Just yesterday, it was revealed that Throne & Liberty will be launching on PC, PS5, and Xbox Series X/S consoles on September 17, 2024. The MMORPG is being developed by NCSOFT and published by Amazon Games, and not only did we recently have a chance to get another taste of the game at Summer Game Fest (in a preview you can read here), but we also caught up with Amazon Games' franchise lead Merv Lee Kwai and globalisation design manager Daniel Lafuente to learn more about the game.
During the interview, which you can see in full below, we asked about the social elements of the MMORPG and how they have been designed to suit PC and console players alike. We were told.
"Yeah, well, I think the first thing is there are no barriers between platforms," said Lafuente. "So if you can be in a guild with somebody on PC, you can also be in a guild with them on Xbox or PS5. So there are no barriers driven by platform play as it relates to social experiences. If you want to join parties or guilds, servers, everything is going to be cross-platform. So you'll be able to experience whatever you want with your friends.
"The deepest part of the social structure is definitely the guilds that we have in the game. And they're deep for two reasons; One, there's a lot of great content that you can do with your guild that feels meaningful, it feels rewarding to complete that with a group of your guild, but also because being in a guild helps you with things like progression or rewards. There's shared structures there between people and it really incentivizes that group play. And it's built in from the start. You're encouraged early on in the levelling journey to join a guild. You're presented with challenges that ask you to party with other players as you tackle harder monsters. So we feel strongly that the social elements of T&L will shine when the game launches."
Lee Kwai then continued and added, "And it's really about creating those lasting moments, not just by yourself, but with your friends. And we really pride ourselves on hearing players talk about the game and reminiscing about a moment they shared together. And that drives lasting relationships. And it's not always favourable. Sometimes it's a contentious relationship or an enemy situation, but those are good too, because they create very memorable moments and that's what we're after."
Check out the full interview to learn more about how T&L has been built from the ground-up for consoles, to hear about some of the endgame challenges, and more.