Corepunk is an MMO that I’ve actually been looking forward to. It’s an amalgamation of Lost Ark and Path of Exile, taking the best of both games and consolidating them into something.. unique. Something that definitely piqued my interest when they first announced the game.

And while the team had announced earlier this year that the game would be holding a Beta test this month, with a launch some time in December 2021, it turns out the Beta test in question has been delayed all the way into December. Yes, the test phase has been pushed back half a year, which means that the full release of the game has been pushed back significantly further. This is due to “technical issues” providing unavoidable problems, and it makes sense.

My main concern with this is that the announcement made early this year was already a delay from their previous announced test phase, so this isn’t the first time they’ve A.) run into issues that delayed the launch of the game, and B.) been unable to push through said issues in a reasonable amount of time.

Regardless of how long this ultimately takes, I’d honestly rather they take their time to fix whatever issues they’ve run into, so that they’re capable of successfully releasing an incarnation of the game that will leave a good first impression, as if there’s one thing we’ve learned from game launches, it’s that the players specifically are pretty unforgiving.

The developers behind the upcoming Corepunk MMORPG recently held a Q&A featuring quite a few community-asked questions.

First, they went and confirmed that their upcoming Closed Beta is going to allow approximately 10,000 players in. This is a fairly large number of players, especially given they haven’t done much in the way of testing server stability up until this point. But then again that may be part of the reason behind why they’re going to allow up to 10,000 players in – to see if they have the server infrastructure to handle a large influx of players. They’ve also confirmed that they expect to release into Closed Beta testing by the end of 2021 – hopefully they’re comfortable giving me a few to give away to our amazing community, otherwise, you guys are going to need to enter the old fashioned way.

They confirmed they’re hard at work on refining a few things before they show any new footage, after which they’ll push out new gameplay videos to showcase progress that has been made over the last several months.

They’ll be releasing a road map in the future, after the successful conclusion of their Closed Beta test later this year.

This is an MMO I’m actually very excited for. I can’t wait to see the kind of game they end up publishing, and hope this really gives games like Diablo, Path of Exile and Lost Ark a run for their money.

You guys remember Corepunk, right? I did a video on it back in December 2019, and.. I’ll admit, some of you weren’t all that impressed with what you saw.
The general complaint that I’d seen among the vocal majority that were upset with the game was due to the game’s speed, which is one of the first things the dev team worked on after releasing the first gameplay trailer.
Now, since then, the devs have been pretty quiet – but a few days ago, IGN went and released a brand new trailer – featuring exclusive Alpha gameplay for the game.
This trailer went on to detail a lot of what the game has to offer, showing the overhauled speed of the game, the graphical and mechanical improvements and how much progress has been made in the 6-month span.

The beginning of the video shows us Liofa and Dragom, an Archer and Greatsword wielding Warrior exploring what seems to be an inn called Roody’s Foodies in the middle of the Sleepy Hollow.
Yes, the game is from an isometric point of view. If that’s an issue for you, then it’s probably best you stop here. The game thus far has been voice acted in English, and honestly it isn’t bad.
When accepting quests, there seems to be a little option-wheel above your characters portrait that allows you to either accept or turn down the quest.
There’s some basic exploration that takes place over the course of the next minute or two that involves the destruction of items in the wilderness like urns and boxes, and yes, from the looks of things your character is capable of swimming.
The game thus far utilizes a Fog of War system that keeps the majority of the map hidden until you explore it, although from what it looks like the map continues to hide itself once again even after exploring it.
After a few minutes the two encounter some monsters and we get the first glimpse of the overhauled combat system. Much like other games in the isometric genre, you move with your mouse, pointing and clicking on the ground and using your keyboard to initiate skills and use items.
The combat is still noticeably slower than your traditional MMO but that’s due to the kind of game it is. Honestly to me, the combat and the combat speed are looking pretty good.
I’ve never been a fan of Archer’s though, I’ve always been more prone to playing Mage’s so I guess that’s where we’ll really see how the game’s coming together.
About half way through the video, we get the first glimpse of the character inventory, and the equipment menu. It seems as though equipping different weapons change the appearance of the equipped weapon which is always refreshing to see.
The same applies to the armor, as we can see as Liofa equips a yellow jacket. Shortly after, we see the players leave the Sleepy Hollow, which is where the first half of the trailer took place, and move into the Whispering Mire.
As was evident, there were no loading screens between zones, which is something almost unheard of in an isometric MMO. Even Path of Exile and Lost Ark have loading screens between zones so this is a refreshing change of pace.
So far I want to note that the aesthetic feel of the world is incredible. Both zones thus far have looked absolutely beautiful, although my main concern with what I’ve seen thus far is that the game looks a little like a League of Legends MMO.

