It's now been 8 years since NCSoft first announced its upcoming MMORPG, Project TL (The Lineage), at the 2011 G-Star Gaming Convention in South Korea on November 9, 2011. The game was titled Lineage Eternal. at the time. a continuation of the original line. It was meant to be the biggest lineage project ever. Despite everything, the development of the game was quite difficult, which resulted in many delays.
Initial plans for the beta were announced in August 2013 by NCSoft. According to this announcement, the beta was supposed to launch by the end of 2013. However, that date was postponed and there was little to no news until two years later.
In August 2015, the developers announced that a closed beta version of Lineage Eternal would be available during 2015. However, in November 2015, during a conference call, the developers indicated that the closed beta was to be postponed until 2016. The closed beta version of the game launched towards the end of 2016. At this point, fans of the MMO genre were already comparing Lineage Eternal to Smilegate's upcoming MMO, Lost Ark.
Much to everyone's surprise, NCSoft announced in 2017 that it had decided to do a complete overhaul of the game. As the game was developed on the engine previously used for Guild Wars, the company decided to modernize it and redo everything to the Unreal Engine 4 help. That's when they changed the name of the game to Project TL. Needless to say, fans were displeased with this announcement, not least because the change in the game's engine in the later stages of development means that most of the work that goes into the game needs to be completely redone, resulting in more delays and delays. 'extra expectations. for anyone wanting to play.
In November 2017, NCSoft dropped off a trailer for Project TL. It showcased the technical advantages of Unreal Engine 4 quite well, as the game was much more graphical than Lineage Eternal. While some fans liked it, many of them were frustrated that they had to wait over 6 years to see the trailer.
In his report on Q2018 2018 results, NCSoft CFO Jae-Soo Yoon announced that the development of Project TL is progressing very well and players can expect a closed beta by the end of the year. at the end of XNUMX. This announces a lot of fans and it once again fanned the flames of hope within the community. Apart from that, it was also announced that the TL project could also be used on mobile devices.
However, 2018 has passed and the beta was nowhere. For the most part, NCSoft hasn't talked too much about game development, and the only thing they said in their Q2018 11 earnings report was that Project TL is still under active development. In addition, their main competitor, Lost Ark, launched its open beta on November 2018, XNUMX, which has "dragged" a huge part of the Lineage community into the arms of its competitors.
A week before the Q2019 2019 earnings report, NCSoft announced that Project TL will also be released for consoles, following the release of the PC. They also said the beta is expected to arrive later in 2020 and the PC release is expected in XNUMX. Unfortunately, the game was not mentioned in the report, which left a bitter taste in your mouth. from the community.
Since then, the developers have been silent on the TL project, and as 2019 draws to a close, fans are still wondering if the beta will be released before the New Year. As always, time will tell and we will soon see if 8 years of waiting were enough.
