On November 26, 2024, the new MMORPG Corepunk started early access. What stands out: Many genre fans are excited about the old-school approach of the online role-playing game.
What kind of MMORPG is Corepunk? Corepunk is a “top-down MMORPG” with an open world and sandbox character. Visually and also in terms of controls, it resembles League of Legends. At the same time, it is also a classic online role-playing game that is supposed to remind players of the difficulty of Vanilla-WoW.
In the game, you can expect six classes with a total of 18 different specializations, dungeons, as well as raids and PvE content in an open world equipped with a fog of war. A crafting system, open-world PvP, and arena matches complement the offerings.
In the alpha, Corepunk was quite unfriendly to beginners, ruthless, and frustrating. The well-known MMO YouTuber TheLazyPeon even described it as the “most frustrating experience for new players that I have ever encountered in an MMORPG”.
A gameplay trailer for Corepunk:
Less ruthless, more fun
How does the early access version perform? With the start of early access, Corepunk has made a noticeable step forward compared to the alpha. There are numerous tutorial pop-ups that introduce systems and mechanics. You no longer have to take long recovery breaks after each battle. And questing is also smoother.
Nevertheless, Corepunk continues to offer quite an old-school gaming experience:
- Fighting against two or three enemies at once can quickly end in death. At first, you deal most of your damage through auto-hits.
- You have to move cautiously through the world, as you can quickly encounter enemies that are (still) too strong.
- Characters do not regenerate health points outside of combat. Instead, they must use consumables or sit by a campfire.
- NPCs are not marked as quest givers. You have to talk to them to see if they have a quest for you.
- There is also no automatic quest tracking that guides you to your destination via pop-ups on the map or in the game world.
What is the preliminary conclusion of the early access players? Many buyers of the early access access praise the old-school gaming experience.
- DNedry writes on Reddit: “I am having a lot of fun. I expect that it won’t be particularly popular among younger players or critics of old-school MMOs. It is slow, deliberate, challenging, and punishing. It takes time to get going, and is definitely a slow game. It is not for the masses, but rather for old-school fans.”
- Mage_Girl_91_ compares the early access to the alpha (via Reddit): “It’s funny how we spent the last year of the alpha phases with multiple wipes being told it had to be hard, grindy, and unforgiving, and just before early access, they rebalanced everything and apparently it has become at least a bit more bearable so far.”
- Parafault is having fun (via Reddit): “I really enjoy Corepunk. It’s a new MMORPG that has innovative systems and a unique art style. The fights are fun, but they are a bit slow at the beginning. The gameplay is different from the major MMOs on the market, and the best part: It’s Buy2Play, with a harmless, purely cosmetic cash shop.”
- Lughburz had initial difficulties (via Reddit): “I was pretty lost and a little frustrated in the first hour. Then I read a post on Reddit where someone said: Just accept the quests and then forget about them. And it worked. Just running around, killing stuff, looting, and collecting, and the quests sort of take care of themselves.”
Has MeinMMO editor Karsten Scholz played it yet? Yes, but unfortunately only for a few hours in both the alpha and the early access version. I also feel that Corepunk seems a bit tamer and less frustrating after the recent changes.
Compared to modern MMORPGs that aim to appeal to as large an audience as possible and therefore build as few hurdles as possible, Corepunk still plays out with an old-school grind and painstaking pace.
While the new tutorial pop-ups help to navigate through the game, they can also be annoying as they rapidly cover the screen at first. Fortunately, this noticeably decreases after a little while. And the more time I spend in the game, the more fun I have exploring the world of Corepunk. You can find all the important information about release, download, launcher, steam, early access, and keys here.
