything we experienced.

Elyon is a ridiculously large open-world MMO with a lot of opportunity for exploration.

It features one of the better action combat systems present within the genre.

It looks gorgeous and actually runs pretty well even on Unreal Engine 3.

Open-world PvP makes attempting to do anything in the open-world more difficult than it would otherwise need to be.

The Unreal Engine 3 engine is going to highly inhibit the potential for the game.

Level-gating the story behind arduous grinds is an atrocious model.

Discouraging players to participate in group content such as dungeons in favor of solo-play is anti-MMO.

The Korean cash shop leaves little in the way for future potential equality and balance among whales and normal players.

The $30-$40 price tag is far from worth it.

Ultimately, Elyon is a perfectly passable MMORPG. It’s not going to break the genre, heck, given that it’s launching at roughly the same time as New World, I fear that the game is going to end up highly overlooked.
Which means that there’ll likely be nobody actually playing it long-term.
I don’t think the combat, which is by far the game’s main selling point in my opinion is enough to warrant a purchase of the title, and with how much of a grind it turned out to be, along with the forced PvP.. I feel as though this will likely end up a pass for most players.

Hey guys, this is Mrs Stix and today I’m going to give you guys a quick breakdown of Elyon: Ascent Infinite Realm which is an upcoming MMORPG brought over from Korea by Kakao Games. The game was developed by Bluehole Studios – the very same team behind an MMO I spent more time in than I probably should have: TERA. 

As some of you may recall, during the early stages of development it went under the title “Ascent Infinite Realm.” and touted things like aerial combat. Both Stix and I were able to take a look at the game back when it donned the A:IR moniker and with the most recent Closed Beta test, had a second opportunity to look at the game after its transition into Elyon – completely altering the combat mechanics and removing key aspects of the game such as aerial mechanics. 

Keep in mind, this is only a look at the first Closed Beta test! We have every intention of delving deeper into the things that will and may differ as things proceed. 

Kakao were a little vague when it came to discussing the release date, however they did confirm a third quarter timeframe for the second Closed Beta test, with a full release in the fourth quarter of 2021.

Now, upon entering the game you’ll be faced with selecting a faction, either the Vulpin (woot woot) or the Ontari (boo.) We obviously went with the Vulpin faction as it’s blue, and blue is….well….a nice color. 

Factions share both races and classes, meaning that you’re not forced into selecting a specific side because you prefer a certain combination. However, the areas you both start in, and control will differ. 

The races include Human, Elf, Ein, and Orc. The only race that is gender locked is the little Ein. 

Concerning the classes, what we had access to in the first Closed Beta was the Warlord, Elementalist, Mystic, Assassin, and Gunner. Supposedly, there is another class called the Slayer that will be introduced to us in the second Closed Beta that should be available upon release. 

Here is where the game gets interesting in my eyes. Each class has a variety of unique skills that you’ll have the option of selecting from, with space on your hotbar being very limited – possessing only nine spaces in total for your abilities. Each of these skills can be upgraded as you continue leveling and obtain skill points, unlocking further variations of skills by obtaining an enhancement item by killing world bosses or questing. 

The versatility of the builds you can make is utterly amazing. I went mystic, which is the only class that really matters in groups, as.. Well, we’re the people keeping the group from wiping due to DPS standing in AoEs and tanks forgetting they have to point the boss away from us. Yes, the Mystic is essentially the healer. And let me tell you right now, as a support-type class I needed to make a build for PvE, world PvP, dungeons, and more arena based PvP. 

I look forward to seeing all the build guides that pop up from this game – because trust me, you’re going to need them. 

Having the option to build your character around the content you’re doing felt exceptionally rewarding, especially given that the game employs a fast-paced action combat system. 

Everyone is flipping everywhere and I’m just over here trying to aim my skills at them while trying not to hit walls, floors, and ceilings.. Or Stix, who’s in an entirely different region. 

So I attempted to construct a build that was more friendly to my play style – with a much larger focus on crowd control, resulting in people being rooted in place or knocked down more frequently. That way I could take a few additional moments to.. Line up the perfect shot. Granted, this didn’t really end up helping, but that didn’t stop me from trying anyway! Your girl isn’t a quitter! 

Your build gets even more unique based upon the rune stones you have equipped to your armor. These will also boost your item level which has a direct affect on your stats. These runestones will affect things from your attack power, to your healing output, to your maximum armor so it’s very important that you work on obtaining the runestones that most benefit the perfect build you’re aiming to create. You’ll need to enhance them alongside your armor and weapons. Yes, enhance. Something that you Black Desert vets no doubt winced at as soon as you heard mention of enhancement. 

