Last week, the dev team behind the new ODIN: VALHALLA RISING MMORPG released a Q&A for its players, specifically, its Global, English speaking players.
Yes! ODIN is finally confirmed to be coming out Globally! And I know what you’re thinking – “Isn’t this that auto-play MMO you talked about earlier this year?” Yes, yes it is.
So with that knowledge, this wouldn’t necessarily be good news if it released in the form it’s currently in… but what changes things – for me – is the fact that they made a comment on the auto-play features and whether they’ll be present within the Global release.

For those of you unaware of what ODIN: VALHALLA RISING IS, it’s an MMORPG developed by Lionheart Studio and published by Kakao, the old publisher for Black Desert Online, and the current publisher for games like Guardian Tales and Elyon.
ODIN is, as you’d expect, a Norse-themed MMO featuring characters like Thor, Odin, Loki, Freya and more. It’s set in an enormous open world, and features a graphical style akin to that of Black Desert Online. This was considered to be actual competition for BDO due to the incredible resemblance it shared.

In their opening question, they went on to confirm their intentions to release the game Globally.

We have news to share indeed! Recently, we chose Kakao Games to be Odin Valhalla Rising’s publisher, for both the Taiwanese & global versions of the game. Kakao Games has an enormous amount of experience and in publishing games, both within and outside South Korea.
In addition, Kakao Games is our game’s publisher in South Korea. Our journey together has been, so far, overwhelmingly successful.

Now if you guys recall, I recently did a video pertaining to the overwhelming success of ODIN: VALHALLA RISING within South Korea. Not only did it earn over $100 million dollars within its first month of being available online, but it had millions of active players playing during its first few months being online.
So yeah, honestly, it was pretty successful.

We are looking forward to continuing that journey and seeing what the future holds for both of us.
Last but not least, Odin is scheduled to release in Taiwan during the first quarter of next year (2022). The global release is expected to take place right after the Taiwanese one.
So that is a confirmation that ODIN will be releasing Globally either during the first quarter of 2022 – January through March, or shortly after. Meaning the next few months!

And this, I believe, is what is going to make or break the game for us as Western players. Auto-combat is an atrocious feature that should not exist in PC games. Mobile? Fine, but PC? Not at all.
Their answer to this, though?

We are still considering that option and have yet to make a final decision on the matter.

What this means is that enough people requested they change it, and if enough people continue to make their voices heard – like going into the comment section and stating you want auto-play removed, then we might get a version free of that limitation.

To which they responded with,

Yes! We recently revealed that we are working on a couple of new titles, in addition to Odin Valhalla Rising.

For those of you that enjoyed ODIN, or for those of us looking for future MMOs – this is a confirmation that they’re working on more than one new title, one of which might be an MMO.

Those projects are still in a very early stage of development. When the right time comes, we will gladly reveal more information.

Unfortunately they’re not willing to really elaborate on what types of games they’re working on specifically. Which is fine. I’d honestly like a new PC MMO – a PC exclusive MMO. I feel like that’s a step in the right direction.

As you guys might be aware, G-star is one of Korea’s largest gaming events where Korean developers show off their games.
Their response?

“Yes you will! G-star is South Korea’s biggest game convention and since Kakao Games are one of the main sponsors of this year’s convention, Odin is going to be ‘The Star’ of G star!”

And that’s it for their Q&A.
We learned quite a bit from it – they’re in the process of working on releasing the game Globally within the next several months, and they’re contemplating removing auto-play from our version of the game. Which would make this into quite the competitive MMO title.
I genuinely hope they follow through with this, and we get a high quality new release next year.

Let me ask you guys this: when was the last time you saw an MMO so well done.. that it absolutely shattered records made throughout that year?
Because.. Well, in this instance, new records were definitely made. By an MMO many of us had completely written off.

So, on June 29th, Kakao released their latest open-world MMORPG “Odin: Valhalla Rising.” Through the trailers they’d released up until that point, I’m not gonna lie, the game looked pretty damn good. Very similar to Black Desert Online. I had covered the game on occasion up until that point, as I do all upcoming MMOs.
But what caught my eye was that at the time, just prior to the game launching, more than 4 million players were already pre-registered. 4 million.
That is an enormous number of interested players, given that the game was launching, at least at the time, within the South Korean region only.
Now don’t get me wrong – it was definitely possible to get around the pre-registration restrictions, and it’s even easier to get into the game now that some of those limitations are no longer in place, but the vast majority of these players were predominantly Korean.

