So it’s been quite some time since we heard anything about Astellia (which is buy-to-play) or its free-to-play cousin Astellia Royal, hasn’t it? And unfortunately, sometimes looking into the questions of what might be happening doesn’t actually result in a happy story.
Longtime friend of MOP Connor over at MMO Fallout noted that both games have been pulled from Steam, with neither one offering any explanation or statement regarding the removal. This is particularly noteworthy as it’s rare for a free-to-play game to get pulled from Steam without explanation. Checking today confirms that neither is available for purchase from Steam without explanation on an account that does not have either one installed or purchased.
The official forums for Astellia have all the signs of an abandoned forum, with no moderation taking care of transparent scam marketing ads filling up responses to topics, while the game’s social media accounts have been silent since January 2021. While the official forums for Astellia Royal continue to see official postings, they are also light on activity. They promise a version update on August 11th, but details are scarce to say the least; the game has no forward-facing social media in English, but the Korean Twitter for the game appears to have been silent since September 2020.
It’s also worth noting that neither game on Steam Charts has posted even three digits’ worth of players since May 2021, with both below 50 players on average during the last 30 days. As always, take these numbers with a grain of salt, but it’s certainly not good.
What the heck is happening? It’s impossible to be entirely sure, but all indicators seem to point to some for of quiet shutdown or scaling back, especially with the buy-to-play Astellia. It’s not even entirely clear if anyone is left to announce something to the community there; the game’s community managers do not appear to have been active on the forums since May at the latest. Astellia Royal seems to still be promising an update this week, but it remains to be seen if that will materialize.
None of this is what would be construed as “good news” for the games.
