Gaming fever has taken over and many different genres are starting to take off as the market moves away from being a niche interest into a global phenomenon – a huge boon to the growth here has been the explosion of the mobile gaming market across multiple genres, although much of this growth has been seen across a more casual audience in arcade or the growing online game market as here are some at casinos not on gamstop that have found success despite the recent updates aimed at reducing participation options – for other platforms the huge success of esports has also helped push things forward. For many however, the excitement is coming from the MMORPG market as Ashes of Creation continues to build hype.
The MMORPG industry has long moved past its prime back in the mid to late 2000’s, and whilst games such as World of Warcraft continue to pull in millions of users, the online gaming space has certainly moved towards the more competitive titles in games such as League of Legends and Counter-Strike – but there’s still a very healthy audience looking for something new, something that could break the mould and bring something different to an industry that has become rather stale, and many are looking towards Ashes of Creation to fill that void.
The title was initially announced and crowd-funded back in 2016 with the funding drawing to a close in 2017 – by promising big features such as player housing, sieges, and an active world node system, the game promised to bring many of the big features that had made other titles so successful all under one roof and deliver an unmatched MMO experience. With developer updates and Q&A’s earlier this year with popular content creators such as Asmongold, Summit1G, and Shroud, it brought a lot of attention to what had been expected, but for many it had also raised the question – when will the game be ready, and when it is, can they deliver on all the promises that were made?
This year has brought a lot of cynicism for players, delayed titles and incomplete launches for bigger titles have caused some distrust, fans in the MMORPG genre have seen poor updates and incomplete features for a longer period of time too, and whilst it’s a given that development time for something as big as an MMO is bound to be much longer, there are growing fears that if experienced teams working with a huge budget can’t get things right, can the Ashes team get it right the first time? Answers will come soon enough however, the NDA Alphas will begin in December if the release schedule remains unchanged with the non-NDA alpha coming in April 2021 – the beta and pre-release dates will start to be announced when the alphas have concluded but it may not be long before we start to see how the game is shaping out, and whether or not the hype and hopes will live up to expectation, or fall flat as many have done before.
