Back in September I did a video titled “MIR4 is the WORST New MMORPG Release of 2021.” Admittedly – and I have no issue admitting when I’m wrong or where I’m at fault – I did not put remotely close to enough time into the game to be able to make that kind of statement.
Especially given that I was unaware you could earn real money from the game – which is the main attraction for many players and the source of its success.
However as of today, December 22nd, I have been playing it every single day since the middle of October. Almost 2 entire months. So that I can do an updated video with my updated thoughts on it. To address the game and retract my statement if I was wrong.

So after 2 entire months in the game, what have I learned?

“MIR4 is a very deep, complex, contrastingly different type of MMORPG than we’re used to.” That’s what I’d like to say. The reality of it is however that MIR4 is a laughably mediocre mobile game with a horrendous PC port.
The first few days spent in-game weren’t bad. I auto-pathed from objective to objective. I was required to click to complete quests and further the story. The game auto-played for me. Engaged enemies in auto-combat. It was the very definition of a mobile game.
When I mentioned this in my first video, I received countless comments saying “try saying that again above level 40 LOL” and you know what? I’m currently making my way to level 45 as of today, and I can say with 100% certainty… with the exception of story-related boss fights, the game is still auto-playable.
Maybe it’s because I have higher Combat Power than I’m supposed to at this level. I did spend about $100 in-game to get currency to purchase much better gear from the marketplace. That wasn’t because I was having difficulty with encounters, though, but rather my dailies were taking me too long to complete.

What MIR4 is, essentially, is a daily simulator. You have a set number of dailies you can auto-complete per day. 30 to be specific. With each quest being repeatable 3 times, it provides the option of taking and completing 10 daily quests per day.
From what I’ve gathered, people just take the Darksteel quests to maximize the amount of Darksteel they can earn. As noted earlier, the main appeal of this game is the fact that you can actually make real life money in-game.
You can either mine Darksteel, or acquire it via other means like dailies. You then exchange the Darksteel you farmed, and bam. It’s essentially a job now. People actually run multiple accounts simultaneously to maximize the amount of money they can earn per day.

All of this is, once again, done on auto-pilot. You take all 10 repeatable daily missions, you set yourself to auto-farm the monsters, and you come back a couple hours later to reap the rewards.

So when I noted in my first video on MIR4 that everything was auto-pilot, I had a lot of people complain.
On the one hand, they complained that I hadn’t delved deep enough into the game to fully grasp the true difficulty it provides, and that after level 40 I’d really “feel it.” After hitting level 44, I do not in any way feel any rapid increase in difficulty.
I’m fully expecting players to now say that level 40 isn’t high enough to experience the difficulty, and I need to hit some new magic number to justify their defense of the game.
They argued that this game is actually an incredible game because you can make money off of it. Let’s discuss that for a moment, then.

Yes, you can make money off of the game. But if an MMO – if a game is an atrocious experience without the ability to make money off of it, introducing a way to make money off of it doesn’t suddenly make the game a great game.
On the contrary, it’s just as bad as before, the only difference is now you have motivation to play it.
It doesn’t matter if you could make a million dollars per year playing this game. One single aspect of the game would be good, but a single positive facet of a game doesn’t make a game good. If everything else is terrible, it’s still a terrible game.
Sure, some people make $100 per day off of MIR4. But you know what their argument was? “I log in and set the game to farm for me, earning x dollars per day.”
That is legitimately the argument from all of these “players,” as to why they believe this game is as good as it is.
No. This game isn’t even a game. It’s an interactive marketplace, that’s it. Nobody is “playing” this game. Hundreds of the comments, hundreds of the people hating on the video I did calling out how bad the game was even admitted to this.