The rest of the trailer takes place in the Junkyard, and features the 2 heroes running around, exploring, solving puzzles and killing enemies.
If you’re interested in seeing the entire trailer, then you can head on over to the IGN channel and take a look there, but I feel like either doing a full 15-16 minute reaction to this is ridiculous, and there’s no way I could find 15 minutes worth of info currently known to us to actually fill that time.
You know what? I was excited for this game when I first saw it at the end of 2019. After what I’ve seen? I’m probably even more so now. Yes, the game still looks a little slow.
That’s to be expected. Most, if not all isometric MMOs have this same flaw. But nowhere does Corepunk claim to be a “fast paced action game,” so I feel like I can give it an easy pass. Plus I’ve always been a fan of this kind of combat system in games and I’ve always been a fan of isometric titles, so this appeals to me.
Now, we’ve only seen three locations in the trailer, and all 3 look fantastic. The seamless transition between zones is something that is sorely missing these days. Add on to that they absolutely nailed the soundtrack, and got some solid voice acting talent in there to bring the world to life.
There’s interaction in-game with the environment, there are puzzles to solve.. honestly, they really sold me on this trailer. And judging from the reception in the comment section, I dare say they sold a lot of people on the game with this trailer.
Providing options when completing quests, such as the ability to kill the boss towards the end of the video is a very nice addition to not only the game but also the genre. Too often we get cookie cutter quests with no personality. This is something Star Wars The Old Republic really did well.

I feel as though we’re definitely moving in the right direction with Corepunk. I believe the combat animations still need some work, and the special effects could also be improved, but otherwise I’m very happy with what I’ve seen.
I’m not sure if they’re still going to be capable of meeting their goal of going into some form of testing this year, but honestly that’s more than fine.
If they continue to take their time with the game, you know it’s going to continue to be reflected in the gameplay, and that’s always welcome.
Developers that care about their game actually produce quality titles after all, and I can see Corepunk being an MMO that not only appeals to a solid niche of MMO-fan, but is also better than the rest of the competition on the market.

The developers behind Corepunk have stated that they wanted to hold a test of some form in 2020. Whether that test is a Pre-Alpha, Closed Alpha or Closed Beta remains to be seen, but people often wonder: What is the Corepunk release date? With the progress that has been made, Corepunk is expected to release in 2021.

The last time I talked about COREPUNK was back at the beginning of December. They’d just debuted their trailer and people were excited with what they saw. For the most part, anyway.
The main issue people had with the game was the pace of the combat, but that’s a minor concern considering they addressed that relatively quickly.

Since then people have repeatedly asked for info regarding the game – and as of April 3rd, the team behind Corepunk have given us just that in their first “Quarterly Update of 2020.”
I’ll be the first to admit here, I love when developers release quarterly informational updates with what they’ve been working on, what they’ve accomplished up until this point, and giving us a general sense of progression.
There’s nothing worse than developers stringing you on for years while providing little in the way proof of work.

Artificial Core, the developers, revealed at the time of the announcement that the game would feature the holy trinity of class archetypes: Tank, Healer and DPS.
There would be “support” types as well but.. support classes are normally a hybrid of a DPS and a healer, so I’m not sure what that’d fit into.
However, instead of creating your own “character,” you instead chose from one of several already established characters, each with their own personality, weapon specializations and skill trees.
Yes, you heard that correctly – I did say “character.”
However, after extensive feedback from the community, Artificial Core realized that gender locking classes and characters was the wrong way to approach the game and would limit the freedom of who and how you wanted to play.
Thus, they announced that they would be removing gender locks from their characters, allowing you to not only create a character of either male or female genders, but also adding in a lot of customization options such as hairstyles, facial hair, facial features, and additional colors for skin, lips, eyes and hair.
I know this is important for a lot of potential players. Customization is integral to enjoyment for a lot of us and not providing us with that creative freedom is a recipe for disinterest.
Based off of the character models we’ve been presented with though.. damn, they’re looking good.

