Legends of Aria – MMORPG with many problems
Genre: MMORPG | Developer: Citadel Studios | Platform: PC | Release Date: July 8, 2020 | Model: Free2Play
What is Legends of Aria? Legends of Aria is a sandbox MMORPG inspired by classic titles like Ultima Online.
Originally developed as Shards Online, it focused on community-created servers. Now there are also fixed worlds created by the developers. Nevertheless, players and modders can create their own worlds.
The game generally emphasizes freedom and offers content such as:
- A vast fantasy world that you can explore freely
- Crafting and trading
- A player-controlled economy
- A classless system with many skills
- Housing
- Dungeons
There was an outcry surrounding the MMORPG when, in February 2019, it was openly stated that Pay2Win mechanics would be used. According to the developers, for their game, “it is not the right way to avoid Pay2Win”.
How is Legends of Aria doing currently? Since December 2019, Legends of Aria has been Free2Play, and it officially launched in Summer 2020. However, it could only profit a little from this. According to Steamcharts, only about 70 players, on average, logged into the MMORPG in December 2020. At peak, there were 109 concurrent players.
Overall, the MMORPG is only rated positively by 57 % out of 1,447 reviews.
That’s why I believe Legends of Aria will die in 2021: I had already listed this MMORPG on my dead games list for 2020, and it survived. However, the numbers have significantly declined compared to the end of 2019.
The developers tried to save themselves by offering a paid DLC with new endgame content for the Free2Play MMORPG. However, many fans viewed this critically.
Another nail in the coffin could be the new MMO ‘The End’. This is the new game that developer Citadel Studios is working on. It is supposed to be a dark fantasy survival game that offers a hack-and-slash combat system.
While there is currently no release date for the new game, if it should release in 2021, it will likely attract more attention from players and developers than the old Legends of Aria.
