For about eight years (!), no more than 100 fans played the MMORPG Allods Online at the same time on Steam. Accordingly, the recent surge of players in the fantasy world of Sarnaut is quite surprising.
What kind of increase are we talking about? Allods Online has been around since October 2010, but it wasn’t until June 2016 that it was fully integrated into Steam. Just two months later, from August 2016, there were no more than 100 adventurers simultaneously in the fantasy world of Sarnaut (via steamcharts.com).
This sad picture was delivered by the MMORPG from Allods Team despite mostly positive reviews (71 percent) for about eight years. Until a sudden surge occurred in recent days, which has been ongoing:
- Allods Online has seen an increase of over 570 percent.
- With 1,018 concurrent players, the MMORPG reached a new all-time high.
- The 24-hour peak is at 1,004 concurrent players.
- On early Tuesday morning, 968 players were active in Allods Online.
Compared to other successful Steam titles, the numbers may seem unspectacular, but in the context of the previous history of Allods Online, this increase is more than remarkable.
Allods Online does not feature in the list of the best MMORPGs of all time:
On the Trail
Why are player numbers suddenly increasing? Finding an answer to this question is not so easy.
- There has been no comprehensive update in recent days that would explain this sudden increase in players.
- Apart from the usual events, no groundbreaking new occurrences are planned for August.
- Despite the sudden increase in players, there are almost no new reviews on Steam. The negative review from August 1, 2024, links to a blog post with images and a short review of Allods Online (the gist: boring game). The two positive reviews from July 26 and August 3, 2024, come without explanatory text.
What stands out when looking at the graph of Allods Online on steamcharts.com is that since August 3, 2024, around 950 to just over 1,000 characters have been consistently online in the MMORPG, regardless of the time of day.
In a discussion on Reddit, several users are therefore convinced that this increase in players has been generated solely by bots. Thanks to the Free2Play servers, they have easy access to the game.
One reason for the suddenly increased activity of the bots could be the long-awaited Update 15.0 within the community, which is supposed to overhaul the equipment system (via allods.my.games). However, there doesn’t seem to be a release date yet.
What do I need to know about Allods Online? The online role-playing game from Russia dazzled at launch with classic MMORPG content, gameplay, and visual similarities to World of Warcraft, as well as several nice ideas like the floating islands that can be explored using airships.
However, the launch was bumpy, as some items relevant to the gaming experience were offered at high prices in the real-money shop. Among these was an item that was essential to remove the penalty for character death. It took months for the costs to be removed.
In addition, there was a high grind factor, followed by the announcement of Allods Team’s second MMO: Skyforge was released in July 2015 for PC. MeinMMO editor-in-chief Gerd Schuhmann was present during the open beta and launch: Skyforge in Test: Is the Free2Play MMORPG worth it?
