Aion 2 didn't have the most graceful launch in town—its release in Korea and Taiwan last year was notoriously pay-to-win and NCSoft's stock price tanked immediately in the following days—but that hasn't stopped it from preparing a launch overseas for this year. Thanks to a trailer from Friday's Summer Game Fest, we finally know when: September.
In the same fest, a reveal for a different NCSoft MMO turned heads: Guild Wars 3, which has a beta coming late next year. As if that weren't enough to keep folks busy, ArenaNet announced a commitment to delivering more stuff for both of the other Guild Wars games "for the foreseeable future."
It's funny how the timing works out on these things. One minute, there's no new MMOs in sight, and then all of a sudden two get release windows simultaneously. In an interview with PC Gamer's Wes Fenlon, executive publishing producer on Aion 2 Merv Lee Kwai said the two games might have "some competition between them, but I think it's friendly competition."
"ArenaNet is close to NC, right? The corporate relationship there. So I view, as a member of NC America, ArenaNet as a sister company of sorts. So I'm just extremely proud that we have the two MMOs that are being brought to market right now, " Kwai said. "I'm just happy that we're both bringing products to market during this period where MMOs are struggling."
"Struggling" might seem a bit harsh, but it's plain to see what Kwai's referring to—PC Gamer's Harvey Randall wrote last year that while the most firmly entrenched games in the genre are (for the most part) only getting better, the future looks as familiar as it does volatile. "If you want new MMOs to get excited about, you're out of luck," he wrote, adding that whatever game you do like is bound to be unrecognizable in a few years as it warps with the times.
When new games do arrive, it doesn't always end well, and most projects in the modding/private server space that amass a decent following earn a C&D-shaped sword of Damocles for their trouble.
Even though they're entering a crowded space, NCSoft chief business officer Seung-Uk Baek reckons GW3 and A2 are different enough to find their own niches.
"I can't reveal too much because [GW3] is still under development," he said. "But there is a directional difference … Aion 2 focuses more on massive numbers of players, like RvR. The more users, the more fun. Whereas Guild Wars 3 is more about segments of small groups playing that makes the gameplay more fun. That's all I can say at the moment."