Shortly after launching to millions of players, Lionheart Studio, the developer of the game announced that they were in the process of rolling out additional servers in an effort to lower the large clusters of players all trying to connect and play concurrently.
A month after launching, ODIN: Valhalla Rising was the highest grossing MMORPG in the world. Yup, ODIN launched on June 29th, 2021. By July 2nd, 2021 – a mere 3 days later, the game had accumulated more in sales than any other MMO at the time – and interestingly enough, any game released on either PC or Mobile.
A mere 2 weeks later, Kakao went on to confirm that the game had made over “100 billion Won,” which equates to roughly $85 million US dollars. In just.. 19 days, ODIN: Valhalla Rising had made almost $100 million dollars in revenue.
This is something that caught a lot of people off guard – something that absolutely nobody had expected.
Kakao, while they were the publisher for Black Desert over in the West for a while, have had no real success with any other MMOs up until this point, and players never anticipated they would with this game either.
Because at the end of the day, sure, the game looked good on paper, but this was a cross-platform MMO between PC and Mobile devices, employing and utilizing traditional mobile systems like auto-pathing and auto-combat.
Now just because it had auto-features, doesn’t automatically make it inherently bad, nor did that mean that the game would make use of those mechanics at endgame. So don’t take that as me claiming the entire game is auto-themed.

It’s so surreal to me that an MMO like ODIN: Valhalla Rising became as popular as it did.
Genshin Impact made sense. It looked gorgeous, had some quality combat, a lot of very attractive husbandos and waifus to collect. It preyed on players with addictive personalities and drained them of everything they had.
But ODIN provides none of that. Sure, the game is a large, open-world MMO, but so is.. almost every other Mobile MMO.
I guess it’s partly due to the attention span that mobile gamers have? There’s a reason auto-mechanics are so prevalent in mobile titles after all.

Nevertheless, ODIN: Valhalla Rising has absolutely shattered records for a Mobile MMORPG – and even more impressively, for a PC MMORPG.
This game, since launching 3 months ago has made hundreds of millions of dollars, has had tens of millions of active players across both platforms, and has went on to absolutely dominate the Korean MMO market.
Sure, it might be a ways off competing with the other titans of the genre within Korea like Lineage 2 Revolution, but rivaling Genshin Impact, which also went on to garner roughly $100 million dollars within its first month as well? That’s impressive.
Honestly, I’m surprised that months later, we haven’t had any confirmation of a Western release. You’d think, given the success ODIN has had, Kakao would want to get this MMO out for the whole world to play.
I mean, outside of its release within Korea…. do we even have a confirmed release anywhere else in the world? Typically China, Japan and other Asian regions follow a release within Korea, with Europe and North America typically getting games a year or two later.
But we haven’t heard anything at present.

Now whether you’re excited to try this game out or not, you cannot deny its overwhelming success. This game has taken the cross-platform MMO market in South Korea by storm, and there has to be a reason for that.
I’m not typically a fan of auto-play MMOs. I’m not. I find them lacking in purpose, as I play MMOs to experience a world with thousands of other players. Not with thousands of other AI-controlled players.
Yet even so, I’m intrigued by the game enough where I would definitely spend some time in it. I spent plenty of time in V4, I’ve spent weeks in Punishing Gray Raven. State of Survival.
And yes I may have spent money in each and every one of them, but that’s not something you can hold against me. I feel like when you play a mobile game you are absolutely REQUIRED to spend something on it, be it for an outfit, VIP membership, or simple quality of life improvement.

While ODIN: Valhalla Rising might not be the success over here in the West that it is in Korea, I’m genuinely curious to see how players receive the title.
Partly because this will be the first true cross-platform MMORPG we’ll get – as Tower of Fantasy will likely release over in the West after ODIN does, and partly because this could ultimately shape the future of the MMORPG genre.
In a good, or bad way.

ODIN: Valhalla Rising has just entered its pre-registration stage, allowing for players to sign up, log in and further register for the game ahead of its upcoming test phase. I want to take a moment here to instruct you on how to go about successfully completing that task so you can hopefully get in and try the game out for yourself.

First and foremost you’re going to want to navigate on over to the official ODIN: Valhalla Rising website.

Next you’re going to want to scroll down the main webpage and navigate on over to the method you want to use to register for the game. I opted to select the second method as I was already in possession of a Kakao account.

If you’d prefer to log in using a phone number then you’re more than welcome to however!

