Valofe’s Riders of Icarus has been a rollercoaster of chaos the last couple of years. It had already fallen off most MMO gamers’ radars when Nexon transferred publishing rights over to Valofe back in 2019 after its 1M launch players dwindled, and then Valofe stunned the remaining playerbase in 2022 by chucking its anti-RMT policy and announcing a play-to-earn do-over stuffed full of NFTs and crypto tokens, which almost immediately collapsed to worthlessness.
So it might surprise you to learn that the game is still alive and still getting updates. In fact, this week’s update is sizable: It includes a new map volcano map called Magmapora, new quests, a new dungeon, new gear, and new mounts. Valofe rolled out a stack of screenshots, social media teases, multiple videos, a press release… we’re baffled. There’s even a freakin’ roadmap, as there’s apparently more to the release coming in October.
As for the crypto pivot: The game’s token is no longer even listed on Wemix at all, and there’s no mention of anything P2E related in the patch notes or forums. Valofe seems to have just… moved on from the whole ordeal as if nothing happened. Update 9/15/23 – MOP reader LotusPetal pointed out to us that two days after this patch went live, Valofe announced a new exchange rate between its cash-shop currency and its apparently renamed P2E currency, now called Princess Coins, which explains why we couldn’t find it (it’s also buried on a secondary “lounge” site rather than the core website). So unfortunately, it didn’t abandon the scheme and is not offering a way for players to bail on it outright.