Once you reach level 35 you’ll have even more options to customize your character, as you’ll unlock something called Mana Awakening which enhances various characteristics. 

Just the sheer depth to which you can go about customizing your character in this game boggles my mind. All of these combined will make your character a unique force to be reckoned with in the open world.. Or an absolute pushover that players farm because you didn’t read the guides I mentioned earlier. Don’t be that guy!

The combat within this game, while fun, does have more to it than just spamming abilities to either murder monsters or tank another players’ FPS out in the world. The main focus of Elyon is PvP, and that action combat is going to come into play here, especially the builds you create. 

There is open world PvP, which unlocks at level 30, allowing you to not only engage other players out in the world at any given time, but by that same logic be attacked by the enemy faction. Keep in mind there is no escaping this so if PvP isn’t your cup of tea, then it’s best you go get a different cup for yourself. 

To farm materials, world bosses, and generally get around to quests you’re going to come head to head with an enemy here and there, even if you aren’t looking for a fight. Yes, people like to come at you when you least expect it. Like when you’re trying to nab that perfect fish. Or scratching that itch that’s been bothering you all day. 

If the world itself isn’t providing you enough PvP opportunities there are always more options. Within the Hall of Fame, you can participate in battlefields which offer last man standing and 3v3 game modes. Then you have the Arena where you can work with a team in 2v2 or 3v3, or if you’re like Stix, YOLO in by yourself for 1v1s. 

Winning these will provide you materials, XP, and medals. But don’t think it stops there! 

If these modes still aren’t enough, or just don’t interest you then it goes even further beyond into Dimensional Portals. As of right now there are 4 dimensional portals with a 5th one being teased for those at lvl 99, which is likely just a placeholder until they’re done testing it. 

Within these you will be portaled into an area where you fight against the enemy faction for the right to murder the heckness out of things to receive rewards. Keep in mind the dimensional portals are locked behind levels and also specific times. If you’re not able to make those times you’re going to be locked out from entering until the timer resets. Can you tell the game has a large emphasis on PvP yet? No? Okay, well if that wasn’t enough to convince you, then there are also large scale Realm Wars. Your account can only participate in one of these once every seven days and also have specific times and days that it is even open for. 

Additionally, guilds – or Clans as they’re called in Elyon have the right to engage one another in Clan Wars; These are also available during specific times and dates, meaning they’re easy to miss. It’s also worth noting that it’s pretty important to join a clan as soon as you can for the material that you get just from being a part of one and completing various activities. 

If you need a break from PvP then dungeons are about the only thing you can do besides crafting in your house that doesn’t present the unfortunate opportunity for someone to sneak on up behind you and stab you in the back. Repeatedly. With a stick. Because people are like that. When all you wanted was to just get that cute screenshot underneath the tree over by that lake. Yes I’m being specific because it may or may not have happened to me once.. so if you see someone with my blood on their hands I expect answers. Or their life as retribution. Either will suffice. 

As you level you’ll begin to unlock a variety of different dungeons, some of them are solo, some of them require three players, and some require five players. There is a party finding system, so that’s nice in terms of finding friends. But this is an MMO we’re talking about, so.. Yeah, probably not. Dungeons, more specifically 3 and 5 player dungeons require the holy trinity of at least 1 healer, 1 tank and anywhere from 1 to 3 DPS, depending on which type you queue for. 

The dungeons themselves from what we experienced, were fairly entertaining with a range of mechanics and waves of adds, but from the get go, it’s a struggle to get through them and I like that. Normally you go into low level dungeons with one eye on your PC and the other on cute cat videos on Youtube, that latest Bridgerton episode on Netflix or.. Anything that can keep you from falling asleep due to the ease of the majority of leveling dungeons. 

From the dungeons you have a chance of obtaining high level gear enhancement stones, and a key for the timed dungeons. The timed dungeons do not appear to unlock until you’re level 40 though, which admittedly.. We did not reach. Not for lack of trying! But as the name suggests, it’d be a timed version of the dungeon you’ve done. There is also something called the Hall of Challenges where you basically fight your way up a tower floor by floor to obtain rewards. So if you like the climb, this is for you.

Something that I really enjoy about this game is the fact that you can own your own house. This is something I’m still struggling to accomplish in real life, so let me have my dream-home in-game, damnit! 

Through the story itself you get an ordinary house with some basic items and crafting stations which we’ll address in a second. The house you obtain through the story is free, but is instanced off from the world, so if you want other players to look at and marvel at your creation, you can always opt to buy a luxury home out in the world. These will cost you game currency and will require a fee, but will provide you benefits in growth and size. 

