I played the worst reviewed MMORPG on Steam so you don’t have to

Dragon Knight Online (also abbreviated as DK Online) is an MMORPG from the Korean developer Masangsoft. It was published in March 2019 and received almost no attention. On Steam there are only 41% positive reviews. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch played it for you.

DK Online is the MMORPG with the worst reviews, at least if you consider two things:

• For one, I wanted to test a game that got at least 100 ratings. Otherwise it is not meaningful if only 5 ratings were given and all were negative.
• On the other hand, I filtered out obvious mobile games. Otherwise there would be two titles that would be worse than DK Online: Aura Kingdom 2 (240 reviews, 32% positive) and Rebirth Online, which got off to a disastrous start (283 reviews, 39% positive). However, the mobile aspect is automatically the biggest point of criticism here.

DK Online, on the other hand, is a full PC game that you can play for free. At least to a certain extent, because Pay2Win is a big topic here.

Gender and race lock, as well as a graphic from the early 2000s

Already in the character editor of DK Online I am put off by a few things. There are five races to choose from, but they are firmly tied to one gender. Humans and Lycan are male, Elves and Gray Elves are female, and the Diel are female and childlike.

Each race also only has access to the warrior class and one additional class tied to that race. But now if I want to play an Archer – my favorite class in MMORPGs – I have to choose a childlike Diel. And you can even give her quite a few clothes.

Arriving in the game world, everything reminds me of a Korean version of Age of Conan – which is pretty old-fashioned. The MMORPG was released here in 2019, but development in Korea began in 2011. Nevertheless, I would have expected better graphics.

The controls in the game are explained quite simply: I move with WASD and I can activate abilities either with the number keys 1 to 9 or with the mouse. A tab-targeting battle system awaits me, with sometimes quite long animations in which I can’t move.

However, while running, I can jump, with Diel doing a cartwheel in the air while showing off her underwear…

It’s also annoying that the character runs quite slowly and there’s nothing to speed it up, be it a dodge roll, sprint, an ability or something similar. Maybe I’m too spoiled by modern games here. In addition, DK Online does without a swimming animation. Underwater you just keep walking normally.

This video gives you an insight into my gaming experience:

On the tutorial island you only do kill quests that are loosely connected to the story. First I have to defeat 10 goblins, then 6 wolves and then 10 wolves again. The next step is 10 golems and 7 chameleon skins.

The positive thing is that the quests clearly lead in one direction. I don’t have to go back to old quest hubs in between. Another positive find: I can move and customize my entire interface to my liking.

After about an hour of play, I ended up in the first capital. However, I did not meet a single player there, which may be due to the fact that DK Online peaks at between 5 and 10 simultaneous players online (via SteamDB).

But hey, at least I’m spared one of the most annoying mechanics out there: open-world PvP. Because this is active in DK Online outside of cities, but there are no other players who could attack me while questing.

Boring grind and weird upgrade system

After about three hours I put DK Online aside. The quests were absolutely dull and the sense of progress was almost zero even at this early stage. This is also due to the weird upgrade system.

My newly found leather shoes gave me 0 armor. That alone is weird and kind of frustrating. After all, there was a +1 bonus to defense against monsters.

After the upgrade to leather shoes to +1 and later to +2, the armor value remains at 0. Nothing else has changed in the stats either. So I burned materials for nothing. Oh yes, later upgrades can also fail. One of my absolute hate mechanics.

Potions as a form of Pay2Win

While the first opponents can still easily be eliminated with one shot, the game slowly changed after three hours. It got harder and there were smaller pauses where I mostly waited for mana. I didn’t continue playing, but read some interesting reviews.

This is how user jswars writes about the game (via Steam):

Around level 20 you won’t be making enough gold to buy HP and mana potions. You will constantly have to wait for the bars to refill very slowly.

Without potions, you defeat a few monsters before having to wait 3 minutes for regeneration. That’s a big wait for defeating 5 enemies.

You can buy potions in the game, but also in the shop. And that’s exactly what should play an important role in PvP. Potions only have a one second recharge. So if you can spam a lot of potions, you sometimes win the fight.

There are also boosters, premium buffs for more attack, defense, health and mana (30 days for $70) and there is a buff for extra carrying capacity in inventory. This is particularly important because from 50% full payload you no longer regenerate life points/mana and from 80% you can only use normal attacks.

Bad rating is understandable

Based on my experience and what I’ve read elsewhere in the reviews, the game seems to deserve its poor rating on Steam. The endgame is built around PvP but offers some Pay2Win options. Visually and playfully, it has nothing to offer that is not better elsewhere.

Despite this, it has garnered 41% positive reviews, suggesting that at least it’s not a complete disaster.

If you want to try it out, you can do so because DK Online is Free2Play.

On the other hand, if you are looking for a good MMORPG, you should check out our list of the top rated games on Steam:

The 10 best rated MMORPGs on Steam in 2022