Then you’re going to be presented with an entirely new page featuring 2 different buttons. One takes you directly to the official website (which we just came from!) and the other will open the pre-registration page.

Simply click “Pre-register” and move on to the next step!

The next step is easy: Simply click the log in button, sign in and then confirm your pre-registration.

If you successfully logged in and pre-registered you should be met with this confirmation page.

That goes on to show you how many players have pre-registered at the time of your submission (376,645 for me.)

You can further verify this by navigating back on over to the official website.

It should tell you at the top left of the screen that you have “pre-registered” successfully.

And that’s it! You’re ready to jump into the game if you get sent out a key!

ODIN: Valhalla Rising is a brand new upcoming cross-platform Norse-mythology inspired MMORPG slated for release in 2021. Multiple trailers have been released over the course of the last year, however, as of earlier this week another trailer has yet surfaced detailing one of the Gods – Loki.

Where multiple trailers over the course of the game’s development have been fully rendered in-game trailers showcasing the general world we’ll get to explore, this trailer in specific is different. This time it’s a full cinematic trailer – something that I know a lot of you will cringe at but it goes to showcase some of the story we’ll come across.
Once more, the trailer focuses on Loki – who everyone at this point should be well aware of. The trailer is fully in Korean though with no English subtitles, and thus I’m unable to understand what’s going on. Nevertheless, it’s always refreshing seeing new trailers come out for games you’re excited to play, and this one is no different.

ODIN: Valhalla Rising is coming to both PC and Mobile devices in 2021, with a Global launch already planned for English players.

I often find myself getting excited when sitting through trailers. Not necessarily cinematic trailers – we’re all well aware how deceiving those can be, but rather the in-game trailers, as they provide us a glimpse into what type of game we’re going to receive. So when we got another brand new trailer for ODIN: Valhalla Rising this week, specifically concerning 4 of the regions I was very excited.

We got to see a player-character (it is currently unknown whether or not there will be character customization in the final product of the game, and to what extent the customization options will end up being – such as gender-locked classes,) one of the base regions, Yggdrasil, the great tree, Jotunheim, Alfheim, and finally Nidavellir. Each region looks to have their very own unique aesthetic look and feel, with monsters and NPCs that suit the geographical location the game is set in.

Interestingly enough, the more I see of ODIN, the more it resembles Black Desert Online. The graphical style, the setting, the character models (although admittedly the characters more closely resemble the characters you’d find in ArcheAge.)

ODIN: Valhalla Rising is going to be released completely cross-platform on PC and Mobile devices. It is unconfirmed exactly when the upcoming MMO will be releasing, but many players are expecting towards the end of 2021. The game looks to be coming along quite quickly! So it’s unlikely we’ll have too long to wait. Although since this is a South Korean MMO, it’s also unlikely we’ll get a simultaneous global release. Being Western players, a release over in North America and Europe is likely to take place months later.

ODIN: Valhalla Rising just had 2 brand new trailers showcased at G-Star 2020 in the last 24 hours – and you can bet I’m not going to miss the opportunity to talk about them.
ODIN: Valhalla Rising is a brand new upcoming MMORPG developed by Lionheart Studio and published by Kakao Games featuring a graphical style that is very reminiscent to Black Desert Online.

For players that were unaware, ODIN: Valhalla Rising is actually being developed as a cross-platform MMORPG. Cross-platform between both PC and mobile devices.
I know this might be a turn-off for some of you, but remember – even Genshin Impact is cross-platform compatible, and as time continues to go by these things become more and more common.
The game itself is set in a completely seamless open-world, much like the game it took inspiration from – Black Desert Online. There are no loading screens to get in the way of exploration.
As you saw in the trailer, while there are going to be mounts present in-game – land-mounts, there are going to be aerial mounts as well, something most games – most MMOs opt not to do.
I personally love aerial exploration in my MMOs. I loved it when I unlocked it in Heavensward, in Wrath of the Lich King. Having that much more freedom is just so.. well, for lack of a better word.. freeing.

The game, as you could see in the second trailer has several different continents: Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim and Alfheim.
Yes, you probably recognize these names from the Thor movies – this game is based heavily on Norse mythology, something I’m very eager to explore.
And the fact that we’ll get to go up against large bosses like Loki and perhaps even Thor and Odin themselves is so damn cool.

There is no set release date for ODIN: Valhalla Rising presently, other than “Some time in 2021.” I’m aware that’s a little.. vague, but unfortunately it’s all we got.
And yes, that’s 2021 within South Korea, but I guarantee you we’ll be receiving the game over here in the West as well – probably not too long after considering it’s Kakao.