I’m also a fan of how you can not only decorate your home, but you can build your own furniture, adding to the depth that this game provides you in terms of content.

Having your own home, and visiting other players’ homes provide unique benefits as well, as an example, if you help them with their production you have the chance of finding rare seeds for sale within their seed shops.

Within your home, you can have an armor crafting station where you can take your gathered materials and create even better armor for yourself, even scaling all the way up to legendary gear. Naturally, you won’t be able to do this without plenty of time invested into the craft – leveling up your masteries. You can also craft yourself potions, buffs, weapons, and furniture. So if you’re a crafter by trade, which I most definitely am not, then I fully expect you to craft me everything I need to be a successful healer. Honestly, the crafting system is pretty expansive in my opinion as you can fish, mine, gather, lumber, and livestock to get these materials needed.

Within your house you can participate in what is known as Luminous Battles. You can pretty much AFK this activity as you sit in your house and let your luminous go into the dungeons and farm you materials, money, and XP. You garner points for your luminous by hunting monsters. They will require energy to complete these battles though and require time to reset to gain more. The luminous is also important for providing you stats, the higher the star level your luminous is the better. 

The game also has adorable pets that you can equip that will handily run about and gather your dropped items for you while also providing some helpful skills. You can change your pet’s skills with a ticket and from the two I’ve seen can range from gathering speed to store discount prices.

Your pet appears to be able to have five concurrent skills though and may also be fused with material to create a higher tier pet that will unlock these skills slots. This will probably be very important to people focusing heavily upon the crafting aspect of the game.

I know I’m leaving out a lot of things but my goodness the amount of things you can do in this game is fairly endless. Heck, there are even mini-games you can participate in in the open world. So if you’re looking for something to do, this might be it. Moving forward though, do note that the first Closed Beta test does not have the most current build for the game. I’m not sure when we’ll see the version that South Korea has, but I’m looking forward to it. 

We also have no idea what the cash shop will look like for us as Kakao are keeping those cards pretty closely to their chests. I’ll be curious to see how that looks upon release. 

For potential players interested in playing Elyon upon release, do note that this game will be buy-to-play, so that is something to consider. Though I can tell you now that I had a heckin lot of fun playing this game.

Hot off of the success of its brand new launch in South Korea – not to mention its upcoming launch in North America and Europe, Bluehole, the developers behind both Elyon and TERA (not to mention PubG – but completely unrelated genre here) revealed the first of several planned classes for the game in the form of the Slayer.

I’m a very big fan of TERA. I played that game when it was a subscription-MMO, earning the “founder” title when it transitioned to a free MMO, and I will admit seeing the Slayer in action during the trailer got me pretty excited. I’ve always been a fan of the melee classes in the game, and after seeing the terrible state of the combat in Ascent: Infinite Realm, I never thought we’d ever see something like this.
The new Slayer class is fast, its abilities look like they have a lot of impact and overall, I’m fairly impressed with what I see. While I never mained the Slayer in TERA it does have some similarities to what I experienced in the aforementioned title.

Now that we’re already in the process of having additional classes introduced into the game, all we need is an exact release date, as it’s long-since overdue.

I never expected to say this about the game, having played it as Ascent: Infinite Realm – but after playing it for several hours over the weekend.. I can say, with utmost certainty, that this was a ton of fun to play.

So Mrs Stix and I had the opportunity to jump into the South Korean version of the game ahead of its release in North America and Europe next year – hopefully – and this game is a substantial improvement over A:IR.
There are very large differences between the two games: Where A:IR largely took place in the skies, with a plethora of aerial activities, aerial PvP, aerial exploration and combat, Elyon is much more grounded and much more of a traditional MMO.
But that doesn’t make the game any less original or enjoyable.

You begin the game by choosing your faction, followed by your race and class. I wanted to go Blue because I’ve always been an Alliance player in WoW, an Elyos in Aion.. I just gravitate to the “good” side.
Interestingly enough, both factions have the same 4 races: Human, Elf, little racoon dude and Orc. There are currently 5 classes available, 2 melee, 2 casters and one ranged. Worth noting here is the fact that none of the classes are actually gender locked.
Meaning you can have male casters and female berserkers. The only gender locks in-game are the little racoon dudes. Unfortunately they have no female option, sorry furries.

The character creator was a lot better than I’d anticipated it being. It provided plenty of options to craft quite an impressive character. I feel like it was still a little inferior to Black Desert’s, but it felt like somewhere between BDO and ArcheAge.
Regardless, both Mrs Stix and I made some beautiful looking characters. And yes, before we go any further.. you could definitely edit the.. necessary assets to fully appreciate the game. You guys are welcome.

