Mabinogi II: Arena Cancelled, Nsquare moves on
Nsquare, the development studio brought to life after Nexon became NCSoft's single largest shareholder, has announced it has ceased development on Mabinogi II: Arena. Intended to be a sequel to the original Mabinogi, an open world MMORPG with a rather unique combat system, Mabinogi II: Arena attempted to re-envision the MMO with an updated combat system which still retaining the original's iconic combat style.
The issues began after Nsquare revealed Mabinogi II: Arena would use instanced dungeons similar to other dungeon crawlers (including Nsquare's own Vindictus) instead of the original's open world design. Nsquare also chose a more realistic visual style for the sequel, which as opposed to the more cutesy cartoon style found in Mabinogi. Fans argued the change in gameplay format and visual style positioned Arena as more of a Vindictus sequel. The claim makes sense given the fact Vindictus was originally labeled "Mabinogi Heroes" and Nsquare's reason for cancelling the title due to "current market situations" and feasibility" seem to coincide with player sentiments.
For now Nsquare will continue working on Maplestory 2 and an unconfirmed Unreal Engine 4 shooter. Early last year it was reported Mabinogi II: Arena was 70% complete.
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Michael Dunaway has been part of the MMOBomb team for years and has covered practically every major Free-to-Play MMO title since 2009.
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Mabi doesn't need a sequel--- it needs a graphics engine update (retain the style!), and perhaps a few more regions (like Uladh, Belvas, Iria...). Sequel storylines can simply be patched in via Gen updates, like the way it is now.
Keep the M-rated graphics just change the instance-dungeon. Shame the project was dropped all-together. No wonder why games like TERA were formed because of a similar instance with the supposed Lineage:3 that the game has now warped into what we know as TERA now.
Honestly though, I am a bit glad this got pulled, the more I heard about it, the less I liked it...I don't want mabinogi to turn into more vindictus. As I said, mabinogi is a unique experience, vindictus, while well polished, is not. I can find the same kind of gameplay in other games out there. I would really hate to lose something unique to gain something that...isn't.
hopefully they start again and actually make it resemble the original game in any way possible (open world , cute gfx ect ect )
I mean, like it's also based off of Mabinogi and is also instance-based.