ROM: Remember of Majesty | New 2023 Hardcore MMORPG Announced

New MMOs are announced all the time. Now that I think about it, more MMOs are announced each year than there are MMOs that release within the same timeframe. And while I make an active effort to cover every single one as they’re revealed, this is one I think we all missed.
On July 3rd, a press release was issued to the public concerning a new “Hardcore MMORPG,” ROM: Remember of Majesty. A title developed by Korean studio RedLab Games, and published by Kakao Games Globally. I’ve never heard of RedLab Games, and a quick Google search turned up some interesting information concerning the company.
RedLab Games was originally founded back in 2021, with a goal of becoming a “Global top-level MMORPG game company with its own competitiveness.”
The CEO of RedLab Games held executive positions in Smilegate, known for Lost Ark, Ntreev, known for Pangya and Trickster Online, Neowiz, known for Bless Online and Bless Unleashed, and Blue Potion Games, known for Echo of Soul.
RedLab, through collaboration with Kakao Games – who made a significant investment into their startup, announced early in 2022 a new title – Project R, noted as being a “high-quality, authentic MMORPG.” No additional information was given, not even an official logo or artwork.

And you might be sitting there thinking it’s just going to be another “trashy pay to win Korean MMO,” and you’re probably right. But not all of them turn out that way. And just because it’s pay to win, doesn’t inherently make it a bad game. Just a bad game to play competitively.
You can always carebear it and not give a fuck, enjoying the world, the combat or RPing. There are plenty of fun pay to win MMOs out there. Black Desert Online is considered by many to be one. So is Blade & Soul. So was TERA before it shut down. All, interstingly enough, which happen to be Korean. Coincidence?

GameVU interviewed the CEO recently concerning the game, and he had some interesting things to say about it. The interview was in Korean, thus this has been translated to the best of my abilities but might be slightly inaccurate.
Remember of Majesty – simply referred to henceforth as ROM is a cross-platform MMORPG developed for both PC and mobile players in mind. They’re developing this with a “hardcore” focus, but outside of sheer difficulty, didn’t elaborate on what specifically made it more hardcore than your average MMO.
They confirmed that the game will feature a basic approach to the MMO genre, as they aren’t looking to innovate. Rather, improve upon what already exists. There will be functional dungeons, raids and boss monsters populating the world.
The game is far enough through its development process where they are certain it will be releasing Globally in 2023. They cited a 3rd Quarter 2023 expectation, but MMOs are large projects and are difficult to ascertain a final release date for.
They’re working towards introducing a free, player driven economy. Which is great in the short-term when there are a surplus of players out farming. But gets progressively more taxing on players as the community dries up.
It seems as though they’re working towards not only having a direct PC client, but also upgrading the graphics to compete with current releases. Graphics for mobile are going to be optimized for mobile devices specifically, with PC players having access to a game that supposedly looks significantly different.
A Global version was confirmed. They never elaborated on whether Global would release simultaneously with the Korean version, or at a later date.
ROM is based on an entirely new intellectual property and not linked in any way to any other form of media. The game seems to be set in a large Western fantasy-world with varying regions and weather conditions.
They want to have a large focus on PvP – and have confirmed they understand PvP is difficult to implement and balance. Nevertheless, this is a large focus of theirs – arguably their main focus, alluding to PvP being what makes the game “hardcore.” Open-world and instanced PvP, I guess?
I know this definitely won’t appeal to everyone.
Of slight concern to me is the fact that in their interview they noted “Even if the game expands into play to earn in the future,” which means that while not currently a feature that they have in-game, it is something they’re definitely contemplating.
Play to earn doesn’t immediately make an MMO bad. But I have yet to see it received well.
It looks as though classes aren’t going to be as basic as “Archers equip a bow” or “Rogues equip daggers.” Rather, according to the class fantasy they’re touting, “Archers didn’t just use bows.” Thus, classes will be able to swap between numerous weapons and weapon types.
There also don’t seem to be traditional classes. “We wanted to focus on having classes be long-range, short-range and mage. to increase the degree of freedom in using weapons.” That could be cool. Free weapon systems are great – I love running around as a Mage in ESO and smashing peoples heads in with a greataxe. They never see it coming.
When asked what business model they would employ, they seemed hesitant to reply. I’m going to assume it’s free to play, but will likely be heavily monetized with a severe predatory cash shop. But that’s mere speculation.

And that was everything. Ultimately, I’m very weary of the game. There are a lot of things that really sound concerning to me. Potential play to earn. A large focus on PvP rather than PvE. The fact that this guy held an executive position on several studios with horribly received, predatory MMOs.
But I’m not going to write it off without seeing more, and playing it myself. I think every MMO has potential… I think almost every MMO has potential. And I’m curious to see more. On that note, I’m genuinely unsure of why we don’t have full gameplay trailers by now given it’s supposed to release in a few months.
You’d think there’d be promotional campaigns running in anticipation of the game, pre-registration events. Oh well.