Bluehole’s next MMORPG is the steampunk Ascent: Infinite Realm

TERA and PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds developer Bluehole has spilled the beans on its next project, known so far as Project W. It is, as expected by the look of the first images, a mash of magic and technology to create a steampunk world like others we have seen before in games such as Black Gold Online.

Ascent: Infinite Realm, or A:IR for short (probably a play on “Air”, but it's not an intuitive acronym at all), is going to feature Realm vs Realm aerial combat and “three dimensional gameplay”, which means that battles are happening on land and sky simultaneously – there is quite a heavy focus on air combat. Five classes are currently available (Warlord, Gunner, Mystic, Sorceress, and Assassin) and there is a housing and farm system. The South Korean closed beta begins next month, while the western closed beta is scheduled for the first half of 2018. Brace yourselves for Early Access.

I won't go into the details of Ascent: Infinite Realm, considering that Kakao Games signed a publishing deal for western territories, and we know that this publisher released Black Desert Online as a buy-to-play game, so there is a big chance that this could happen to A:IR as well. The official English site is here.

On the other hand, the reception to the announcement trailer below is far from positive, with players complaining about a generic feel and unforgivable frame rate drops. There's a lesson here: if you can't make a trailer without lag, then you should optimize your game a bit more before making it public.