I’m really excited for this game. It’s probably in my 5 most anticipated titles of 2021!

It was brought to my attention earlier today that Kakao Pearl Abyss, the company behind Black Desert and Black Desert Mobile, and more recently EVE and EVE Echoes released their 3rd Quarter Financials.
According to the info released, Pearl Abyss has seen a large increase in Net Income compared to 2019’s 3rd Quarter, which is mainly due to the mobile market – shocker, I know.
Guardian Tales was mostly responsible for this – a mobile game I can actually say was quite a bit better than I’d expected when I played it.
But this isn’t what’s most important. We’re all here for the MMO info, right? Specifically pertaining to Black Desert‘s prequel-sequel, Crimson Desert, the new upcoming ODIN: Valhalla Rising and even Elyon?

Before we jump into Crimson Desert, though, I do want to note that apparently Black Desert Online – interestingly enough – has seen its worst year in a long time, being down 13% this quarter alone, and over 19% year over year.
That’s a substantial decline in revenue – a direct effect of the continued decrease of active players logging in to play the game. So it is with this knowledge in mind that Pearl Abyss have announced their intentions to drop a very large “reveal” for Crimson Desert next month – in December 2020.
This reveal is both to reassure players that the game is continuing to be actively worked on, and to reassure investors that the game is inching ever closer to release.
Currently, they plan on unveiling actual in-game footage of the game in a full game-disclosure event. This will provide us all with a much closer, much deeper look at how the game will ultimately end up functioning. How it competes with Black Desert, and hopefully exactly what type of game it is.
Players are still speculating whether or not the game is going to be single-player or an MMO, how the combat will or won’t be an improvement over Black Desert, the exact, definitive setting.. there’s so much we don’t know and hopefully at least some of that is clarified next month.
We don’t have an exact date yet – only “December 2020,” but they’ll no doubt announce that ahead of the event.

Concerning Elyon, it was revealed recently that the upcoming MMO will be launching within South Korea next month – in December 2020.
Taking a look at the report, however, Pearl Abyss goes on to list “North America and Europe market launches: Successful experience with Black Desert 2021.”
That’s all but a 100% confirmation that any time in the 2nd quarter – April, May or June 2021 will see Elyon launch in both North America and Europe.
I know Elyon has changed quite drastically over the last couple years of development, but after what seems like an eternity, we’re going to finally be able to play the game.
A lot of interest – a lot of hype, excitement for the release has died down, and I can understand why that is. Even so, getting definitive release dates for a new MMO to spend some time in is always promising!

Then we have the upcoming ODIN: Valhalla Rising MMORPG. This is a game I’m really curious about. I’m not sure if I’m necessarily as hyped as I am for Tower of Fantasy, but ODIN is touted as being Black Desert.. but built cross-platform.
That sounds like it could be very promising – or an absolute train wreck, especially given how Black Desert Mobile ended up turning out. Regardless, the upcoming MMO is scheduled to launch within South Korea in the 2nd Quarter 2021, at a similar time to Elyon’s Global release.
They have yet to confirm any specifics pertaining to the Global release of ODIN but given how quickly they seem to want to push these games out to their Western audience, I wouldn’t expect it to take all that long.
Almost half of Pearl Abyss’s yearly revenue, interestingly enough, actually comes from their Western audience, which is probably why they’re always creating games with that particular audience in mind. And why they’ve actually had as much success as they’ve ultimately had.

If you weren’t already aware – I covered this actually last month I believe, but Pearl Abyss is working together with XLGames, the developer behind the notoriously pay-to-win MMORPG ArcheAge to create a sequel: ArcheAge 2.
The game is still in very, very early stages of development right now but they plan on making ArcheAge 2 “THE next generation MMORPG,” with the game being built on Unreal Engine 5 and taking what they learned with both ArcheAge and Black Desert and applying it to the sequel.
But with ArcheAge’s business model and Black Desert’s business model.. you can bet ArcheAge 2 is going to be one hell of a pay-to-win mess. It might be an amazing game – but it’s going to cost quite a bit to play competitively in any form.

And finally, we had a few more games revealed, announced or confirmed as well: World Flipper and Moonlight Sculptor – 2 Mobile games were confirmed to be receiving Global releases within the 3rd Quarter 2021, and Soul Artifact, a Mobile game is going to be releasing within South Korea some time during the 4th Quarter 2021.

