MMORPG News: Blue Protocol Global, Crimson Desert, Ashes of Creation Alpha, RISE, Elyon, PSO2 & More

This has been a busy couple weeks. Crimson Desert’s new teaser, ArcheAge 2 info, Blue Protocol’s localization, Ashes of Creation’s upcoming Alpha and all these new MMOs? I hope you guys are sitting down as this is going to be quite the video.

Now, we have plenty to talk about so let’s jump right into this week’s Weekly Byte of MMORPG News!

Let’s kickstart the weekend with Crimson Desert. Pearl Abyss revealed last month that they had plans to showcase Crimson Desert off at The Game Awards on December 10th, and to hype players up for this they’ve went ahead and released a brand new teaser.
And I use the term “teaser” very, very lightly here, as the teaser in question is actually more or less.. just a logo. Honestly we saw more out of the official trailer released last year, but it’s good to know that next week we’ll finally have news pertaining to the game.
This could be one of the largest MMO releases of recent memory – so it’s worth keeping an eye on come December 10th.

Players that have been eagerly anticipating the final set of content for 2020 are in luck. Phantasy Star Online 2 is launching Episode 6 on December 9th.
There have been a plethora of catch-up events going on over the course of the last month and Episode 6 actually brings with it a ton of new content. We have the new classes, new pets, new quests.
It’s the final large update before New Genesis launches next year, and will bring the International version of PSO2 up to date with current Japanese players. This will also mark our return to the game, as I’ve been waiting for this to finally roll out on the live servers.

Kakao gave us access to the final test phase of Elyon, and both Mrs Stix and I got to play it. I have a full, dedicated video up of our journey through the level 1 up until almost the soft cap of level 40 areas, and we were very impressed by what we saw. By what we got to play.
This is a substantial improvement over Ascent: Infinite Realm, and although there were a few things missing that made A:IR stand out to me initially, such as all of the aerial archipelagos, it felt like a very solid, traditional MMO.
If you want more, I do implore you to go look at that video. You’ll be able to tell if you like it or not based off of that. Otherwise, Elyon is slated for release in North America and Europe next year – so that’s something to look forward to!

I know players were hoping to have the opportunity to test the Alpha for the upcoming Zenith VR MMO, but it turns out we’ll need to wait a little longer. According to the developers, “progress has been going extremely well,” which is about what you’d expect them to say.
Fast forward a little bit, and they went on to state that the Alpha test which was scheduled for late 2020 is being rescheduled for “early 2021,” with the reason being they have a lot of “unique features” and “really cool game mechanics” that require a little extra time to “polish.”
I’m more than fine with this, as a delayed Alpha test will provide them the opportunity to make certain the game is in tip-top shape before releasing to a larger public.

Very rarely are South Korean MMOs made with the goal of developing a game for non-mobile devices, right? That seems to be all they’re interested in these days, and it stands to reason as to why – the mobile gaming market is ridiculously large.
RISE, however, aims to be something quite different. RISE is an upcoming South Korean MMORPG that takes inspiration from quite a few pre-existing medieval MMOs – but where it’s different, is that this game is being built specifically for PC and Console platforms – not mobile.
RISE will have no mobile cross-compatibility at all, however, they do aim to optimize the assets and port the game over to mobile eventually. It won’t be cross-platform compatible with the PC and console versions however, and this game isn’t being built with mobile play in mind.
This is a direction I’m glad to see the game go and I couldn’t be more excited to see where this ultimately ends up.

So ArcheAge 2 was recently announced. I covered the announcement – with XLGames and Kakao working together to bring this vision to fruition. However ever since then, the developers have gone radio silent.
No trailer. No teaser, even. No information – really – at all. Until a week ago during G-Star 2020.
While we still don’t have any gameplay footage yet, we’re aware this is being built on Unreal Engine 5 and will actually take place on the Eastern continent of Haranya, set 2,000 years before the events that took place in ArcheAge.
This is interesting – as it means the game will likely feature the one, single continent as opposed to multiple, and have a focus on certain races.
Speaking of, it was revealed that some of the races that were originally confirmed back when the game was initially announced- some of the races that we have still yet to see in-game are going to be included this time ’round.
The game will take the same direction that its predecessor took: Freedom, exploration, trading, housing and yes, even PvP.

I have a dedicated video coming for Lands of Kehliel on Monday, but this is a brand new upcoming MMORPG developed with a different goal in mind. Instead of having hundreds–thousands of players out in the world concurrently, all pursuing the same goal, participating in the same quests, Lands of Kehliel plans to be different.
Instead, you’re going to compete against other players – other groups of players more specifically, in an attempt to conquer the game, the world first. Once you complete a quest, other players will no longer be able to complete it.
There will be traditional PvE in the game: Fighting monsters, bosses, gearing yourself and the like. But this MMO is looking to be one of, if not the very first MMORPG that focuses on “competition and personal skill,” in the words, not mine.
I’m not sure how this’ll even work honestly considering there will only ever be 4 groups of 4 players allowed at any given time in a world. Does 16 total players make an MMO? Furthermore, since you’ll never seen more than 15 other players, does that make the game feel like an MMO to you?

