''Throne and Liberty'' is a

massively multiplayer online role-playing game A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

(MMORPG) developed by FirstSpark Games and published by

NCSoft NCSoft Corporation (stylized as NC, formerly stylized as NCSOFT; ) is a South Korean video game developer and publisher headquartered in Pangyo, Seongnam, South Korea, primarily known for the distribution of massively multiplayer online role-pl ...

. It was published in

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, and

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by Amazon Games. The game was originally part of the ''Lineage'' series and a sequel to the first '' Lineage'', but was repurposed and restructured well into development. The game was first announced as ''Lineage Eternal'' in November 2011 but suffered numerous delays in its release schedule. The first South Korea closed beta took place in 2016. NCSoft renamed the game ''Project TL'' in 2017 and ''Throne and Liberty'' in 2022.

Development and release

The game has suffered from numerous delays during development. NCSoft officially announced ''Lineage Eternal'' as the sequel to the first '' Lineage'', released in 1998, in November 2011. The first gameplay videos debuted at the G-Star 2011 gaming convention in South Korea on November 9. In August 2013, NCSoft was preparing to roll out the beta schedule of ''Lineage Eternal'' by the end of that year. The developers planned to initiate beta testing in Korea towards the end of year of 2015, but during a conference call in November, they confirmed that closed beta testing would be delayed until 2016. A closed beta in Korea was scheduled for November 2016. By March 2017, the development team's leadership for ''Lineage Eternal'' was changed due to the results of the closed beta, according to NCSoft. The game was delayed by August when NCSoft moved from a proprietary game engine that was used in ''

Guild Wars ''Guild Wars'' is an online role-playing game franchise developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSoft. The games were critically well received and won many editor's choice awards, as well as awards such as "D.I.C.E. Award for Role-Playing Game ...

'' to Unreal Engine 4. By November, the game was called ''Project TL''. By February 2022, ''Project TL'' was expected to launch in the second half of the year. The game was officially rebranded as ''Throne and Liberty'' the following month. Amazon acquired the publishing rights in 2023 and planned to release ''Throne and Liberty'' in Americas, Europe, and Japan, for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X/S with full

cross-platform Within computing, cross-platform software (also called multi-platform software, platform-agnostic software, or platform-independent software) is computer software that is designed to work in several Computing platform, computing platforms. Some ...

support. An open beta started in July 2024, and was scheduled to be released on September 17. The beta attracted nearly 60,000 players at launch and leveled off to around 38,000 by the next day. In July 2024, the Korean version of the game received the Leap Update, which added a multi-level challenge dungeon, new life skills, a boost server, and a skill system that lets players customize weapon abilities. The updates were carried over to the global version when it launched in September. NCSoft expanded service to 19 countries in Asia, Eastern Europe, and the Middle East. After early access started on September 26, the game was released on October 1. Within its first week, the game attracted over 3 million players worldwide, with over 24 million hours of gameplay recorded.

Reception

''Throne and Liberty'' received "mixed or average" reviews from critics, according to review aggregator

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

. Earlier, ''Throne and Liberty'' experienced a strong launch, particularly on

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, when it was released on October 1, 2024, for

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, Xbox Series X, S, and PC. The game climbed to become the No. 4 most-played game on Steam, reaching a peak concurrent player count of over 300,000 within its first few days. This performance placed it ahead of major titles like '' PUBG: Battlegrounds'' and ''

Grand Theft Auto V ''Grand Theft Auto V'' is a 2013 action-adventure game developed by Rockstar North and published by Rockstar Games. It is the seventh main entry in the Grand Theft Auto, ''Grand Theft Auto'' series, following 2008's ''Grand Theft Auto IV'', and ...

'', and behind only ''

Counter-Strike 2 ''Counter-Strike 2'' is a 2023 free-to-play Tactical shooter, tactical first-person shooter video game, game developed and published by Valve Corporation, Valve. It is the fifth entry in the ''Counter-Strike'' series, developed as an updated v ...

'' and ''

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''. Despite releasing midweek, the game was expected to see a further rise in player numbers over the weekend. ''Throne and Liberty''s early success was attributed to its

free-to-play "Free-to-play" ("F2P" or "FtP") video games are games that give players access to a significant portion of their content for free. The term "free-to-play business model" or simply, "free-to-play model", refers collectively to business models tha ...

model, its

MMORPG A massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) is a video game that combines aspects of a role-playing video game and a massively multiplayer online game. As in role-playing games (RPGs), the player assumes the role of a Player charac ...

elements that encourage guild-based gameplay, and its appeal to both PvP and PvE players. Set in the new world of Solisium, the game offers large-scale PvP battles, quests, and typical MMORPG features such as crafting and fishing. Its narrative-driven approach, emphasized by developers NCSOFT and publisher Amazon Games, helped distinguish it from other

genre Genre () is any style or form of communication in any mode (written, spoken, digital, artistic, etc.) with socially agreed-upon conventions developed over time. In popular usage, it normally describes a category of literature, music, or other fo ...

titles. Although its peak numbers have yet to match those of other Amazon-published MMORPGs like ''

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'' and '' Lost Ark'', the early reviews positioned ''Throne and Liberty'' as one of the better games of the genre. On February 14, 2025, just four months after the game's release in Japan and the West, ''Throne and Liberty'' servers were consolidated from 107 down to 25 due to sparse population density.

References

External links

Official website
(in

Singapore English Singapore English (SgE, SE, en-SG) is the set of varieties of the English language native to Singapore. In Singapore, English is spoken in two main forms: Singaporean Standard English, which is indistinguishable grammatically from British E ...

)
Official website
(in

South Korean standard language The South Korean standard language or Pyojuneo () is the South Korean standard version of the Korean language. It is based on the Seoul dialect, although various words are borrowed from other regional dialects. It uses the Korean alphabet, create ...

) {{NCsoft PlayStation 5 games Lineage (series) Massively multiplayer online role-playing games NCSoft games 2023 video games Video game sequels Video games developed in South Korea Windows games Unreal Engine 4 games