The MMORPG space is a cutthroat industry, with games either cementing themselves as fan favourites or quickly losing momentum and fading into obscurity. It’s rare for newcomers to make a name for themselves, as countless companies have tried and failed to make an impact. One notable example of this was New World, which launched with high expectations but ultimately struggled to maintain a player base.
Archeage
One MMORPG that managed to maintain a dedicated player base was ArcheAge. Although it never reached the massive success of titles like WoW or Final Fantasy, it managed to stay afloat for 10 years, carving out a niche for itself within the genre.
Archeage was first released as a free-to-play MMORPG in Japan and Korea in 2013 and eventually made its way over to the West in 2014. Then alongside the free-to-play game in 2019, the company behind the game XL Games announced a paid version of the game ArcheAge: Unchained following the same content and update schedule but without the free-to-play monetization model.
A rather bold move for an MMORPG was the decision to split the player base, potentially accelerating the game’s decline. In 2023, the developer announced a server merge due to dwindling populations across both the original ArcheAge and its separate ArcheAge: Unchained version.
Sadly though this wasn’t enough and the developers have now announced that the game will be closing down due to low player numbers. On Steam, the game has struggled to maintain a concurrent player count above a hundred for many months, and while the majority of players likely use the standalone launcher, this paints a bleak picture of the game’s overall health.
