NCSOFT’s fantasy MMORPG, Throne and Liberty, got off to a strong start on Steam, though it didn’t quite match the success of Amazon’s earlier MMOs.
During an early-access period where players could pay to join five days ahead, the game hit a peak of about 56,000 players at the same time. On October 1, when it became free for everyone, player numbers shot up quickly. Throne and Liberty had 326,377 players at once on launch day, making it the fourth most popular game on Steam for a while.
Like many new MMOs, Throne and Liberty faced server issues and long lines to log in during its first hours. NCSOFT rushed to add more servers to handle all the players. There were also some problems after launch, like players not being able to make new characters or losing characters they made during early access, which NCSOFT promised to fix.
The Steam launch numbers for Throne and Liberty are impressive but not as high as Amazon’s other games like New World and Lost Ark. New World, made by Amazon itself, set records on Steam in 2021 with over 913,000 players at once, even though it cost $40. Lost Ark, another free-to-play game from Korea published by Amazon, did even better in 2022 with 1.3 million players at its peak. Unlike those games, Throne and Liberty is also on PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S, so the Steam numbers don’t show everything.
Amazon shared the changes they made to Throne and Liberty before its release, aiming to make it fit Western players’ expectations better. They lowered the prices for the battle pass and leveling pass, added more rewards, and removed a subscription called the Blessing of Solisium. Amazon mentioned it would “evaluate” how the subscription might need to change to “serve the needs of our players.”
Fans sometimes just want something new and exciting to play.
Amazon was also planning to bring out another MMORPG in 2024, Bandai Namco’s anime MMO Blue Protocol. However, the Western release was canceled in August, and the Japanese servers are closing in January.
Even though Amazon is known for MMOs and is working on a Lord of the Rings game and adapting New World for consoles, they’re also exploring other types of games. At Gamescom 2024, Amazon announced they would publish a co-op dungeon crawler called King of Meat.
