Do we Need Lineage 2M?

Before you guys jump to conclusions, no this does not have anything to do with the Lineage 2: Revolution Mobile MMO.
That is an entirely different game all together. Lineage 2M is a complete mobile remake of Lineage 2 – an MMO that is still enjoyed by thousands of players today.
Lineage 2: Revolution was a spin-off title that was made to be a mobile game, whereas Lineage 2M is made with the intention of being a mobile adaptation of a PC game.
And while the 2 genres no doubt share similarities, they are at their core different games.

Alright, so if you hold mobile games in disdain, then you’ve probably already long since closed out of this video.
If you’re interested in either mobile games OR the Lineage genre itself – which this video is about, then this will probably be of interest to you.
So, a recent press event was held for Lineage 2M – where it was revealed that the game would be released at the end of this year. This sparked a lot of attention as we weren’t aware it was this close to release.
Now I’m not much of a mobile gamer: I’ve played almost 50 different mobile games over the last several months but only a handful have held my attention.
This is because most – from what I’ve come across are a convoluted mess of cluttered UI, auto-play and a case of copy>pasting ideas from already established games.
Lineage 2M is promising to be a faithful adaptation of the PC title, including a large, completely open world without any loading screens whatsoever, dozens of world bosses to tackle in open-world PvPvE.
Which is good for those of you that are into fighting other players, groups or even guilds over world boss spawns. And the ability to hold up to 10,000 players concurrently on a single channel.

Another interesting note is that at the very same press event, Purple, a brand new Korean service was unveiled.
Purple will allow players to effectively emulate mobile games, allowing for complete cross-play between both PC and mobile players. See, a lot of us use emulators like Nox, Bluestacks, MuMu and the like.
However, this new service will allow games to be built with this new platform in mind – so that when mobile games release, they will automatically be cross-play compatible.
Lineage 2M will be the very first game on the Purple platform – but considering the game already had over 2 million players pre-register for the game within 18 hours of the announcement, it’s safe to say that a lot of PC players are interested in playing as well.

Lineage and Lineage 2 are both still very popular in South Korea, and still have a semi-active playerbase in the West, although not nearly to the same degree.
This is likely the reason behind so many players pre-registering for the game – and the critical success of Lineage 2: Revolution, which has gone on to make well over $1 billion dollars already.
Significantly more than the vast majority of PC MMOs.
Do I think we need more mobile MMOs? I think we need more quality mobile MMOs, certainly. But I feel the same way about PC MMOs.
Mobile games as a whole are pushed out weekly, with new releases coming out faster than I can reasonably record on my mobile channel.
But how many of those games are actually quality games worth investing time into and not just another re-branded, copy>pasted cash grab?
Lineage M was popular, and since Lineage 2M looks to be a faithful adaptation in the same vein as Lineage M, this might work out well.
Especially since it’s going to be the very first game of its kind to be launched as cross-play compatible on the Purple platform.
This means those of us that dislike the thought of playing a mobile game on our mobile device will be able to play a game that looks as good as this does on our PC anyway, as if it were released on that platform to begin with.

I believe that if PC gamers are ever going to fully accept, or even tolerate mobile gamers, especially with regards to mobile MMOs, cross-play like this is going to be necessary, and this is a great first step.
I can’t say whether or not Lineage 2M will be heavily pay-to-win, or even heavy on microtransactions, but since it’s a South Korean mobile game.. it’s still very likely.
So, do we need Lineage 2M? No, we don’t. But this is a great step in the right direction – remaking MMOs that are long since past their prime.
So while we don’t necessarily need it.. it doesn’t mean that it isn’t welcome, especially the new Purple cross-play platform.