Korean developer Barunson E&A has just confirmed the news that they teased over a year and half ago: Astellia is coming to the west. There's an official English website to celebrate the announcement of the western release of this PC MMORPG, and the promise that the game will be discussed in a panel at PAX South this weekend, with the charming and explicit “No more Pay to Win with Astellia” name. That should be interesting to follow.
While Astellia is published in Korea by Nexon, Barunson E&A is going the self-publish route for North America (and possibly Europe, but there are no details on this). The business model remains a secret, but hopefully it will be free-to-play – considering the talk about avoiding pay-to-win, it would be weird to release it as buy-to-play, as Bless Online would surely agree.
The first impressions from the Korean version mention a pretty MMORPG that is a bit too traditional for its own good. It seems to be aimed at fans of Aion and TERA, but with the addition of the Astells – currently over 30 beings that you can summon for a small period to help you in battle. This gives the game a slight TCG feel to it, with two, sometimes three Astells lending you a hand.
As for the rest, seems to be standard MMORPG stuff. Five classes to choose from (Warrior, Assassin, Mage, Scholar and Archer), PvP, and a nice in-depth character customization system.
Astellia will surely be a welcome addition if it releases in the west as free-to-play. However, let's learn from previous mistakes and not hype it to death like we've done with a few other MMORPGs. Wait and see.
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