Kakao Games has updated the Korean website for Ascent: Infinite Realm with a short teaser that ends in the A:IR [REVERSE] 2020-04-01:
The April 1st date makes this look suspect but Kakao Games A:IR Facebook page has the hash tags #April Fool’s Day and #True or False (in Korean Hangul).
Bluehole in the past has done some things for April Fools day where it ended up becoming reality (like when they made an Elin Gunner video for K-TERA on March 29, 2017). It was originally a joke but they got so much positive feedback that it became a reality a few months later and was later rolled out to all regions.
Their earlier Facebook post is also a contest where users need to answer true or false regarding whether they believe if A:IR will receive an update to its combat system IF this is all true (again, this is part of the [REVERSE] PR campaign).
One of the possible updates they hinted at is a change from the Line-of-Sight combat (which some have erroneously referred to as tabbed-targeting) to non-targeting (which one can construe as being closer to TERA’s action combat). Most of the Korean commenters believe the change is true (as do I).
Part of it makes sense since TERA’s action combat is one of the best parts of that game. A:IR’s LoS combat was ok but nothing to write home about either (as I tried to detail in the above link). As for the [REVERSE] part, I am thinking they might be taking some of the better parts from the original Korean CBT while addressing the issues in the Thai/SEA OBT. One of the biggest let downs for me was the wasted potential of the open world (environments all look and feel the same plus little to actually explore) considering the aerial emphasis and the verticality that is involved.
Bluehole is under pressure to get this game out the door due to their publishing contract with Kakao Games (they invested an undisclosed amount back in 2014) which has the rights to Korea, North America, and Europe as well as Asiasoft Online for the SEA region (which had paid an undisclosed amount for the OBT back in 2019). But it has been stuck in development hell after that OBT revealed an array of issues (including exploitable bugs) to where Asiasoft and Krafton decided to pull the game down while working on a schedule that would have Krafton address those issues, roll them out in a series of Korean beta tests (to address issues there first), and then come back online with a (hopefully) better vetted version.
It’s expected that Krafton will also announce the schedule for the CBT for [REVERSE] along with more details of the revisions that have taken place. Myself? My patience with Korean MMO’s has fallen off a cliff. I already did not have a very high opinion of A:IR (and it didn’t help that Kakao Games will be the NA/EU publisher where the game systems will be cash shop heavy influenced). But since part of this blog covers Bluehole, I’ll probably end up giving it a whirl.
