The rumors were true: Amazon Games is publishing NCsoft’s Throne and Liberty in the west. The companies announced the partnership early this morning.
“Amazon Games and NCSOFT today announced an agreement to bring massively multiplayer online role-playing game THRONE AND LIBERTY to North America, South America, Europe, and Japan. Amazon Games will publish the highly anticipated title for PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X|S, with support for cross-platform play. […] THRONE AND LIBERTY is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game that combines story-driven adventure and action combat. In THRONE AND LIBERTY, players enter a vast world with constantly shifting geographical and environmental features that change the course of play. Massive-scale player vs. player and player vs. environment combat are fundamental to THRONE AND LIBERTY. Players can transform into animals to soar through the air or explore the depths of the sea, and even tip the odds of battle in their favor by triggering powerful environmental effects, like solar eclipses or rainstorms.”
Not included in this press release is a date or even a release window, although just a few weeks ago, NCsoft told investors the game is still on track for a western release in the first half of 2023. Those rumors were bolstered early this year when NCsoft laid off a reported 20% of its western workforce, telling us that it affected only publishing staff – but not T&L itself.
Also not included is anything about the game’s business model, though we’re expecting that with the Amazon announcements, the floodgates on information will now swing open.
Throne & Liberty, of course, is the final version of Lineage Eternal, which was first announced back in 2011 and has undergone multiple revisions and name-changes along the way. It’s currently in its last stages of testing in South Korea.
Amazon is well-known in the MMORPG space, having launched New World, published Smilegate’s Lost Ark, and signed on to publish Blue Protocol later this year as well.
