Published , by Lucas White
Published , by Lucas White
Throne and Liberty is the next game Amazon has lined up as a publisher in the MMO space. Developed by NCSOFT, this title (originally intended as part of the Lineage series) launched in Korea late last year and is gearing up for a worldwide launch in September 2024. Amazon Games recently held an Open Beta test, and I spent several hours trying the game out for myself. The most striking aspects of Throne and Liberty were its high-fidelity visuals, and a shapeshifting mechanic meant to spice up some of the more mundane parts of navigating a MMO world.
The story is a little hard to follow at first but, essentially, you’re a hero in the center of a conflict over The Star of Sylaveth. This star has fragmented and pieces are scattered throughout the world of Solisium. The big bad named Kazar is trying to gather them all, and you’re an orphan who already has a fragment, or has the powers of the star somehow. You join a resistance movement fighting against Kazar, after an evil witch attacked your orphanage. Your job is to go out into the world, finding shards and other people who are involved, and eventually joining a guild of heroes to do MMO stuff as you build power.
The beginning of this game will be very familiar to anyone who has played a Korean MMO before. There’s a sort of tried-and-true formula to these things, at least as far as the starting hours go. You have a pretty big open world to explore, and each zone is full of mobs to fight, and various side quests you can complete at your leisure. To mix things up a little, traversing around these large zones is made novel by way of a shapeshifting mechanic. There’s nothing really complex about it, but you can change into a cat-like creature to sprint, an otter to swim, and a bird to glide from high spaces. There are other variants of each form, which can be unlocked by in-game means or in the premium cash shop depending on the specific animals.
These don’t really add much to the game mechanically, but it’s fun to shapeshift and watch the new animations as you run across large, open spaces or swim to objectives. It also helps the developers get a little more creative with where things are, as you have limited capacity to move a little beyond the means of a human character. There are also these wacky grappling points strewn throughout the map, which appear to be designed to, again, make traversal a little more fun. You can also unlock forms (of enemies and whatnot) to change into just for walking around, which seems relatively pointless, but implemented for funsies. And I can respect funsies in a game like this.
To feed into all the shapeshifting and other novel mechanics, Throne and Liberty does indeed have premium currency, a season pass-type structure, and another system that rewards level-based milestones with rewards (which you can pay to expand). There was only so much to tinker with during the Open Beta, but there was a small allowance and a few cosmetics to buy. Of course, progress during this period will vanish before the full game comes out, so it was more of a demonstration of how things work and how much cosmetics might cost. Thus, it’s hard to comment on the real-life monetary aspects at this time. But they are certainly present!
There’s definitely a big emphasis on guild activity in Throne and Liberty, which will likely be what fuels much of the endgame as you play past the story. Shapeshifting takes on a role there, as you can see in much of the game’s marketing materials. I didn’t get to engage with any of that stuff during the Open Beta, but the seeds were already being sewn early on. Guild content, which includes battles over capture points and transforming into massive golem-like creatures, could be the crux of what puts Throne and Liberty on the map.
Of course, all that is based on a relatively small chunk of time with the game, over the course of a few days during the Open Beta. A lot can change, and I’m sure I barely scratched the surface on what’s available to see and do. There were plenty of new shapeshifting forms, modes of play, and all kinds of challenges and tasks that were well out of reach. Players interested in diving deep and discovering what Throne and Liberty has to offer will have to wait and see it all for themselves when the game fully launches in a few months.
Throne and Liberty is available on September 17, 2024 for PC. We played the game during an Open Beta testing period for this preview.