In 44 levels, in 2 months of playing every day I haven’t ever been more bored.
Every morning I would log in, claim my daily premium since I paid for it, set my character to accept the 10 most difficult dailies that would reward me with the most Darksteel, and would leave the game for a few hours. I’d occasionally be required to go back to the town to replenish my stock of MP potions as I run out fairly quickly.
But I think that’s about as much interaction I had on a daily basis. Sure, there’s a semblance of a story present. I’m not denying that there are actual things to do outside of the Darksteel and Combat Power grind, but who actually takes the time to do it?

Again, this is not a good MMORPG. Just because you can make money off of it doesn’t suddenly make it a good MMORPG. Everything about this game screams “atrociously cheap,” from the graphics, to the combat, to the narrative.
This is a cheap, rushed piece of garbage that just so happens to allow you to make some money by not playing it.
And I know this is going to trigger a lot of fans of the game because they’re going to hear that and come running to its defense. The more people play it after all, the more money they have the potential to make.
They don’t want this money making machine to decline. It’s easy money. Heck, I’m of a level high enough to even make money off of trading Darksteel. I’ve chosen not to because I rather use it upgrade my gear, but I could just as easily as anyone else.

Overall, after having played for 2 months, I can say that I was wrong. A few of the boss fights I engaged in required my actual attention. If I didn’t dodge the AoEs, I would’ve died. Repeatedly.
Outside those few boss fights, the game was complete auto-play and required no real attention or interaction from me.
Yet while I was wrong on that one single aspect of my initial impression of the game, everything else I claimed holds true 2 months later.
This is the worst new MMORPG release of 2021. It’s worse than Swords of Legends Online. It’s worse than PSO2 New Genesis. It’s worse than Elyon. Heck, it’s worse than Bless Unleashed.
If your goal is to play a fun, enjoyable MMORPG, I’d strongly urge you to avoid this. If you want to earn some money out of a game, however.. then this might be worth looking into. Because while this is a truly terrible MMORPG, it’s not half bad to make some money off of.

Welcome back to another episode of “Is it worth playing?” – a series dedicated to finding the best, and sometimes the worst MMORPGs on PC.
Today we’re taking a look at a brand new free-to-play open world Asian-fantasy MMORPG called MIR4. This just launched onto Steam on August 25th, 2021 and as of September 10th, is sitting at “Mixed” reviews.

Now I’m not overly critical of MMOs.. for the most part. I can enjoy action combat, I can enjoy tab-target combat, heck, I can find enjoyment in the combat styles that force you to click on the ground to move and THEN click an enemy – systems that don’t allow tab-cycling.
I like Anime MMOs, fully 3D, 2D, Eastern aesthetics, Western aesthetics.. but I want to preface this entire thing by stating: Everything you see in the dedicated video for this game is being recorded… while I’m writing the script for the video up.
Yes, I’m not even kidding. I was tabbed out of the game writing this up while the game is fully auto-playing for me. I just tab back into the game to complete my quests.

So, yes, if that statement didn’t make it obvious enough: MIR4 is completely auto-play.
The game features a large, open world. But while the world is open.. there’s absolutely nothing to do within it. There is no reason to explore it. There is no reason to engage any of the enemies within it.
I spent the entire time recording moving from point A to point B to point C without even paying attention where point A was or how to get to point C. Again, because of the auto-play and auto-pathing.
Auto-pathing to quest objectives isn’t inherently bad. Swords of Legends Online has it, Perfect World has it, Revelation Online has it. Some MMOs provide auto-pathing for whatever reason, and while I don’t often make use of it, it isn’t something that really detracts from the overall game.
Sure, it likely means there will be little to no purpose to navigating yourself, but as long as the bulk of the game requires active participation, that’s all that really matters to me.

Unfortunately that isn’t the case. You auto-route to the next quest objective – whether that’s an NPC or a monster. After making it to your objective, you begin talking to the NPC or auto-engaging enemies in combat.
You cycle through your abilities without having to pay attention to what ability does what or which combos with which. Sure, at endgame you might be required to pay some attention to the game. But endgame takes place once you successfully make it THROUGH the game.
Meaning you’re actively required to reach the end of the game. You’re physically required to sit through what is arguably one of the least interesting, least engaging, least interactive MMOs I’ve ever had to play.
And I’ve played MMOs like V4 and A3, which while not much better in terms of auto-play, at least required a semblance of one’s attention as to not die.

