Throne and Liberty is delayed to 2024 in the West as NCSoft makes the combat more dynamic

Today, during its quarterly earnings call, NCSoft confirmed that MMORPG Throne and Liberty will launch in Q4 2023 in South Korea, while the western release has been delayed to 2024.

The reason for the delay is to improve the battle system. Indeed, while Throne and Liberty was originally pitched as a "next-generation MMORPG" with dynamic time of day and weather affecting gameplay (when you shoot a bow, the direction and strength of the wind affects the range, and if you use lightning-type magic when it's raining, a skill that only attacks a single target when it's sunny is changed to a large area skill), the match turned out to be a disappointment when players got their hands on a South Korean beta. The current version of combat was based on the tab objective system seen in old MMORPGs like Everquest or World of Warcraft rather than newer action-based MMORPGs like Elder Scrolls Online or Black Desert Online. Also, it wasn't even possible to move while attacking, leading to a very static combat experience. This is being changed; here is the relevant quote transcribed by the South Korean website Inven.

The good points were the great war and the open world, and there was positive feedback about the business model. The regrettable part was the experience of early growth and the need to improve the combat system, but this part has now made many improvements.

As for the combat system, the response speed has been improved to enable dynamic combat, as well as attacking while moving, and improvements have been made by reducing simple repetitive content and increasing the growth rate so that you can enjoy growth.

NCSoft is also preparing the global Closed Beta test in conjunction with Amazon Games, which publishes Throne and Liberty in North America, South America, Europe and Japan. The MMORPG, powered by Unreal Engine technology, will be released on PC, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series S|X with cross-play between all platforms.