Don’t look now, but NCsoft is pivoting hard away from the Lineage brand: It’s just reintroduced Lineage III aka Lineage Eternal aka Project The Lineage aka Project TL as… Throne and Liberty. We’ve been waiting for this game since it was first announced in 2011, if you can remember back that far, and it’s been in an out of testing with more revamps and investor call promises than we can count. NCsoft says it reimagined the unfinished game as the new IP “around spring three years ago.”
“Throne and Liberty is a project started by Lineage. The original objective of the project was ‘Let’s make the next-generation Lineage.’ […] In the process of development, a lot of the original system and content had to be adapted or removed to follow the current game trends. As a result, the gameplay also gradually became different from the original. Decisively, we wrote a completely new story, and after this work, questions arose within the development team as well, like ‘Should this be called Lineage?’ So we changed the name to fit the new story. This also reflects the will of the development team to break the shell of Lineage.”
According to NCsoft, the game is a “next-generation MMO on PC and console,” with less-monotonous “field play,” dynamic gameplay, heavy immersion, strong storytelling, adventure game flair, focus on cooperative challenges, a seamless 3-D space, animal transformation and movement, environmental dynamism, and no preference for eastern or western design targets. The game shares a world and map with another of NCsoft’s new titles, Project E, though Project E is more Korean in style and theme (the “E” apparently stands for “Eastern”).
“They also share the same gravitational and ecological characteristics as well as magical and fantasy origins,” NCsoft’s Lightbox House reps explain. “However, because the continents are different, the characteristics of each civilization and history are also different. Important events that happened on the same planet are interpreted and progressed in completely different ways in the two games, so players can have fun beyond expectation.”
NCsoft doesn’t talk release dates here, but just a month ago, it was still promising a global launch for Project TL in the second half of 2022.
NCsoft also renews its global ambitions: “Last year, we focused on the development of mobile MMORPGs, but this year we will be challenging various genres based on different models and will actively enter the global market. In fact, our new games announced not only cover MMORPGs, but also interactive movies, action battle royale, and collectible RPGs. All these games will be serviced in the global market with various platforms such as consoles, PCs, and mobiles.”
The reveals come with videos so you can soak it all up.