The combat in MIR4 is some of the most atrocious I’ve come across. Sure, the abilities look decent enough. Not nearly as impressive as other titles like PSO2 New Genesis, Swords of Legends Online or Elyon. But better than your average mobile MMO.
Which really isn’t saying much, or setting the bar very high. Character movement, especially with regards to combat felt very clunky. Movements weren’t nearly as fluid as other games released in the last year or two, especially when compared to PC titles.
Unfortunately since you weren’t actively required to engage with the game really in any capacity – you couldn’t dodge enemy attacks, you didn’t have to click your own abilities, the game consisted of auto-routing to your quest objective, proceeded by auto-attacking enemies. Again, entirely auto-play.

I’ll give MIR4 one thing: While the combat looked and felt very underwhelming, the environments you move through all looked pretty good. Well, for a cross-platform MMO anyway.
If I compare this to other mobile games I’ve played recently, like Punishing Gray Raven, or even Genshin Impact that launched last year – neither of which are MMOs, by the way, this looks so substantially inferior in every aspect.
Looks AND plays.

Honestly, I would’ve loved to have dedicated an extensive amount of time to this game. Truly. I love MMOs with an Asian aesthetic like this. Like Swords of Legends. Like Moonlight Blade.
But after playing through approximately 2 hours of the game, I just couldn’t bring myself to carry on any further. When I play a game – more specifically – when I play a PC or console game, I expect to be able to play it.
That is the exact opposite of what I was given the opportunity of doing in MIR4. This game was an absolutely garbage mobile game that was ported on over to PC – even retaining it’s terrible Mobile UI.
At least Genshin Impact has a UI exclusively for the platform it’s on – this, though? No. Not at all. No effort was put into this port. This is a cheap cash grab to milk money from the gullible PC playerbase.
Everything about this game screams “cheap.” If Swords of Legends Online sets the standard for an Eastern themed fantasy martial arts MMO, this would be the $2 knockoff version of it. The kind that would explode before you’re given the opportunity to even play it.

✔️ MIR4 is a decent looking game graphically. It has some pretty solid looking environments and character models.

✔️ It also has a pretty detailed character creator, providing you the ability to create a.. semi-unique looking character.

❎ But at the same time, while it has decent looking environments and character models, it’s plagued by a Mobile UI and Mobile textures.

❎ The combat is absolutely atrocious auto-combat, requiring absolutely no engagement or interaction from the player.

❎ The narrative is bloated and is actually more prevalent than actual gameplay.

❎ The world is 100% linear – it’s large, but there’s no purpose to navigating off auto-pathing due to the game being so empty and void of content.

❎ This game was built as a Mobile MMO first, meaning that mechanically.. it is first and foremost a mobile game. It can never compete with an MMO designed and developed for PC.

❎ There are so many mobile features built into the game.

❎ It utilizes an atrocious “combat power” system – something I abhor about the mobile gaming genre.

❎ The fact that you’re not required to play the game leaves you feeling uninterested and bored in everything going on. Again, I’m legitimately writing this up right now while recording gameplay in the background.

I think I could rant about this game all day. I don’t think I’ve been so disgusted by an MMO in a long time. This is an absolute waste of time to play – and I use the term “play” loosely here.
Heck, saying it’s a “waste of time” might be a redundant point, given you’re not really investing time into the game.
This is a Mobile MMORPG. Nothing about the game feels remotely like a PC MMO. The only reason this is even on PC is because the company publishing it wants more money, and players will always fall victim to new Steam releases, regardless of how bad they ultimately are.
I would urge you to avoid MIR4 at all costs. I was actually reached out to to take a sponsored look at this game – and I’m legitimately glad I chose not to. This is a game I have next to nothing good to say about.