We Rode A Dragon in Riders of Icarus, and We Want More

One Game Rant writer saddles up to go ride dragons in Riders of Icarus, an upcoming MMORPG from Nexon that allows gamers to capture mounts and use them in combat.

Those who fall out of the core group of hardcore MMORPG players can be forgiven for not recognizing Riders of Icarus, an upcoming MMORPG published by Nexon and developed by WeMade. The MMO marketplace is often filled to the brim with generic elves, magic landscapes, and some kind of vaguely World of Warcraft-looking production, but more importantly it’s hard to stand out from the crowd. To combat this, WeMade made a brave decision: the studio based the gameplay around collecting highly versatile mounts, including gigantic dragons.

For those who judge a book by its cover, the game looks downright gorgeous for an MMO. It’s graphically superior to other popular 3D-rendered MMO titles like Guild Wars 2, and players will find themselves thrust into a very customizable character creator right from the get-go. Like most other MMO titles, Riders of Icarus offers multiple classes, with some roles designed to dole damage out in close quarters, and others designed to heal their parties. For the demonstration we played the role of a berserker, who was certainly designed for the former.

As our pre-built account popped into a world, the group was already waiting. Our first task was to explore the backbone of the entire game: taming a wild beast. Riders of Icarus is all about using both air and land based mounts, and gamers will be tasked with a process that seems to blend elements of Pokemon and Red Dead Redemption to do so. Seeing a bear munching harmlessly on some leaves in the distance, our character immediately unsheathed its sword and went to work, bludgeoning the enemy forager with our class’s main attack.

In the end, as much fun as it was, Riders of Icarus might not flip the MMORPG world upside down. That being said, the hands-on experience left a positive impression, and since it’s a free-to-play title, fans of the genre should certainly give the game a try when it hits open beta in early July. Whether they spend their time on-foot battling transforming counts in a castle or outside taming airborne dragons by leaping from their own flying mount, Riders of Icarus is shaping up to be quite a polished and enjoyable title, and WeMade should have a decent player base on their hands once the game launches in full, which will presumably happen sometime later this year.