Elyon

Elyon launched October 20, 2021, with StreamerHouse hitting 804 peak viewers as this Korean MMORPG went free-to-play after desperately dodging New World. Kakao Games and Krafton initially planned September 29 launch, but when Amazon pushed New World from August to September 28, Elyon immediately delayed another month to avoid the buzzsaw. The pivot from buy-to-play to free-to-play right before launch signaled desperation. Reviews noted the headstart and official launch went "fairly smoothly" with no NA server queues, though lag plagued World Events and RvR battles (temporarily disabled). SteamCharts showed 15,000 players at launch compared to New World's 506,000—Elyon lost the battle before it started. The game struggled to retain players despite server merges and bonuses to rush people into endgame content. By March 2, 2023, both Western and Korean servers shut down permanently. StreamerHouse playing in 2021 witnessed an MMORPG's entire lifecycle compressed into 17 months—launch, desperation, consolidation, death. Elyon wasn't bad, just utterly crushed by New World's hype and the market's inability to sustain multiple MMOs simultaneously.