‘Throne And Liberty' Got A ‘Significant Influx' Of Players From Its Big Free Expansion

Forbes

02-04-2025

Nebula Island from the Wilds of Talandre expansion
The massive Wilds of Talandre expansion for Throne and Liberty, the free-to-play MMORPG, maintains a consistent player count and sustained interest from fans of the genre since coming out on March 6. Throne and Liberty debuted in the West in October 2024 for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC with full cross-play.
In Throne and Liberty, you explore a land known as Solisium which is split up into various regions and islands. The majority of the game takes place across a large land mass with the lower left portion designated as the region of Laslan and the lower right region designated as Stonegard. Now, with the release of the Wilds of Talandre expansion, the explorable area of the game has nearly doubled.
The Wilds of Talandre update opens the border north to allow you into the Talandre region, which encompasses the northern section of the main land mass.
That's just the start, though. In addition to the new Talandre region, there's Nebula Island which debuted just a few weeks ago in an update after the main expansion was released, which is only accessible to max level 55 characters. It's a gnarly place. Players can only spend a maximum of five hours per week on this new island with several conflict zones mixing PvP encounters with PvE elements. It's a dangerous place, but the loot and rewards could make it all worth it.
On top of all of that, this expansion increased the level cap from 50 to 55, expanded lifestyle content levels to 25, added solo dungeons, introduced a new 3-star tier of co-op group dungeons, totally revamped the weapon mastery progression system, and much more.
That's a lot of new land to cover
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To get more context around the expansion's launch and what it's meant for the game's activity, I reached out to Amazon Games to ask how the update's reception has been thus far.
'Throne and Liberty players are some of the most engaged and dedicated players that we've seen to this point,' globalization design manager Daniel 'Tico' Lafuente said in an email. 'We are very satisfied with the current overall player counts. Talandre's release brought a significant influx of both new and returning players, which was a key goal for this expansion.'
According to SteamDB, the number of active players nearly doubled when Wilds of Talandre was released on March 6. The fact that the influx has maintained over the course of nearly an entire month is a great sign for the game's health and longevity.
Throne and Liberty hovers around 30,000-40,000 concurrent players at any given time these days on Steam, usually peaking a bit above and then dipping a bit below over the course of a single day. This does not take into account players on PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S at all.
'We've experienced a significant increase in overall player activity since Talandre's launch,' said Lafuente. 'Playtime is up. Content engagement is up. Our players' response to Talandre has been impressive. We can't wait to see how they react to all the content we have coming the rest of the year.'
The new weapon mastery system is overwhelming at first
For context, here are some concurrent player numbers on Steam for other popular MMOs as of right now: Final Fantasy XIV hovers around 30,000 players as well, The Elder Scrolls Online sits around 15,000 players, and Amazon's own New World: Aeternum rarely tops 10,000 players. Considering those relative stats and the fact two out of its three platforms aren't even accounted for, those are pretty strong results for Throne and Liberty.
Throne and Liberty was originally conceived to be part of NCSoft's Lineage game series, but was restructured during development as its own game. With more than three million players in its first week alone, it's been a solid first few months for the new MMORPG.
Personally, I clocked nearly 200 hours in Throne and Liberty within its first couple of months late last year running my own guild and clearing the story plus end-game content. It has a great mix of PvE and PvP content, depending on what you're looking for.