Talking about the characters in specific, they’re actually referred to as “heroes.” While initially it was announced that COREPUNK would feature 9 heroes total, there will only be 6 available during the Closed Beta test.
I’m guessing this is due to the fact that they’re focusing on getting a smaller selection ready for testing as opposed to rushing the entire roster and ultimately having them end up buggy or broken.
It’s worth noting that they did state that they have a lot to tell us, however they’ll go much further into detail during a future livestream.
Speaking of, Artificial Core have confirmed that their next stream will be taking place at the beginning of May 2020 – that’s just next month.
It’ll show approximately 15-30 minutes worth of new gameplay footage, with their next stream to follow in June, and the duration of June’s stream being several hours as opposed to a half hour.
They’re also contemplating allowing streamers to play the game and stream early-footage of it but in my opinion.. that’s a bad idea.
The last thing you want to do is let people into the game when you’re not even sure it’ll be in a playable state by the end of 2020.
Please don’t kill any hype you have for the game before it even has the chance to take off. While streamers are integral to increasing the popularity of any game, at the same time if the game isn’t ready.. trust me, streamers will do much worse than showcase those bugs.
And while that doesn’t apply to every streamer – you guys know that some of them will either just to troll or for those extra few views.

Interestingly, they’ve opted to adopt a buy-to-play business model, battle passes, and an in-game store. While they’ve noted that the store won’t feature pay-to-win items, I’m always very pessimistic when it comes to stores in MMOs.
Especially if the game isn’t pay-to-play. The reason that they chose to go the buy-to-play route was due to the team not believing they can survive or grow on a pay-to-play model.
That’s true – very few games can these days, with the only large-MMOs being Final Fantasy XIV and World of Warcraft. They also went on to detail the world – according to the devs they’ve built a large portion of the game world already, but there’s a lot that needs doing.
They’re currently in the process of designing the beginning areas of the game and that’s what they’re aiming to showcase in their upcoming livestreams.

COREPUNK is an upcoming MMO set in a post-apocalyptic world featuring an eclectic fusion of genres. It has a large open-world for players to explore, lots of PvE content and various PvP types ranging from Arenas to Battlegrounds to open-world PvP.
There are a lot of heroes to choose from and a lot of play-styles to therefore enjoy. They don’t have an expected release date currently but they are planning to at least go into Alpha testing before the end of this year.
However, as they mentioned, they’re also looking to allow streamers in before the Alpha is ready so who knows, some of you might be able to play it even before it’s in a semi-ready state.
I just hope, considering this shares a lot of similarities to Pagan Online, that it.. isn’t. Because while I initially found Pagan to be fun, it turned out pretty bad, relatively fast.

Also note: COREPUNK will be launching on PC.

This announcement just kinda.. came outta nowhere. I was driving to get my hair cut when Mrs Stix turns to me and goes “What’s Corepunk?” I looked at her, unsure of what she was talking about, and said.. “Iunno.” That summed up the reveal for me.
I had no idea what the game was, and honestly, that was the very first I’d even heard of it. After getting home, I went online to take a look at what exactly it was and I gotta say – from what I saw.. I was pretty impressed.
Corepunk is a brand new top-down Action MMORPG from Artificial Core, a Dutch developer that takes inspiration from a mixture of different games. They claim that the game will feature a very “large, seamless open world,”
Yes – large and completely open. You’ll be able to explore the world, fight monsters, participate in various dungeons and raids, fight in instanced PvP battlegrounds and there will be a rating system in place to encourage each and every type of activity.

