Elyon (October 20, 2021 – December 7, 2022)
Genre: MMORPG | Developer: Bluehole | Platforms: PC | Payment model: Free2Play
What kind of game was it? Elyon is the second MMORPG from developer Bluehole that died this year. It was originally supposed to be called A:IR and be a game with aerial combat and steampunk elements. However, nearly a year before the release, a complete rebranding occurred.
Elyon then became a generic Asia MMORPG with few distinguishing features and open PvP. The only memorable aspect was the skill system where each ability has three different variations, providing players with significant flexibility.
In the endgame, the game focused on open-world PvP, where players could lose 5% of their experience points, although not any equipment.
What did it fail at? I mainly saw a niche for PvP fans who could switch from Black Desert or TERA to Elyon. The combat system and overall direction appealed to this audience. However, entry was extremely confusing, equipment could break during upgrades, and open PvP just didn’t resonate in the West.
Furthermore, the monetization and balance in endgame were off as well. The ultimate nail in the coffin was the release of New World, which took place only three weeks before Elyon’s launch. The game hit over 930,000 concurrent players on Steam while Elyon barely reached around 15,000.
Elyon was one of those games whose death I predicted for 2022:
What are the best memories? When thousands of players rushed into the servers during the beta, there were some cool battles in the open world. These were indeed exciting, although the penalties could be quite painful, especially if you hadn’t reached the max level.
In addition to the large battles and the cool skills system, I also remember the unique skills. For example, there were skills that allowed you to quickly mark enemies with your crosshairs, which were then hit by projectiles flying around. This was a very satisfying gameplay system.
Are there alternatives or successors? TERA would have been the biggest alternative, but that MMORPG was also shut down. Thus, we can only recommend the usual action MMORPGs such as Black Desert, PSO2 New Genesis, or New World.
