Large MMORPGs like WoW and New World are currently no longer playable in Russia. The reason for this is sanctions related to the Ukraine conflict. The old MMORPG Allods Online is therefore enjoying great popularity. The developers even had to open three new servers.
What is currently happening in Allods Online?
- On March 2, the Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation, Myhailo Fedorov, published an open letter calling on all game developers and e-sports platforms to temporarily block Russian and Belarusian accounts (via twitter).
- Activision Blizzard was one of the companies that responded and stopped the distribution of its games in Russia. This also applies to the MMORPG World of Warcraft.
- As a result, many Russian players switched to Allods Online, a Russian MMORPG developed by mail.ru Group.
Russian players flood Allods Online – now has eight times as many players as before
What exactly is the player surge like? As mail.ru reports, more than eight times as many people are currently playing Allods Online as before the shutdown of WoW. Three completely new servers have even been opened, the last one on Saturday.
This surge can also be seen very clearly on Steam. There, the Russian version reached an all-time record of 2,198 concurrent players. Just in February, an average of nearly 100 people played the Russian version of Allods via Steam (via SteamDB). The number of peak players has thus increased nearly 22-fold.
An insight into the MMORPG is provided by this video from YouTuber Airini’s Legacy, who tried it out in February 2022:
Does this surge also affect the western version? No. Those who want to play Allods Online in English, German, or French are still almost alone in the game world. The western version has a peak of 30 concurrent players on Steam in the last 24 hours.
Although there is also a separate client outside of Steam, Allods Online players themselves say that there is hardly anything happening on the western servers.
– Ukraine Live Blog (via Zeit)
– War against Ukraine (via Tagesschau)
– Solidarity with Ukraine (via auswärtiges-amt)
Important Note: If you are troubled by dark thoughts due to the current situation: You are not alone. Please seek help. For example, at the telephone counseling service at 0800/111 0 111 or the online counseling, where you can also use a chat. It is free and applies nationwide.
Allods Online resembles WoW in space
What kind of game is this? Allods Online is a Free2Play MMORPG that is strongly reminiscent of WoW. It features similar visuals and the same game systems, but in a space scenario. It was released in 2009 and still receives regular major updates.
- You follow a story that is told through quests
- You can join a guild to experience content together
- There are dungeons and raids in the endgame
- You can use a crafting system
- There are also special PvP maps where you can compete against other players. The largest map offers a 24 vs 24 battle
However, Allods Online has never been particularly successful in the West. There has been significant criticism of the shop system from the beginning, which many consider to be Pay2Win. However, there are now two versions of the game: a Free2Play version and a pure subscription server where there is no in-game shop.
An MMORPG currently being implemented by some Ukrainian staff has posted a status update. In it, they explain what is currently happening in the studio:
Ukrainian studio behind Corepunk explains what it’s like to develop an MMORPG during the war