The only reason I knew about this was because the developers offered me a copy of the game on PS5, but apparently Temtem is launching into Early Access on the console on December 8th.
The game already has a lot of players–hundreds of thousands total thus far, even though there’s only approximately a thousand or so playing at any given time during the course of the day.
Not only will the game be launching onto PS5, but it’s also going to offer full cross-platform play between both PC and PS5. This will provide quite a large boost to the population of the game – which once again, is already fairly large.
So if you’ve been waiting to jump into the game, this might be your chance to! Honestly, this game probably plays better as a console MMO anyway.

I covered this MMO years ago – it was an interesting title, honestly, and might be worth going back to if only to see the kind of progress they’ve made over the years since first stepping foot into it.
But today we’re here to talk about how after 4 years of Early Access Alpha, the game is finally launching.. into its Beta test phase. No, not officially launching. Just transitioning into its first Beta phase.
Which is fantastic news to players that are interested in the game, and kudos to the developers, but the game will remain in Early Access for the time being – an Early Access Beta test stage. For how many years, however, nobody knows unfortunately.

We’re just a couple days off of being able to push through Patch 5.4 – and the official website for Final Fantasy XIV has updated accordingly.
We have the final Eden’s Promise raids, Matoya’s Relict dungeon, new Chronicles of a New Era quests, the Castrum Marinum Trial, an extension to the Resistance Weapons questline, the Delubrum Reginae large-scale battle, new features, performance updates and more.
I’m attempting to avoid spoilers here but I recommend you checking out the website if you’re curious what we have to look forward to next week! It’s gonna be a big week!

I’ve been meaning to do a dedicated video on Mortal Online 2 for a while now, but this will have to suffice. Recently, the developers behind the game sent out almost 50,000 keys for players to test the game during its most recent test phase.
The dev team wanted to really push the servers to test how well they held up under the stress of a large influx of players, but unfortunately only a maximum of 2,000 players logged in at any given time to test the game out.
While they were disappointed with the turnout, they did learn that there was some strain in areas they hadn’t anticipated, however, their servers overall held up pretty well.

Bamco know how to keep hype for their MMO flowing, right? ’cause last week they actually revealed a brand new entire zone for players: The Salamzart Oasis. Not only did we get a glimpse of the beautiful desert region, but also a look at one of the monsters.
I know, it’s just a monster. There’s really nothing to be excited about over a single enemy model – true. But the zone itself is what I wanted to highlight here as during the Closed Beta Mrs Stix and I participated in I believe we only saw a maximum of 2 whole zones.
This will be the third large zone to be introduced into the game, which begs the question.. how many entire zone-masses will there be in total?
Additionally worth noting here is that during the most recent Zoom conference with the developers, it was revealed that they’re hiring additional staff, specifically – game designers, localization directors and AI engineers.
They have over a hundred people currently working on the development of the game, and are already hiring localization directors for their upcoming international release in 2022. If you needed further clarification of a global release.. then this might be just what you’re after.

The first state of Alpha testing for Ashes of Creation is fast approaching: It’s only a couple weeks away at this point. With the test phase this close, the development team revealed they’re working on an entirely new island for players to explore that is built specifically for Alpha One testing.
The new island will feature new monsters, new mechanics and will allow players to test out the PvP, which I’ve heard is actually forced-PvP. Meaning that there’s no way to opt out of PvP – there is no toggle option to flag yourself for or against PvP.
Which I know is going to be a pretty big deal for some of you that don’t like to be forced into PvP. I look forward to seeing where this goes, and would love to get into the test phase myself, especially the later one where I can go about actually obtaining footage for the game for you guys.

I know this will appeal to a minority of players, but it’s worth including because that minority might be watching right now. Soul’s Remnant is an upcoming 2D MMORPG being developed by a single guy – beginning development all the way back in April 2016.
This will be a social and player-driven platform MMO kinda like MapleStory and is actually available to play today, Saturday, December 5th. I guess it’s worth trying out if it looks interesting to you, otherwise, carry on.

I’m aware Dauntless isn’t an MMO, but it’s multiplayer enough to where this should definitely be included here, and with its most recent “Reforged” update, I guarantee you’ll understand why.
This is an update that has overhauled quite a substantial number of features and mechanics in the game, making it feel quite different to the game I played years ago when it launched. For specifics, I recommend taking a look at their list of new and altered features.
If you’re looking to try the game out though, now’s the perfect time to. The developers just hired 50 new employees to work on development of the game as it surpassed 25 million total players.