After creating your character you’re thrown directly into the story with a small introduction to the game and its mechanics, and then.. then you’re presented with a large world to go out and explore.
The world is completely open – there are no loading screens separating any of the areas from one another. It is completely, 100% open with the exception of the dungeons and raids.
It was refreshing to see, considering the vast majority of what we receive these days are either hub-MMOs or gated behind segregated zones. And those have their place – they do. But there’s just something freeing about having a large, open world to explore that you can’t replicate anywhere else.

While we both definitely had some difficulty understanding some of the quests – specifically the ones that required we utilize specific features, dragging gems into gear, following instructions on how to dismantle or upgrade, the majority of the game made perfect sense.
You accepted quests, you move from Point A to Point B to undergo those quests, then back to Point A to complete them.
However we did note that after a certain point in the game we came across a wall that prevented us from continuing the story without first hitting the level required. And to obtain that level, you were required to complete these “green quests,” that typically had you go out and kill x monsters.
This was the case all the way up to level 35, 36? I think, which is where we finished playing. The soft cap was level 40, with the max level cap being 50 if the world map is to be believed.
So leveling itself wasn’t too difficult – in about 5 to 6 hours we were almost at the soft cap. Being forced into doing those grinds though was a little tedious, but they might end up tweaking the rates a little bit. Maybe even add some diversity into the quest-type.

The main story actually had a story. I couldn’t follow it due to the language barrier, but it was definitely there. Not nearly as prevalent as in some MMOs but I’m glad to see there’s a reason to play through the game outside of just “hitting level cap.”
I did notice that – at least at the level we were at, which again was roughly mid 30s, there was still no form of flying.
We could glide, but we had no access to any type of aerial content. I’m pretty sure there’s still supposed to be aerial content in-game, right? I’m pretty sure I read that while they were toning that down, it was still expected to remain a core part of the game.
There were also dungeons, unfortunately I believe the first one was at.. level 35? And neither of us ever unlocked it before we had to turn in for the evening.
Raids are also present in the game and they’re something I’m definitely looking forward to trying out. I’ve seen some videos of them and man.. I’m excited.
PvP.. I didn’t get to experience. I don’t know when you gain access to PvP but at the same time, with how little we understood of the game in Korean.. it’s probably for the best we didn’t participate. I guarantee you it would’ve ended in us getting absolutely destroyed.

And finally, the combat. The combat felt great. Not amazing, but a vast improvement over Ascent: Infinite Realm. A:IR was tab-target, and not the good kind.
Elyon is full-action. You can aim your abilities, you require no target at all. It felt smooth. The animations were fluid and your skills actually felt impactful.
I’m glad that they opted to take an action route considering Elyon is from the very same developers of TERA – TERA is an action MMO that to date still has fantastic combat.
Like TERA, you possess the option of upgrading your abilities. Extra damage, reduced cooldown. These additives are unlocked periodically as you continue to level and are limited by a maximum number of points you can accumulate.

Overall, Elyon was a lot of fun to play. This was much better than I thought it was going to be. This was not sponsored at all – these are just our opinions on a game – a new, upcoming MMORPG slated for Western release in 2021.
I look forward to playing the game, even though it’s going to be buy-to-play as opposed to free-to-play like A:IR was going to be.

It was brought to my attention earlier today that Kakao Pearl Abyss, the company behind Black Desert and Black Desert Mobile, and more recently EVE and EVE Echoes released their 3rd Quarter Financials.
According to the info released, Pearl Abyss has seen a large increase in Net Income compared to 2019’s 3rd Quarter, which is mainly due to the mobile market – shocker, I know.
Guardian Tales was mostly responsible for this – a mobile game I can actually say was quite a bit better than I’d expected when I played it.
But this isn’t what’s most important. We’re all here for the MMO info, right? Specifically pertaining to Black Desert‘s prequel-sequel, Crimson Desert, the new upcoming ODIN: Valhalla Rising and even Elyon?

