ArcheAge 2 Release Date? XL Games and Kakao Announce Brand New Upcoming MMORPG!

I’ve gotten so many DMs regarding the brand new upcoming ArcheAge 2 MMORPG currently in development, so many that I actually felt the need to push out a 2nd video today, only several hours after my last one. Yes, a busy Stix I am!
This announcement comes from a variety of different sources: Official recruitment notices, MMOCulture, Sarumonin, MassivelyOP. So credit to each and everyone that reported on this.

So, it turns out that after years of ArcheAge running, quite unsuccessfully, even though it is arguably one of the better MMORPGs at its core, XLGames and Kakao have decided that with their new partnership, they’re going to expand the ArcheAge universe by developing a brand new title in the franchise: ArcheAge 2.
This news came from the Korean news website Ruliweb, that went on to report quite a bit of information.
According to the article, ArcheAge 2 is going to be a PC MMORPG. Where games like TERA, Blade & Soul, Bless, Lineage and other South Korean PC MMOs have all made mobile sequels, it turns out Kakao and XLGames are still interested in dominating the PC market.
ArcheAge 2 is being developed on Unreal Engine 5 – yes, no Unreal Engine 3 garbage here like Elyon, and no Unreal Engine 4 either apparently. The game even has more than 50 developers participating in the development of the game so far.
Jake Song, the very man who brought the Lineage and ArcheAge franchises to life went on to state that the game is going to retain its large sandbox-style world, the unique freedom that ArcheAge presented its players and will try to bridge the MMO-scene together in a game that looks to be a cross between “Lineage and WoW.”
This is quite an ambitious goal to work towards. XLGames and Kakao are hoping for ArcheAge 2 to be the largest “next generation AAA MMORPG” – although naturally, there’s no release date planned for the game so technically it could be “the next large AAA MMORPG.. of 2025.”

Jake Song, who is taking on the role of CEO of ArcheAge 2 development went on to state that the original incarnation of the MMO came out 7 years ago.
He then further elaborated on how ArcheAge was especially popular outside of South Korea, specifically in North America and Europe, and as such it looks as though he’s taking that knowledge and implementing things he learned within its sequel.
Does this mean that ArcheAge 2 is actually going to be targeting a Western audience? We’ve had our fair share of South Korean MMO’s and let’s be honest.. they’re all more or less the same thing: Huge cash cows.
They all look beautiful, but lack the soul and depth of anything that could potentially last a year beyond their release.
Apparently, more than half of the total cumulative sales for ArcheAge, and probably ArcheAge Unchained as well came from overseas. This is proof that Western players were much more receptive of the game than players within South Korea.

ArcheAge was an incredibly well done MMO. It had the making of a fantastic game that could’ve taken the market by storm. However, with its restrictions, its focus on paid cash shop items and abundance of pay-to-win, the game died off relatively quickly.
Years later, the ArcheAge team released ArcheAge Unchained, a buy-to-play version of ArcheAge without the pay-to-win trash that had been so prevalent in the game up until that point.
And while players received it much better, they soon learned that the game was still the same ArcheAge game that they’d grown to dislike… just without the pay-to-win.
The large sandbox world they’d come to love over the years had been changed so drastically and was merely a shell of its former self.
So players stopped playing once again. Even more followed after Gamigo went back on their word, claiming all subsequent content would be free if you’d purchased the game, by making future updates like the Garden of the Gods a paid content update.

The greed from both developers and publishers has lead to many a player having a very strong distaste for the game, and that makes perfect sense and is completely justified.
How XL Games and Kakao are going to handle this is up for discussion, but if you guys aren’t aware, Kakao are the very same people behind Black Desert Online.
ArcheAge 2 is going to be an MMORPG that is somewhere between a sandbox ArcheAge game and a sandbox Black Desert game.
Both were heavily pay-to-win, and both are good games at their cores – in their respective niches, anyway.

I’m not entirely certain whether this is something we should be excited for or not. It’s a new upcoming “AAA MMORPG,” of course, so that’s always reassuring. And it’s done by developers that have proven they’re capable at actually creating an MMO worth playing.
But if we’re going to get a repeat of either Black Desert or ArcheAge’s pay-to-win business models, I’d probably steer clear.
Considering Unchained was buy-to-play and Black Desert is buy-to-play, I wonder what the business model for ArcheAge 2 will end up being? You can bet there’ll be incredibly expensive founder’s packs available but will this be a free or paid MMO? What do you guys think?
And what type of combat will they employ? We have so many questions and I look forward to having them answered over time.

Currently, XLGames and Kakao haven’t given a confirmed release date, but ArcheAge 2’s release date looks to be targeting a 2022-2023 alpha/beta period. It could potentially be earlier/later, it really depends on the type of game they’re aiming for and how dedicated they are to bringing their vision to life.