Cute MMORPG MapleStory has been thriving for 19 years – it’s all happened in that time
That MMORPG MapleStory from South Korea has been online since 2003. Over the years, the game has continued to evolve, becoming bigger and more complex. Find out here how the game has developed in 19 years and what content has been added since release.
What exactly is MapleStory? MapleStory is an MMORPG from the South Korean publisher Nexon and the studio Wizet. The game was released in its native country in 2003, but has spread around the world in the 19 years since its release and has been constantly evolving ever since.
MapleStory relies on cute chibi-style anime graphics and an unusual perspective for MMORPGs. You play MapleStory from the side in a 2D side scroller view that is reminiscent of a jump and run.
But the way we perceive MapleStory today wasn’t always the case. A lot has happened in the years since release and in the following paragraphs you will learn how the MMORPG has developed to date.
The first years after the release until 2010
This is how it looked at the start: When MapleStory was released in 2003, only players in South Korea could play it. The game was fully tailored for Korean players, loaded with cultural references, and even featured Korean celebrities in the game.
The large game zone of the early days was a region called Victoria Island, where players swarmed, killed monsters and completed quests.
At the end of 2003, MapleStory was also released in Japanese, but then it was over for a few years and outside of Japan and South Korea not many even knew about the cute MMORPG.
When did MapleStory come out in the rest of the world? That didn’t change until 2005, when MapleStory was released in North America, Taiwan, and Southeast Asia. The EU release came two years later in April 2007.
Even then, MapleStory was a special game due to its graphic style and above all the unusual 2D perspective. But the proverbial “big bang” didn’t come until 2010.
The highlights from the “Big Bang” to today
What was the big bang? In 2010, MapleStory crashed. Because the big update of this year was called “Big Bang” and turned the game upside down. And that is to be taken literally. Because Big Bang wasn’t just a simple update, it was basically an overhaul of the entire game world.
Even the game’s code was largely rewritten, fundamentally changing the game in this way.
The Victoria Island region has also received a massive makeover. Areas have been rearranged and made more accessible. There were also new and stronger monsters and a higher level cap. Even the user interface changed back then.
In addition, the story was advanced and the plot of the mysterious “Black Mage” picked up speed. Because the upheavals in the game world didn’t just happen.
They were explained in the game by the machinations of the same dark magician who was brought back by his cultists after a long time. The fight against the mage and his minions was therefore also an important element of the update and there were new classes, areas and quests dedicated to resistance against the new enemies.
What else came into play? The story of the return of the Black Mage then culminated in 2018, 15 years after the game was released. For years, the plot was pushed forward, especially after 2010, and numerous updates continued the struggle.
Then in 2018 came the long-awaited update called “Black Mage” and in it players could level up to level 250 and face the mage himself.
The next milestone in development followed in 2020 with the “Awake” update. The highlight here was a 5th level of skills, which provided particularly powerful super abilities for all heroes.
In 2021, another major update called “Neo” revealed the new villain Darmoor, who has determined the rest of the story ever since. There was also a new class called “Cain” that has its own story.
The game is so successful: In its long lifetime MapleStory has been a great success for publisher Nexon. Cash shop microtransactions generated a total of $3 billion in revenue as of 2020.
That’s the equivalent of 2.7 billion euros. Over 180 million users were registered up to that point. MapleStory is still an extremely successful game almost 20 years after its launch and will continue to be developed through updates and new content in the future.
Reference-mein-mmo.de