From what I can tell based off the gameplay that has been revealed thus far, the game looks like a mashup of both Ultima Online and Diablo III – which is honestly an interesting direction to take the game.
I know a lot of players dislike Diablo III, although I’m personally a fan of it, and Ultima Online.. how can anyone not like that?
According to the team behind the game, it will feature a post-apocalyptic world and an eclectic fusion of genres – ranging from cyberpunk to dark fantasy. I’m a fan of all 3 types of genres, with cyberpunk games being some of my favorite in terms of setting.
The game is going to feature the holy trinity in terms of class archetypes: Tank, Healer and DPS, with support being thrown into the mix but let’s be honest.. support classes kinda fit into DPS most the time anyway.
Corepunk will supposedly allow for highly flexible character customization with regards to the role they play and the route they want to take in terms of playstyle.
However even though they offer the freedom to play the class you want in the form you want, there are a pre-set selection of characters to play through the game as.
There are 9 characters in total, each having 3 distinct weapon specializations that you can choose between.
Naturally, each weapon type has their own unique set of abilities and associated playstyle, with all characters having various skill trees they can pick between.
This is an extension to the “freedom to create your own unique character” aspect of the game they seem intent on pushing.

Interestingly, Corepunk is being designed with the mindset that “Players should be allowed to decide how they want to play the game,” allowing for you to opt to play it with other players, or go it alone.
According to the devs, everything in-game can be tackled solo, including dungeons, with the exception of raids and world bosses.
Meaning if you’re anti-social like me, have no friends, or just want to see what the game has to offer you without the need to be concerned with anything other than your own well being.. you can choose to avoid other players completely.

Now this is something I’m sure a lot of you are interested in.
In the past I’ve done videos on MMOs that have open-world PvP and viewers have expressed their disdain for that method – I get it, some of you hate doing PvE activities and having to worry about other, stronger or more skilled players coming and killing you.
Trust me, I feel for you. Whenever there’s a PvP server alternative in MMOs I always choose to play on it and I more than understand how frustrating that can be.
Corepunk lists the types of PvP on their website as “Arenas, Battlegrounds and open-world PvP,” but hold up, don’t flip your table just yet.
The open-world PvP mode is capable of being toggled on or off, meaning that unless you turn it on, players won’t be able to murder you while questing.
Worth noting when you have PvP mode toggled on though is that when you get killed in PvP, there’s a chance – albeit a small one, that you’ll lose loot from your inventory.
Yes, this is probably going to be the major concern for players – the potential to, no matter how small, lose items that they’ve worked hard to amass over the course of the game.
But then again if you opt to participate in PvP out in the open-world, you’ll do so knowing the consequences.

The game is currently undergoing internal Alpha testing and therefore isn’t playable, however the devs have expressed their interest to begin closed beta testing in the very near future.
While there’s no confirmation on when specifically it will be available for the public to test, they did reveal that they plan on beginning open beta testing at the end of 2020.
So while that isn’t a guarantee, it looks as though the game will be mostly playable at least in some form next year.
They have yet to touch on the business model for the game yet, whether it’ll launch as a free to play MMORPG with a cash shop, a buy to play MMORPG with a limited cash shop, or a pay to play MMORPG with a cosmetic cash shop.
They went on to state that they are “fundamentally against the pay to win model,” but at the same time, I feel as though every developer says the same thing when addressing their playerbase. Why? Because they get more sales that way.
And while I have no reason to doubt them, I’ll always be highly cautious of any non pay to play business model, especially if they offer VIP memberships.

Honestly, I’m really excited for this. Watching the trailer, the game looks pretty damn good, although I can’t deny that it is definitely in need of some work.
While everything looks crisp in high quality, the combat itself does look and feel a little slower than I’d expect out of a game of its kind. But then it’s currently in alpha testing, so there’s plenty of time and room for improvement.
Other than that, I feel as though it’s a very solid MMO. There’s currently a market for top-down MMOs, and this looks like it’s capable of impressing people enough – but I do want to express my fears.
And that is that Corepunk might end up being the MMO equivalent of Pagan Online. I was excited for Pagan, but was ultimately let down by it after playing through for a while.
While I have no reason to expect Corepunk will end up the same way, I’m just a little fearful that the game is undertaking too large a project here. But I’m more than happy to be proved wrong!

For those of you wondering, the game will only be available on PC.