Amazon's new free to play MMORPG Throne And Liberty is coming ...

Despite just releasing yesterday, Amazon and NCSOFT’s massively mate-filled RPG Throne And Liberty has already shot right up Steam’s most played charts. It's sitting just behind Black Myth: Wukong at number six at time of writing, which is sort of like getting the wobbly chair at a lavish dinner party. Sure, you’re 5% certain you’re going to break your neck at some point, but you’re still eating smoked salmon and chortling, so it’s a good evening. It had a beta earlier this year, which looks like it’s gone some way to drum up serious interest. It’s still not quite on Banana's level, mind.

Set in a medieval fantasy world of knights, goblins, and very large lads made of rock dispatched solely for the purpose of destroying other things made of rocks, Throne And Liberty’s trick is it lets you transform into beasts like fish and birds to aid with travel, or even the massive golems shown in the trailer above. My research tells me you can then smash down castle walls during massive sieges. Or, as shown in the header image, literally carry your party. That’s fun! What happens if you then do a dancing emote, I wonder? Do they all fall to their death, or simply cling on to gargantuan, boogying form?

The golems are a great selling point, although it seems to take a good long while to get to that point - further exacerbated by the primary flavour of player gripes at the moment, which are targeted at long queue times and microtransactions. As spotted by Ian Games, some players are spending up to 45 minutes creating a character, then getting disconnected. There’s also some freshly introduced issues with the Steam Deck, apparently brought on by the anti-cheat. I believe James, who long ago replaced three of his favourite limbs with Steam Decks, is looking into this as we speak.

As for positives - and a lot of folk are clearly enjoying themselves - it’s apparently quite the looker in action, and both combat and questing are getting some compliments, too. There are also no set classes. Instead, you’ll switch roles by switching weapons. The main question I have before considering any MMO is this: is this going to be like Final Fantasy 14 where I’m having a really nice time until I have to do dungeons with other players then get really nervous about whether I’m performing my role in the party correctly? What if someone is watching the specific combination of attacks I’m using and thinks it’s stupid and suboptimal? I can’t deal with this. I can’t deal with it all. That’s not so much a question as it is a minor spiral into the depths of my fractious psyche, but that’s the MMO experience for me. Let me know if this one is a bit more chill than, uh, the famously chill FF14.