Is Revelation Online Worth Playing in 2021?

You know what? After playing approximately 13 hours of Revelation Online.. it genuinely isn’t that bad of a game at its core.
I legitimately do not think I’ve ever seen an emptier MMO than this, though, yet somehow it remains online. I guess the playerbase must expend quite a bit of money to warrant that.

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 what was arguably one of the largest flops of the last decade: Revelation Online.
Why was it such a large flop? Oh don’t worry. We’re gonna get into that.

So Revelation Online. This game had the potential to be SO good. Unbelievably, unquestionably good. At the time of its release, the market needed something like this. Something that looked as good as this looked. That played as well as it played. That presented players with the features that really allowed for it to stand out.
But My.GAMES’s poor handling, lack of content, repetitious grind and poor business model really inhibited any chance this game had of being a success. But that was then. This is now. The game at the end of 2021 is an entirely different experience than it was back when it launched years ago.
But is that for the better? Ehhh.

Even in 2021, Revelation Online holds up graphically. The game provides some decent character creation – allowing players to create something… incredible. Or incredibly lacking.
And with the addition of some outfits, that’s pretty much the extent with which you can customize your character.
The world looks great. The textures definitely need some updating, granted, and some of the models of both enemies and NPCs are… questionable. But this game feels like you’re playing through a Chinese Anime series.
The world itself is completely open. There are no segregated zones – everything is accessible without the need to trigger any type of loading screen. With the exception of dungeons, raids and instanced PvP.
The cities are large and sprawling. Filled with NPCs – giving the illusion of life, to an otherwise empty game and world.

An active population isn’t everything, though. MMOs like Vindictus or Mabinogi are proof of that.
If a game has a dedicated community, players that genuinely love the game they’re playing, it’ll never truly die. Unless the publisher shuts the servers down. Like Gamigo. Or Nexon. Or Gameforge. Or… well, you guys get the drift.
Gameplay is typically crucial to keeping a community of players together playing. Well, gameplay and content. If a game doesn’t receive content at least periodically, the game will grow stagnant and only the most dedicated players will continue to log in.
However, with even a couple updates per year, a game with fantastic combat like Vindictus or Continent of the Ninth will continue to flourish. Depending on your definition of “flourish,” of course.
Combat in Revelation Online is.. an interesting hybrid of action and tab-target. When beginning the game, you’re given the option of selecting between both traditional, and action game modes.
I would like to point out that for the most part, the “action” aspect of this is more just possessing the ability to place your AoEs. That’s it. Everything else requires a target. So “hybrid combat” is used quite loosely.
Although for a mostly tab-target MMO that gives the illusion of action combat, it’s genuinely not bad. Abilities looked good. Character movement was.. kinda fluid? A little clunky, but no more so than any other Chinese MMO.

There are mounts present, which makes traversing the world… well, not difficult at all. But more impressive than traditional mounts, is the fact that you CAN fly! There is a fully functional flight system in-game, allowing for you to fly without limitation. As opposed to games like Aion that impose a duration on the feature.
Additionally, there’s a teleport function, allowing for you to teleport almost anywhere. This makes traversing the world pretty quick, easy, and.. well, with the auto-pathing to quest objectives, a somewhat boring feature.
I’ve noticed that Chinese MMOs have an unusual obsession with auto-pathing. Not auto-combat, but auto-pathing.
Perfect World does it, Moonlight Blade does it, Swords of Legends Online does it, and Revelation Online does it. Now it’s up to you to decide whether or not you use it, but it’s just…. interesting to have there and not make use of, you know? It’s not game breaking, but it does provide you time to tab-out and watch some Youtube or Netflix.

For all its positives and negatives, however, Revelation Online suffers from a single flaw that makes it 100% unquestionably worth avoiding: It gates EVERYTHING behind levels. You’re required to hit a certain level to continue with the story, which isn’t typically an issue. Many MMOs do this.
Yet the story provides an odd level or two at a time, then locks you out of progressing until you meet the new requirement, often at least 3 to 5 more levels away.
Now they give you items every day for logging in, you can participate in daily quests like the Seeking Spirits daily that requires 3 players to do – but honestly… if you can’t play for more than a few hours at a time, what motivation are you going to have to continue to log in?
I was locked out of the game after playing on stream for about 2 hours. Then when I attempted to stream it the next day I got maybe 90 minutes out of it before being locked out again, requiring several levels that I couldn’t achieve in a single day because I couldn’t do the dailies due to a lack of players to group with.
So I spent the entire next week logging in to do a single daily, obtaining approximately a level up per day until I was so far ahead in level, I figured I’d get at least 2 or 3 more streams out of it.
Boy was I wrong. After progressing for a few more hours, my story bugged. Which was frustrating, as that entire event takes about 15 to 20 minutes to complete. So I redid it. And it bugged again.
I later figured out that one of the recent updates bugged that story quest, and as such I couldn’t continue. I tried multiple times, on more than one day, just to see if I couldn’t progress further to acquire additional footage but this game would not let me.
Which means I hit a wall that cannot be passed right now, and My.GAMES are doing absolutely nothing to remedy that.

✔️ Revelation Online still looks pretty good.

✔️ It doesn’t play half bad either.

✔️ The world is enormous and open, providing a lot of freedom to traverse it at your own pace.

❎ Yet the world itself is dead. Empty. There is absolutely no reason to explore anything it has to offer.

❎ The story is so disconnected and disjointed that it may as well not even be present.

❎ The leveling experience is atrocious. Perhaps one of the worst I’ve ever had the displeasure of progressing through.

❎ The playerbase is.. well, I saw one person reply in world chat when I asked if anyone was playing during peak hours. So not completely dead, but for all intents and purposes, should be.

❎ So much of the game is gated behind levels and dailies that I assure you nobody wants to participate in for the 765th day in a row.

❎ The game really shouldn’t advertise its combat like it does when it’s essentially a glorified tab-target combat system. Which isn’t a bad system, but… you’re lying if you say it isn’t.

Ultimately, Revelation Online isn’t as bad as people complain it is. Not at its core. Yes, gating content behind an arduous daily login is one of the most atrocious things I’ve ever seen.
I get this is a way to motivate players to log in every day, but come on. There is nobody there to group up and do this with if you’re a new player.
The game still looks good enough and plays good enough. There’s plenty to do, plenty to see and… as a game overall, it really isn’t bad. Just aspects of it are. Aspects you cannot overcome.