Two years after release in China, Sword of Legends Online was released on Steam in July 2021. At that time, it was praised for its lack of Pay2Win, but lost thousands of players within a month. MeinMMO shows you how the game has fared after a year.
The most important things at a glance:
- SOLO was released in China in 2019 and became accessible to the West in July 2021
- Unusually for an Asian MMORPG: it lacked Pay2Win
- Despite a promising start, the big hype was absent and thousands of players quit within the first month
- In March 2022, the transition to Free2Play occurred
- A patch with a raid and summer event is now coming
- Another raid is said to be on the way
SOLO celebrates its birthday with new content
Demons and bikinis: Already in June, there was a major update with Patch 2.1 including new story quests, new regions, and a new PVP season. This included “Realm of Light,” an open-world zone with vast grassy areas and floating rock formations.
Now, Patch 2.1.4 brings more new content. The raid “Realm of Hallucinations” is said to be connected to the “Realm of Light” according to the patch notes, and can be found in the area outside of Tianlu City.
A thousand years ago, a horde of demons was said to have been defeated there, and in their place, a huge demon has now appeared.
In groups of 10 to 20 players, you can face various bosses there and obtain gear at level 225. Initially, there is only a normal difficulty level, with an easy mode set to be added on Sunday, July 17, 2022. (via Gameforge)
For the right summer feeling, there is also a beach party taking place from July 14 to August 4 at Dragon Turtle Beach. Four different daily quests allow you to collect tokens, which you can then exchange for prizes like a stylish new bikini.
With enough fragments, you might even be able to call the “Fat Duck” pet your own at the end of the event. (via Gameforge)
The party mood is dampened by numbers
Where does SOLO stand now? SOLO is playable on Steam as well as through Epic and the Gameforge launcher. Player numbers can only be seen from Steam, but these offer little hope. Less than 1000 players were online simultaneously in the last 24 hours.
Considering the numbers over the past year, a steady decline in players can be observed. With the switch to a Free2Play model in March, there was a slight upturn, but these players seem to have not been retained long-term.
There is also little activity in the SOLO subreddit, and overall, there seems to be little discussion about the game on Reddit. When looking at the post of a user who wanted to know why others had stopped playing SOLO, the central issues are revealed.
The lack of English voice acting is repeatedly mentioned, but performance issues also plague SOLO. One user even reports a framerate of only 20–30. Others are bothered by the user interface and find that the game feels outdated. (via reddit)
Without players, an MMORPG cannot survive. Whether the new content will be sufficient to attract more players and revive the struggling SOLO remains to be seen.
In fact, Swords of Legends had good conditions to become a successful MMORPG. Nevertheless, it failed to retain players over the long term. However, SOLO is not alone in this, as almost all new MMORPGs in 2021 have failed and we players are to blame.
