Astellia Online To Shut Down, No Word About F2P Astellia Royal's Fate (UPDATED: Royal's Gone Too)

Jason Winter
By Jason Winter, News Editor Posted:
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Remember Astellia Online? That was a not-Free MMORPG released in January 2020 by developer Studio 8, a subsidiary of Barunson E&A. It met with mixed reviews -- literally, according to Steam -- dwindling to a triple-digit player base shortly after launch, and hasn't even risen above double digits since May. That sounds like a game that's ripe for a free-to-play transition or shutdown and, curiously, we have both.

The dev team announced the impending shutdown on the game's Steam community page today, just a day after players noticed that the ability to buy the game had been removed. The game service will go offline October 29, and if you're still playing, you can enjoy triple experience gain and drop rate starting on August 17.

What does that mean for Astellia Royal, the F2P "clone" of Astellia that launched late last year and that looked a lot like its base game? That game has also removed its "Play Game" button from its Steam page, but there's no announcement about any impending shutdown. In fact, the devs have an August login reward event going on until September 2.

That said, Royal is doing about as poorly, player-wise, on Steam as its counterpart, and isn't even getting the boost in revenue that comes from having a box price, so it wouldn't surprise us to see it also getting the axe soon. (Curiously, it's listed as having no viewer reviews despite launching in March.) We doubt that too many people will mourn the loss of either game, but we're certain that someone will, to which we'd say: Did you know there's a free trial of Final Fantasy XIV going on right now?

UPDATE, Aug. 12: Astellia Royal is indeed, predictably, shutting down as well. It will terminate service on October 29, as well.

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About the Author

Jason Winter
Jason Winter, News Editor

Jason Winter is a veteran gaming journalist, he brings a wide range of experience to MMOBomb, including two years with Beckett Media where he served as the editor of the leading gaming magazine Massive Online Gamer. He has also written professionally for several gaming websites.

More Stories by Jason Winter

Discussion (3)

merzhinhudour 3 years ago
Luckily there's Bless Unleashed which is way better and also free to play

Caye999 3 years ago
They just announced the shutdown for Royal too.

Cloak 3 years ago
If it goes F2P it might as well close cause F2P is were games go to eventually die.


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