Before we jump into Crimson Desert, though, I do want to note that apparently Black Desert Online – interestingly enough – has seen its worst year in a long time, being down 13% this quarter alone, and over 19% year over year.
That’s a substantial decline in revenue – a direct effect of the continued decrease of active players logging in to play the game. So it is with this knowledge in mind that Pearl Abyss have announced their intentions to drop a very large “reveal” for Crimson Desert next month – in December 2020.
This reveal is both to reassure players that the game is continuing to be actively worked on, and to reassure investors that the game is inching ever closer to release.
Currently, they plan on unveiling actual in-game footage of the game in a full game-disclosure event. This will provide us all with a much closer, much deeper look at how the game will ultimately end up functioning. How it competes with Black Desert, and hopefully exactly what type of game it is.
Players are still speculating whether or not the game is going to be single-player or an MMO, how the combat will or won’t be an improvement over Black Desert, the exact, definitive setting.. there’s so much we don’t know and hopefully at least some of that is clarified next month.
We don’t have an exact date yet – only “December 2020,” but they’ll no doubt announce that ahead of the event.

Concerning Elyon, it was revealed recently that the upcoming MMO will be launching within South Korea next month – in December 2020.
Taking a look at the report, however, Pearl Abyss goes on to list “North America and Europe market launches: Successful experience with Black Desert 2021.”
That’s all but a 100% confirmation that any time in the 2nd quarter – April, May or June 2021 will see Elyon launch in both North America and Europe.
I know Elyon has changed quite drastically over the last couple years of development, but after what seems like an eternity, we’re going to finally be able to play the game.
A lot of interest – a lot of hype, excitement for the release has died down, and I can understand why that is. Even so, getting definitive release dates for a new MMO to spend some time in is always promising!

Then we have the upcoming ODIN: Valhalla Rising MMORPG. This is a game I’m really curious about. I’m not sure if I’m necessarily as hyped as I am for Tower of Fantasy, but ODIN is touted as being Black Desert.. but built cross-platform.
That sounds like it could be very promising – or an absolute train wreck, especially given how Black Desert Mobile ended up turning out. Regardless, the upcoming MMO is scheduled to launch within South Korea in the 2nd Quarter 2021, at a similar time to Elyon’s Global release.
They have yet to confirm any specifics pertaining to the Global release of ODIN but given how quickly they seem to want to push these games out to their Western audience, I wouldn’t expect it to take all that long.
Almost half of Pearl Abyss’s yearly revenue, interestingly enough, actually comes from their Western audience, which is probably why they’re always creating games with that particular audience in mind. And why they’ve actually had as much success as they’ve ultimately had.

If you weren’t already aware – I covered this actually last month I believe, but Pearl Abyss is working together with XLGames, the developer behind the notoriously pay-to-win MMORPG ArcheAge to create a sequel: ArcheAge 2.
The game is still in very, very early stages of development right now but they plan on making ArcheAge 2 “THE next generation MMORPG,” with the game being built on Unreal Engine 5 and taking what they learned with both ArcheAge and Black Desert and applying it to the sequel.
But with ArcheAge’s business model and Black Desert’s business model.. you can bet ArcheAge 2 is going to be one hell of a pay-to-win mess. It might be an amazing game – but it’s going to cost quite a bit to play competitively in any form.

And finally, we had a few more games revealed, announced or confirmed as well: World Flipper and Moonlight Sculptor – 2 Mobile games were confirmed to be receiving Global releases within the 3rd Quarter 2021, and Soul Artifact, a Mobile game is going to be releasing within South Korea some time during the 4th Quarter 2021.

Pearl Abyss has a lot on their plate for 2021. A lot to offer players – of both PC and Mobile genres.
There’s still no real news on DokeV, their upcoming monster-collector MMORPG or Plan8 – their FPS? TPS? But both were definitely listed in the report released.
And you can bet there are a surplus of other games currently in development at the studio – Pearl Abyss is continuing to show signs of growth and isn’t looking to slow down any time in the immediate future. They’re becoming an absolute giant in the industry, and I’m glad they’re continuing to stick to what got them to where they are: MMORPGs.
Will any of these ultimately end up worth playing? Will Crimson Desert replace Black Desert now that BDO is showing continued signs of decline? Will ArcheAge 2 be as bad as players are assuming it will be? Is ODIN: Valhalla Rising just another crappy cross-platform MMO or will it be worth playing like Genshin Impact?
Only time will tell. Either way, I’m curious to see where all of these MMOs end up going into 2021, and hope you all are as well.

Finally, after years of waiting for Ascent: Infinite Realm, we have a fully, 100% confirmed release date for the upcoming Elyon MMORPG.
Well, an upcoming release date for the South Korean release of the game, but if you guys weren’t aware, when A:IR was slated for release initially, the game was planned to have a global release shortly after, with North America and Europe both having planned releases within mere months of its South Korean launch.
Today, I plan to not only cover what we have to look forward to in the upcoming MMO, but what changes were made, an expansion on the release date and global info and more.

