The MMORPG A:IR – Ascent Infinite Realm is not being released. Instead, Elyon is coming. What sounded like a renaming with adjustments to the gameplay now turns out to be fundamentally a completely new online role-playing game.
What is Elyon? Actually, a beta for the MMORPG A:IR – Ascent Infinite Realm was supposed to start long ago. But as it has now become known, the developers are releasing Elyon: Ascent Infinite Realm and announced changes to the combat system, skills, and aerial battles.
However, there is much more behind it. Because hardly anything remains of the original MMORPG A:IR. If you look at the trailer for the game alone, it no longer looks like it used to. The overall graphics now resemble the MMORPG TERA, of course, much more modern and better. The gameplay is now said to be much more oriented towards TERA, with a stronger focus on PvP. Action-packed battles are in the center, while aerial combat plays only a minor role.
Basically a new MMORPG
Is this still A:IR? What Kakao Games and Krafton have shown from Elyon seems to have little left to do with the original game. What remains are the two factions Vulpin and Ontari, which are in conflict and the four races:
- Humans
- Elves
- Goblins
- Orcs
The classes are still present, although the skill system has changed. Now you can better customize your skills to fit your playstyle.
What is seen in the trailer looks much more like a classic MMORPG than what A:IR was supposed to become. There are no aerial battles shown in the video at all. Everything takes place on the ground. You explore a vast world, fight monsters there, and engage in PvP battles. You also improve your character. Even fishing is possible.
The attacks on bases with airships and the subsequent storming of the fortress seem to be history. Thus, Elyon has little to do with the actual A:IR. You even encounter new characters that did not exist in the original game.
What does this mean? It seems that the developers have given up their original plans regarding A:IR. The game that was supposed to emerge between the creators of TERA and Black Desert, Project W, will now be a fairly classic MMORPG with a PvP focus. So we are essentially getting a completely new MMORPG that possesses elements of TERA and is distributed by Kakao Games.
With Elyon, we can expect an MMORPG that has emerged from A:IR but now represents something new. How well it plays we should see over the course of this year. At least in South Korea, a beta starts on April 11. Then we will surely learn more about Elyon.
