Elyon: Ascent Infinite Realm Release Date Confirmed for South Korea, Global Date Hinted at?

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.