Astellia Online first closed beta shows a promising game

The Astellia Online first closed beta is live and ends on June 25, a mere five days after it started. Steparu managed to jump in and came to a few conclusions.

First off, the character selection screen is a thing of beauty. It's one of those ‘let's freeze time during a colossal battle' things, with the camera smoothly zooming and panning. Astellia Online has five classes to choose from: Rogue, Mage (let's face it, you could also call it the loli), Warrior, Scholar and Archer. Classes are gender locked in a Black Desert Online kind of way and the Astellia Online first closed beta didn't include any character customization at all. That is surely happening during the next tests, we bet.

The big gimmick in Astellia Online is the Astel system. You collect cards and summon the Astels, these creatures that are divided in several classes, but also in Guardians and Servants. You can have one Astel helping you out indefinitely, but as soon as you summon a second or a third Astel, the stamina bar drains faster and they won't be with you for long.

Steparu mentions that the Scholar gameplay is a bit slow, but when he selected the Rogue, things were a lot faster. There are plenty of side-quests to do and the auto-run system takes you straight to the spot. As for the game world, it's similar to TERA, being a world with large maps, but not a seamless place.

Overall, Steparu enjoyed Astellia Online but wasn't particularly thrilled. The Astellia Online first closed beta ends June 25 and the second closed beta will hopefully improve on some aspects, especially adding some character customization and improving the server stability, which was really bad during the first days.

Astellia Online is coming to North America late 2018, but let's hope Nexon will choose a free-to-play business model.