Throne and Liberty Preview

After playing Throne and Liberty for 10 hours, I, the author of this piece, realized that this is an MMO that isn’t interesting for its combat or storyline, but rather for its scale, visuals, and the world’s elaborate design. As soon as the game lets you out of the starting corridors, it begins to captivate you with its vistas, the verticality of its locations, its vast spaces, and the feeling that you’re truly in a massive online world—not just a collection of arenas stitched together by quests. In the first few hours, the plot serves as a guide to the world, rather than a story that makes you care about the characters.

Right from the start, the game guides you quite strictly through the main storyline while also throwing in side quests and activities, so you don’t just rush through the main quest but gradually get to know the map, its points of interest, and local activities. In terms of structure, it’s a typical Korean MMO: talk to someone, kill a bunch of mobs, move on, clear the next section of the route, fight again, then get a new set of systems on top of the open-world ones. If you’re generally interested in similar free-to-play projects, I recommend checking out the best free PC games of 2026.

In other words, in the first 10 hours, the game mainly teaches you three things: how to navigate the world, how to put together your build, and how not to get lost in the sheer number of systems that come at you much faster than you can process them.

At first, the combat left me with mixed feelings: at the start, it feels a bit clunky and sluggish, and it doesn’t immediately make clear why you should bother getting into it at all. But the further you progress, the more clearly the combat system’s main feature becomes apparent: here, your playstyle isn’t built around a rigidly defined class, but rather through two types of weapons that you need to switch between.

I also liked that the game forces you to keep an eye on the enemy through parry timing, so even early fights aren’t just about spamming the dodge button. The local battles have a good rhythm: enemies land powerful attacks that are nevertheless easy to read, and the player is required to react to what’s happening in time. It’s precisely this that keeps combat from becoming routine in the early hours, though with regular mobs, the monotony does start to set in over time.

As mentioned above, weapons in Throne and Liberty don’t just change your animations—they define your role, and the rest of your progression reinforces that choice. That’s why I quickly realized that spreading yourself too thin at the start is a bad idea. Once I stopped jumping between different options and focused on one, the game became much better: it picked up pace, and my skill rotation started to feel cohesive.

On top of that, all of this works even better because the game constantly forces you to keep an eye not only on your skill bar but also on the enemy itself. The better I understood my arsenal, the easier it became to time my blocks, anticipate heavy attacks, and generally sense when to press the attack and when it’s better to wait it out.

I particularly liked the skill specialization system: it doesn’t just tweak the numbers, but actually changes how abilities behave. Some modifications speed up casting, others change how they’re used, and still others give you more freedom of movement while casting. Within the first few hours, I realized the main thing: the game won’t keep you hooked with its story, but rather with how interesting it is to build and tweak your own build. And if you generally like the RPG genre, we have a separate the best RPGs.

Now for the criticism. Unfortunately, Throne and Liberty tries to overwhelm players with all its systems as early as possible. No sooner have you gotten used to one mechanic than the game throws the next one at you: gear upgrades, skill improvements, build customization, Amitons (useful companion pets), and a couple more things that are easy to forget while you’re just playing. Because of this, the first few hours here are needed not only to get acquainted with the world, but also to simply get your bearings and grasp the full range of possibilities.

One of the most successful early mechanics is the transformation system. There are no conventional mounts here: the character takes on different forms for running, gliding, or swimming, making movement feel less like a separate function and more like an integral part of the world itself. In practice, this works seamlessly: the map isn’t just vast, but multi-layered—the game constantly encourages you to use elevation, ledges, and flight forms to get around. The mechanic doesn’t seem revolutionary, but without it, exploring the world would be far more boring. By the way, we’ve compiled a list of similar projects with an emphasis on exploration the best open world games.

At first glance, the Amitons appear to be merely decorative companions, but it soon becomes clear that they are integrated into the progression and can even gather resources through expeditions.

The opening quests are unlikely to be what makes you fall in love with the game. For the most part, they’re as standard as they come: kill an enemy, talk to someone, run to a checkpoint, complete a local objective, move on to the next part of the region—the story serves more as a bridge between combat and exploration. But thanks to the world, the music, the lore segments, and the overall polished presentation, the gameplay doesn’t feel all that monotonous. Plus, the game constantly throws in little side quests, additional tasks, and activities, so your journey through the world never feels completely empty. At first, Throne and Liberty is a beautifully designed corridor of leveling up, farming, and gradually mastering the systems. If you’re looking for something more friendly to low-end hardware, check out the best RPGs on PC and laptops.

The plot didn't really resonate with me. It has some decent ideas and an attempt to make the protagonist more than just a silent observer—to make him a fully-fledged character—but the story often feels rushed and jumps around between events. Because of this, I became more attached to the world itself than to the characters.

Early access packs are currently on sale (here they’re called “starter packs”). The cheapest one, “Explorer,” costs $9. For that price, you get a week of premium status (“Blessing of Solizium”), 5 combat pass levels, and the ability to invite a couple of friends to the game using promo codes. From there, the price goes up: “Patron” for $25, "Conqueror" for nearly $50, and finally, the top-tier "Sovereign" package, which costs a whopping $100. For that amount, you’ll get a mountain of cosmetics (weapon skins, morph pets), premium status for nearly two months, and the ability to lock in your guild name.

Open Beta starts very soon, on May 19, 2026. The most important thing is that there won’t be a wipe after it. If you’ve purchased any of the pre-order bundles, you’ll get early access to the game from May 12 to 18: you won’t be able to play yet, but you’ll be able to create a character in the editor and claim a cool nickname.

For the first 10 hours, Throne and Liberty impresses with its world, captivates with its classless build system based on weapons, introduces a well-designed parry mechanic, and offers a satisfying sense of movement through transformations; however, it suffers from repetitive combat, an overload of systems, and a rather utilitarian quest structure.

The first few hours don’t try to hook you with the story right away. Their goal is to gradually introduce the player to the combat system, leveling up, and social mechanics. The game doesn’t always pull this off seamlessly, but as you get closer to the major bosses and dungeons, it becomes clear what the whole thing is all about.