Well, this is not a good sign: Nexon announced last night that it’s closing Astellia Online in its native South Korea. If you’ll forgive the Google translation of what appears to be an in-character sunset announcement from the dev team:
“After careful consideration, I made a tough decision to end the service. I would like to express my sincere gratitude to all the Masters who have been with me. We will not forget all the moments we have together and keep it deep in our hearts.”
It sounds as if the game’s last day online will be January 16th, 2020, with the store putting a stop to purchases and the game offering some special bonuses for continuing players as of today. Nexon seems to be planning to offer limited refunds too.
MMO players will recall that Nexon was the publisher of the game in South Korea; Barunson EA, the original developer, is self-publishing the game here in the west and has been deviating quite a bit from the Korean version in doing so. It wouldn’t be impossible for Barunson to pick up publishing overseas again either, as we’ve seen from other studios whose titles have been dropped by Nexon specifically this year in the wake of Nexon’s own internal reorganization and failed corporate sale.
Barunson hasn’t released a statement confirming that the game will continue on its roadmap as planned here in the west, where it’s been live for only a few short months, but given that players are begging for one on the official forums and calling the game “Bless 2.0” on Reddit, we suspect one’ll be along shortly, and we’ll update when we have it.
