Knight Online Is A Surprise Hit On Steam
I'll it, I was a bit shocked when I first heard Knight Online was heading to Steam following a successful Greenlight campaign. The old school, PvP centric MMORPG from 2003 seemed like a strange fit among all the newer, prettier games available on the platform.
After launching on Steam with a brand new server on Jan 25 to mostly negative reviews, Knight Online shot up the charts with peak concurrent players topping 23,000. That's higher than H1Z1 and Valve's own Left 4 Dead 2! Despite its age, Knight Online isn't among the walking dead after all.
Stats provided by Steam Charts
Western players first got a chance to play Knight Online through the K2 Networks portal Gamers First, but the license eventually fell to a smaller studio called NTTGame. Even in its earlier days, the Knight Online servers were dominated by Turkish players. Judging by the negative Steam reviews, that seems to be the case even in 2016. Other common complaints accuse the game of being Pay 2 Win and imposing long queues on free players.
A Poor Grasp of English is Common Among Knight Online Players
It's too early to say whether Knight Online will remain popular on Steam or quietly fade into obscurity after launch week. But the game's success so far shows that Steam is an amazing platform that can grant even dated, buggy, hacker filled MMORPGs a new lease on life. It also shows that there's still an audience for MMORPGs with gameplay mechanics like those found in classic titles from the early 2000s.