So you might want to take a few minutes here to sit down and I urge you to watch as much of this as you can in an attempt to hopefully answer any questions you might have pertaining to the game.

Elyon is an upcoming Steampunk fantasy MMORPG. It was originally developed as Ascent: Infinite Realm but upon entering their test phase they found that the playerbase was rather unhappy with the iteration of the game that was present.
Mrs Stix and I played during both the South Korean and Thai test phases and found that while the game looked great graphically, not only were there severe performance issues, as this is built on Unreal Engine 3, but the game was just so.. clunky and empty.
Ascent: Infinite Realm was initially a heavily Steampunk influenced tab-target MMO that had a very large emphasis on flight. Aerial exploration, aerial combat. Elyon however is more of your traditional fantasy-themed MMO that has action combat and takes place predominantly on the ground.
It’s a complete overhaul of almost the entire game, that went from a beautiful niche title to something a little more generic. Which doesn’t make it inherently bad, just.. basic.

Ascent: Infinite Realm was initially free-to-play, meaning that there was no recurring subscription fees, no need to purchase the game before you can play it.
The developers however have confirmed that Elyon is going to be a buy-to-play MMO. This means that while there will be no recurring subscription fees, you will need to purchase the game to be able to play it.
As this is a South Korean MMO you can be sure there’s going to be a cash shop – and the cash shop in question will no doubt feature items that South Korean MMOs are known for. I’m not going to claim they’ll be pay-to-win, but.. I wouldn’t put it past them.
Kakao are going to be publishing Elyon outside of South Korea, and Kakao’s other big MMO is Black Desert Online, so you can use BDO as reference for how Elyon’s business model will likely end up.
Like their other MMO, TERA, content updates, DLC, and expansions will likely all be free-to-play.
Additionally, there are Founder’s Packs available for players that have some spare cash to throw away.

As noted earlier, Ascent: Infinite Realm was initially a tab-target MMORPG. You had to either click your enemies individually, or cycle through them with your tab-key. Abilities were slow, combat overall was very unintuitive and non-reactive.
Elyon is much different. While the classes are the same, they all play very differently to how they did back when Mrs Stix and I played the game.
The combat now requires no active target, providing players with the ability of freely aiming their skills – requiring a little more forethought, a little more understanding of the enemies.
Skills overall look and feel better. Being more actively engaged, having more to do definitely makes the game feel better. More alive. More interactive. But playing an MMO in 2021 built using Unreal Engine 3 still leaves it feeling clunky especially with the performance issues. Look at TERA for an example of how this will play.

Currently, there are 5 classes available to play: The Mystic, the Assassin, the Sorceress, the Gunslinger and the Warlord. During the test phase for A:IR I played as the Sorceress while Mrs Stix played as the Mystic, and honestly they were about what you’d expect out of the classes.
The dev team haven’t expressed any interest in developing additional classes beyond the 5 base classes to play. They never explicitly stated that they wouldn’t be – more so it’s just a topic they haven’t even touched.
Considering TERA had various additional classes added over the course of its life, you can bet they have plans to introduce new classes sometime in the future. Races, though? Unconfirmed but incredibly unlikely.

This is a South Korean MMO.. c’mon man, you know that above and beyond ANYTHING else, South Korean MMOs have fantastic character customization options.
Now I’m uncertain of whether or not the creator tool had additional options added to it over the course of its overhaul, but back when it went under the A:IR title, you could craft truly beautiful characters.
You had a lot of freedom – with each character having their own base models and features to alter so no class looked alike.
There are going to be outfits available in-game, I’m not sure whether they’ll be obtainable via in-game means or whether you’ll be required to purchase them via cash shop but they’re going to need to make their money, so.. they’re likely to be cash-shop exclusives.

Yup. Elyon is a beautiful MMORPG. Initially, the game was going to take part largely in the sky – we were going to have enormous airships, large archipelago’s to drift between and a truly large world packed with regions to explore, conquer and engage other players in.
Now with the majority of the game being grounded, we’ll still have access to a large world, but we won’t have the same means with which to explore it, nor will we have the same number of aerial locales.
Regardless, Elyon has a large, open-world that you’re going to be able to run around and explore. There’s a lot to see, there’s a lot to do. The game isn’t instanced at all, meaning that you get to explore all of this with other players.
While everything about the game is gorgeous, though, I can’t help but feel as though this still ends up looking and feeling like “just another generic Korean game.” You guys can see it too, right? Black Desert, ArcheAge, Astellia, Elyon.. they all have the same look and feel about them.
And the fact that this is built on Unreal Engine 3 definitely imposes certain.. limitations. Both on what you can see, and what you can do.