Pearl Abyss has a lot on their plate for 2021. A lot to offer players – of both PC and Mobile genres.
There’s still no real news on DokeV, their upcoming monster-collector MMORPG or Plan8 – their FPS? TPS? But both were definitely listed in the report released.
And you can bet there are a surplus of other games currently in development at the studio – Pearl Abyss is continuing to show signs of growth and isn’t looking to slow down any time in the immediate future. They’re becoming an absolute giant in the industry, and I’m glad they’re continuing to stick to what got them to where they are: MMORPGs.
Will any of these ultimately end up worth playing? Will Crimson Desert replace Black Desert now that BDO is showing continued signs of decline? Will ArcheAge 2 be as bad as players are assuming it will be? Is ODIN: Valhalla Rising just another crappy cross-platform MMO or will it be worth playing like Genshin Impact?
Only time will tell. Either way, I’m curious to see where all of these MMOs end up going into 2021, and hope you all are as well.

So I did a video on ODIN: Valhalla Rising while it was still under the title Project Odin a month or two ago. I was reluctant to post it to the main Youtube channel because I was unsure of exactly the kind of game this was.
However, as of the last couple days there has been not only new information, but also new gameplay trailers released for the game.

Alright, so let me preface this entire thing by stating 2 important things: First, this is a South Korean MMORPG. Being a South Korean MMO almost guarantees beautiful graphics, but at the same time a lack of longevity and the potential to never actually receive the game outside of the region.
Second, this is going to be completely cross-play compatible between both PC and Mobile devices. Yup, just like the upcoming GRAN SAGA MMORPG, just like the Genshin Impact co-op RPG. The world is slowly shifting, making more games cross-platform.

With that out of the way, let’s talk about the game. ODIN: Valhalla Rising is an upcoming MMO. Does the game have an expected release date? Actually, yes, yes it does. ODIN: Valhalla Rising will release in 2020 – yes, the game will be coming out this year.
Well, it’ll be coming out this year in South Korea, anyway. It’s highly doubtful the game or the team behind it have any intention of releasing anywhere outside of South Korea in the immediate future.
It will have a beautiful fantasy setting, taking place in a large, open world. According to the developers Lionheart Studio, the game will not have any loading screens at all. So this is comparable to a game like Black Desert as opposed to something like Final Fantasy XIV.

Earlier this week, they released new information, specifically pertaining to classes, mounts and the game overall. As expected, since the game is fantasy-themed, we have classes like the Sorceress, Priest, Rogue and Warrior.
Yes, they’re basic cookie-cutter classes but at the same time what would you expect? It’s unconfirmed specifically how many classes there will ultimately end up being when the game launches, but it’s safe to assume that the classes will all be gender-locked.
As per literally every South Korean MMO. I’m not sure if that was confirmed or not, unfortunately I don’t read Korean so I’m going off of what I can see and from what I’ve heard from others.

Interestingly, the game will also feature full environmental interaction, as you can see in the trailer. You’re capable of scaling the environment – mountainous cliffs, buildings scattered around the town, and to top it all off, yes there will be mounts available.
Both land mounts and aerial mounts. Maybe aquatic mounts as well, considering it’s possible to swim in various locations.

Unlike Black Desert, ODIN will feature full-length dungeons for players to run with a group. Party sizes are unknown right now and it’s also unconfirmed whether or not the game will feature other PvE-related content such as raids.
However considering the game will feature dungeons it’s a safe bet to believe so. Like every South Korean MMO, the game is also going to feature PvP, because what would an MMO like this be without it, right?
Again, it’s unconfirmed specifically what forms of PvP will be present. 1v1 Arenas? Open-world duels? Battlegrounds? Open-world PvP? I guess we’ll have to wait for more info.

Supposedly, there will be quite an impressive story, taking you to legendary locations from Norse mythology such as Midgard, Jotunheim, Niflheim, Alfheim and feature not only demons, but also gods such as Thor, Loki and Odin themselves. How awesome does that sound, right?

And that’s pretty much all we know right now regarding the game.
The graphics are very impressive. Since it is cross-platform, yes, the game probably doesn’t look as good as it potentially could.
The gameplay trailer was shown without the UI – which leads me to believe they’re probably a little concerned that showing the game with the UI available might dissuade players from trying it out.
But at its core it looks like a beautiful new MMORPG that is going to be playable cross-platform.

I’m excited. Are you?