Review: Throne and Liberty – Your guild is what makes the game worth playing

Throne and Liberty is a fast-paced, guild-based MMORPG that pulls you in with broad character options and keeps you playing with end-game PVP and guild-based combat!

Imagine this: You start the game with a cutscene showing your character being rescued as a child before going to the current day on the tutorial island. The game carries you swiftly through the tutorial before putting you in Kastleton, the beginner area of the game. 

The game does a good job of pointing you toward the next story objective while also giving you options for side stories that involve fighting other monsters. As opposed to other games I’ve played where open-world events and instanced dungeons are introduced late into your leveling progression, this game introduces them by level 20 and scales characters down so they are more balanced in open-world events. 

Fight a variety of monsters in Throne and Liberty!

The player versus environment (PVE) gameplay pulls you in and carries you through leveling, learning the ropes, and trying weapons/classes/armor without much penalty. The game also allows you to decide whether your time or real-world money is more important when it comes to obtaining end-game gear.

The monsters have a combination of hostile and neutral creatures so going around a general monster area doesn’t have to be overwhelming. But, if you just want to harvest trees or herbs there are ways to earn in-game Morphs that allow you to camouflage yourself as a monster without being detected at the cost of speed. The usual monsters have a variety of attacks, but the real challenge is going to be your good old-fashioned dungeon and world bosses. 

Dungeons can be joined with random players or party/guild members and generally involve a series of exploration, then a miniboss with similar mechanics to the end boss, and, finally, the end boss. Most end-game dungeon bosses I’ve fought so far have complex mechanics that if you cannot work in your party as a team you will not be able to beat these bosses. 

The world bosses can be fought in limited instances with your guild, at set times in peaceful combat, or in open-world PVP zones. You have chances of getting boss gear no matter which way you fight, but the difficulty changes drastically depending on how you choose to approach them. This variety gives options for any type of player to earn the equipment they need!

Your equipment determines your class and role, as opposed to the other way around

Speaking of equipment, your equipment can be upgraded by level and have the levels transferred to other equipment. There are also traits/bonuses on equipment that can be upgraded using items with matching traits or unlocked with matching items with different traits. Can’t find the trait or can’t afford it? You can always save up traitstones, the in-game items earned through normal gameplay and missions, over time. They help you upgrade your traits.

Leveling up your character is easy, and most of the story carried me through my levels. Leveling up weapon levels/skills is different as they take different components earned in the game to level. 

These components can be earned through guild contracts or killing monsters in the world for skill pages and monsters in open-world dungeons to level up your weapon levels. Throughout gameplay, you can also earn skill transfer books, which are helpful if you change your mind on what weapons you want to use later on and don’t want to grind up the levels again. 

The core of the endgame gameplay, and what will make or break the game for most people who try it is the guild and PVP systems. There are multiple ways the game will push you towards joining a guild and PVP like bonuses just for being in a guild, or events that are either team-based or guild-based PVP. 

The world events will switch between PVP and peaceful, but that means more time to wait to try playing them. The guild I joined at first was very inactive and almost made me want to leave the game due to feeling like I was playing an MMO alone. 

Find or make the guild that suits you best!

However, the second guild I joined was because I was in a random group with someone who invited me to join his guild, and they are focused on making their members the best players they can be. This led to a sense of inclusion and community that I haven’t felt in any guild in an MMO before. 

Normally, I avoid the meta builds and PVP in the endgame. But the way the guild I joined operates makes me want to fight other players in the open-world events, even if I lose. Honestly, Throne and Liberty is the first game in a long time where I, wholeheartedly, feel like going for the blood of other players in PVP combat. 

I should add that there is no penalty for dying aside from ranks on leaderboards. Being in a guild also gives you options for trying dungeons without having to worry about someone dropping cause you are still working on learning mechanics, or a group to do contracts within open-world dungeons. The guilds are what make the game worth playing. As with many MMOs, if you end up in a bad guild, you’re gonna have a bad time. 

I spent only $20 in this game, and didn’t even need to spend that!

Now the big question a lot of people might ask. How does the game make money? The game is free to play and makes its money through its sale of Lucent, an in-game premium currency that is also the in-game auction house currency. 

You may be thinking that this surely makes the game “pay-to-win”, and, in some aspects, you may be right. However, I don’t feel as though it has a huge impact on some games. The game releases a premium and free-to-play battle pass and has a leveling log which each costs 500 lucent ($10 USD).

But, aside from the cosmetics in the premium passes everything can be earned in the game. Even the lucent can be earned through the auction house, where you can sell certain items that are useful for build-specific options. But,, and this is important to note, you cannot sell skill or weapon experience. This means no matter how much money someone puts into the game, they will still have to play through and earn the experience and books to become powerful in the endgame. 

In the end, Throne and Liberty is a game that presents a lot of options for all types of players. But, it best benefits players who want to find or build a community that focuses on endgame PVP. 

The non-player enemies are fun to fight and learn combat mechanics with, while the bosses are challenging_. Despite some items being available in the auction house, Throne and Liberty is one of the least-pay-to-win pay-to-win games I’ve experienced and I highly recommend anyone who is interested in high fantasy MMORPG games to give it a try. At least you can try it for free until level 30 before deciding whether or not you wish to continue playing it. 

You can find Throne and Liberty on Steam, Xbox Series S/X, and PlayStation 5. It came out this past October, so now is a great time to get in on the action.