Currently, Elyon is expected to be a PC exclusive.
However if we take into consideration their previous MMO TERA, which has since gotten a console release, and the fact that Kakao, the publisher for Black Desert has ported BDO over to console.. while again, Elyon is going to launch as a PC exclusive, it’s safe to assume a console port will likely be in the works at one point.
This is a large-scale action MMO. These types of games work well on consoles so it would definitely be a missed opportunity to delay this too long.
Thankfully we haven’t heard anything about an Elyon mobile game yet. I hope we never do, but knowing these devs it’s only a matter of time.. whether Elyon is successful or not.

There is. Back when the game was being marketed as Ascent: Infinite Realm, PvP was a large part of the game.
Elyon, much like World of Warcraft, Aion, Rift or WildStar features a faction-based PvP system. There are two opposing factions that are at war with one another, having been in conflict for over 100 years.
This is where the majority of the PvP comes into play: You choose one of the two factions and get to participate in large-scale open-world Realm vs Realm skirmishes. I’ve seen videos of these battles and they look absolutely chaotic.. which is what PvP should be.
There are smaller scale PvP modes as well for players that aren’t interested in competitive group content. 1v1, 2v2 and 3v3 arena matches.
There’s an interesting free for all battlefield – kind of like a battle royale I guess, and then areas scattered around the world that are dedicated to PvPvE, allowing for open-world PvP in those areas specifically.

Thankfully this is a fairly traditional MMORPG.
Elyon features a fully fleshed-out story that takes you on a trip around the world. It has a plethora of dungeons that you can run, several of which I believe Mrs Stix and I actually had the opportunity of participating in a while back.
It also has raids with enormous raid bosses to fight – so you know there’ll be forms of competitive PvE and PvP content – keeping players of all kinds and all interests well occupied.
Again, it’s a pretty damn traditional game. This both works in its favor and against it since it’ll feel familiar to fans of the genre – which means it won’t take much to acclimate to, but at the same time since it does nothing new.. it won’t hold our attention for too long.

Ascent: Infinite Realm was supposed to launch way back on December 13, 2017. Yes, it’s been almost 3 years since the game was supposed to be fully playable. Now, after all this time we have an official confirmed release date: Elyon launches on December 10th, 2020 within South Korea.
Yes, South Korea. I’m well aware that some of you are going to hear that news and instantly be turned off due to having to wait an exorbitant amount of time to be able to even log in and play the game, but as I noted earlier.. A:IR was supposed to launch globally shortly after its South Korean release.

Yes, yes it is. Kakao are going to be publishing Elyon within North America and Europe. The very same Kakao that publish Black Desert Online, as noted earlier.
The question then is.. when is Elyon actually coming out globally? Unfortunately that’s something that is going to require we wait a little longer to receive an answer.
We don’t know how South Korea is going to respond to Elyon, and if that reception is negative, you can bet there will be additional delays as they attempt to remedy whatever issues players are having with the game.
While we might speculate we could get the game in 2021, and honestly I would love to be able to play Elyon next year, it would be just that: speculation, with no confirmed facts or even rumors backing it.

Honestly, the easiest way to get into the South Korean version of Elyon is through using a VPN. I personally use ExitLag. I know a lot of MMO content creators use ExitLag.
It’s easy, it isn’t cluttered, it has a clean UI and covers almost every MMO I’ve wanted it to cover. I’ve used it to get around IP restrictions in Justice Online, Blue Protocol, and even back when Ascent: Infinite Realm was a thing.
You’ll need a few more things, such as a South Korean Social Security Number from what I recall, but those are easily obtained online.

Wait, should this even be a question? Nobody is going to be able to fully run Elyon without FPS issues!
Jokes aside though, the “recommended requirements” for the game are an i5 and a GTX 970, so with this in mind.. I feel like my mother’s laptop could probably run this on recommended settings, honestly.
The system requirements for Elyon are actually kinda low, but I guarantee you even if you meet this and go significantly beyond.. you’ll run into FPS issues. The Elyon team have expressed to the playerbase that they’ve made substantial improvements to the game’s performance, but this is Unreal Engine 3 we’re talking about here..

And that’s pretty much everything I can think of. All of the questions I’ve seen asked, and all of the topics that I think really need covered.
Elyon is a highly anticipated upcoming MMO – we have been looking forward to finally getting our hands on this for years, now. While I don’t think this is going to be the “best MMORPG of 2021,” I have no doubt this is going to definitely be something to try out, if only to experience it.
I don’t think this will take my attention away from Final Fantasy XIV or World of Warcraft, but at the same time I don’t think it needs to. It just needs to give me a reprieve from them for a while.

