Albion Online’s success is a lesson in consistent, quality updates and marketing efforts. Launching back in 2017, Albion Online caught the attention of MMO players thanks to its class-independent gameplay and the versatility of play styles between PvP, PvE, and crafting. Additionally, the cuter, stylized medieval aesthetics recall the early days of RuneScape and provide a sharp contrast to other MMORPGs on the market.
Developer Sandbox Interactive marked its successful growth earlier this year by announcing the opening of Albion Online’s first European servers. MMOs thrive on their communities, and so opening a new server is a chance to reach into an entirely new segment of the MMO fanbase that might have otherwise been turned away by high ping.
In this article, we’re looking at the success of Albion Online’s European debut, and taking the chance to review the most popular MMOs on live streaming – including the recently released Pax Dei.
Albion Online Grows Its Community by Expanding into Europe
Over the month of April, Albion Online began rolling out its European servers. Starting on the 3rd with a closed beta, expanding to early access on the 22nd, and finally fully releasing on the 29th, this gradual release saw a groundswell of hype for the game. In the first week following the early access release, Albion Online viewership hit 2.4M hours watched. This hype was sustained into the next week with the full European server release at a peak of 2.6M hours watched, with most viewership coming from Twitch. The European release also introduced Turkish and Arabic as official languages in the game, expanding into the Middle East.
The European servers were consistently advertised as providing a fresh start, no doubt hoping to ease the concerns of players who were afraid to jump into an established game. Additionally, this spin might have been intended to counteract the oft-reported claim that beginners are dogpiled by more experienced players in PvP zones. In certain PvP zones, being killed means losing all of your character’s belongings, which can be a brutal punishment for new players who are killed by a swarm of five or more experienced players. A new European server meant a clean slate that, at least psychologically, evened the playing field for curious streamers.
Albion Online Breaks into the Highly Competitive MMO Arena with Pax Dei
Albion Online still has a long way to go to compete with the mainstays of the MMO genre, however. Looking just at the week beginning on the 17th of June, Albion Online placed 8th amongst all MMOs with 1.2M hours watched. The game’s major competition comes from two of the MMOs that are most similar in terms of appearance and crafting styles, those being Old School RuneScape and World of Warcraft with 4.4M and 3.6M hours watched, respectively. World of Warcraft has been relatively quiet recently, though late last year popular streamers were still entering the game, such as when Pokimane and CohhCarnage joined Sodapoppin’s guild.
One surprise entrant in the top ten is Pax Dei, a survival and crafting MMO that benefited from its recent early access release on the 18th of June. The game has been praised for its aesthetics and intricate crafting system that forces player collaboration. The whirlwind of excitement around the game led Pax Dei to edge out Albion Online last week with 34K more hours watched. But the story isn’t all sweet: Mixed reviews on Steam criticize the game’s lack of a core gameplay loop and tediously basic combat system – issues that will need to be resolved prior to the game’s full release.
The top modern MMO is Lost Ark, a game that is rivaling the older titles thanks to its backing by Amazon Games and worldwide reach. Lost Ark has a high contingent of Korean streamers engaging with the game, even supporting the title as they switched to the new platform Chzzk. Additionally, Lost Ark rectified a lot of the gameplay loop issues that frustrated New World players, giving Amazon Games a second shot at MMO success.
With competition from some of the biggest developers in the industry, Albion Online still has a lot of room for growth. Continued expansion into other regions will certainly help the game, plus more prominent streamers willing to delve into the game’s complex PvP gameplay and Fame-based experience system. Stream Hatchet will watch as Albion Online continues to thrive.
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