As I’m sure you’re all well aware, earlier this year Ascent: Infinite Realm rebranded under the Elyon title. They also did a massive overhaul of the game as players were unhappy with the state it was in.
The game was scheduled to release in South Korea AND North America at the end of 2019, but after the changes, the game ultimately ended up delayed.
Elyon just finished their recent Closed Beta test in South Korea, and players had a more positive reception of the upcoming MMO this time ’round. Enough so that that the devs behind the game have confirmed they’re targeting a December 2020 release for South Korea, and they’re still expecting a North American release to follow.

But that confirmation aside, I’d like to talk a little about the Closed Beta and what we should expect going into the game next year since a 2021 release outside of South Korea is all but expected at this point.

First, let’s talk about the combat, since I know that’s something you’re all concerned with.
Ascent: Infinite Realm was a tab-target MMO – which is a weird direction to take the game, especially since it’s developed from the team behind TERA, one of the better action MMOs out there right now.
The goal with Elyon was to take the combat, and completely overhaul it, moving away from tab-target and towards a full action-combat system. From what I’ve seen from various streams, combat seems completely action-based now, much closer to Black Desert but still not as fast.
There are a variety of different classes, each with their own unique abilities and combat styles, but after seeing how different the Mage plays compared to when I played Mage back in A:IR, I’m kind of impressed.

While combat is important, one thing I recall in A:IR was that it had a strong focus on story-telling. Everywhere you went, everything you did was due to the main story, and MMOs that have a strong narrative end up doing better than those that don’t.
Elyon, from what I can tell, still has a focus on the main story, but it also provides various other types of content to engage in while progressing.
You have region quests specific to the region you’re in, with quests actually going as far as opening up entirely new regions all together, and world quests that function kind of like FATEs in Final Fantasy XIV.
There are also functional dungeons and raids, but I never saw anyone participate in either, unfortunately.

One thing I did notice though while players were out in the world, was that the game utilizes a form of autopathing. This was also present in A:IR. You can autopath to your quest objective, meaning that it’s definitely plausible that half the people you see out in the large, open world will be AFK.
I really disliked this about A:IR and was hoping it didn’t make it into the end version of the MMO but unfortunately, here it is. I’m aware this is present in BDO as well, but I feel like engaging with other players in the world is part of what makes an MMO.. y’know, Massively Multiplayer.
Otherwise we have what happened in Revelation Online: Hundreds of players all AFK following the exact same route. You’d see hundreds of players all autopathing to a quest NPC and then standing there like zombies. This is not the direction I wanted Elyon to go but it might not be that big of an issue for some people.

Other than that, the only major change to the game is the PvP and the focus on the type of content we’ll have access to.
With regards to PvP, the game will have unique PvP zones that allow players to tackle PvPvE content, having players fight one another, along with monsters to complete their quests.
PvP is not optional in these zones as far as I’m aware, as you’ll be forced into combat with other players while in areas marked as PvP zones. Additionally, they’ll have 1v1, 2v2, and 3v3 Arenas for players to group up in, Realm vs Realm encounters, and a Free for All Battlefield, that will function as a Battle Royale.
Yup, a BR game mode. ’cause everyone wants to get in on that right now due to how popular BRs are. I’ve never been a fan so I won’t be participating, but the open-world PvP, while I know some of you will be instantly turned off at the mere mention of forced PvP, is something I look forward to engaging in!

As for the type of content, initially, A:IR was going to be an MMORPG that took place predominantly within the sky. You’d move around from floating island to floating island, exploring an enormous open world mostly atop your flying mount of choice, with the land housing content, but the focus being in the skies.
Elyon will take place down to the ground, with little content being available in the air. They stated the reason behind this: “in order for users to collide naturally, the degree of freedom in the sky must be reduced.”
We’ll still have plenty of opportunities to engage players in PvP in the sky, and there’ll be plenty of PvE content that takes us into the air as well, but it will no longer be the main focus of the game.

Honestly, I’m excited for Elyon. It has shown substantial improvement in a variety of areas I wanted: Combat is no longer tab-target and is instead much faster action oriented.
Performance has been improved, the game world is more grounded and has less of a focus on random flying. Granted the autopathing will always be an issue for me as I don’t think it should exist, but what can you do.
The focus on the story, the FATE-inspired world quests, the dungeons and raids which have been shown off in gameplay trailers – it all looks really, really promising.
I just hope that they aren’t setting themselves up to fail with how large of an overhaul this is.