A Brief Look At Riders Of Icarus

Riders of Icarus is an upcoming MMORPG from Nexon and WeMade Entertainment. The title features fairly stereotypical MMORPG systems but sets itself apart with an in-depth system of taming the game’s various mobs and keeping them as either mounts or pets. The Korean release, titled Icarus Online, was previously reported to be the third top-grossing game in Korea. I recently had the chance to sit down with an employee from Nexon and take a tour of the Korean version of this extremely popular title that will be coming to the West.

Riders of Icarus’ claim to fame is its system of taming mobs to be kept as mounts or pets. As such, the first thing that we did during the tour was catch a bear mount. The process of catching a mount is fairly involved. You have to go into taming mode, sneak up behind the mount, and jump on it. Once you have you are required to play a small QTE while the mount attempts to buck you off. Two bars represent your chance at success. If the green bar fills up first you succeed, but if the red bar fills up first you fail.

The process of capturing a mount sounds simple enough for basic mobs that don’t fly, but it becomes more complex with elite and flying mobs. Flying mobs require you to jump off of the mount you’re riding and land on their backs in order to begin the taming process. If you miss you can quickly hit the mount key again to recover, but failure to do so could mean death.

Elite mobs add even more complexity to the mix. I was shown an Elite bear mob named Trutan that requires players to jump off of a cliff onto him in order to even attempt to tame him. But Trutan doesn’t just sit under the cliff. Players have to wait for him to walk under the cliff and hope no one else draws his attention.

Once you have succeeded in taming a mob it will become a mount and you will automatically be riding it. Depending on the mount you may even have several mount-specific skills available to you. You then have the option of using an Elite Pet Scroll to turn the mount into a pet or an Elite Seal Stone to turn the mount into a seal that can be slotted in your gear for an extra buff. Pets will do battle alongside players, as well as provide buffs to their stats. Sealed mounts are permanently sealed and will no longer be a part of your collection of mounts and pets. The buff(s) that they provide will be dependent upon the mount and its level.

Mounts and pets level up automatically whenever they’re active. The rate at which they level is also fairly high. My bear mount hit level six by the time the first half of the tour had ended.

There are several prerequisites for taming mobs. Players can have a maximum of 100 Taming Points at any one time. A player’s pool of Taming Points will refill every level, but it will never go past 100. A certain number of taming points must be spent to tame a mob—the exact number varies depending on the mob. Players must also have an open slot in their collection.

Mounted combat is possible and is a major part of the game. Bosses like the one I was shown, Attaius, must be fought while riding a flying mount. While riding a mount, each class’ default weapon is replaced with the choice between a spear and a crossbow, which can be swapped at any time.

Combat also allows a choice between a traditional tab-targeting mode and an “action” mode in which the camera is locked to mouse movement and you can only attack the target you are aiming at. My tour guide recommended the tab-targeting mode while on foot and action mode while in air. The recommendation seemed to work out pretty well.

Riders of Icarus is a flashy game with an impressive level of detail put into its mount and taming systems. There are tons of mounts to collect and the game encourages collecting—and even leveling—them multiple times in order to make pets and seals out of them. The game’s bosses are massive and imposing. Mounted combat in air is quite a bit of fun. The game has a lot going for it and I can see why it has done well in Korea. It is certainly is a game worth trying out once it is released.

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Riders of Icarus’ next Closed Beta will begin on June 2nd. It will be entering Open Beta on July 6th. You can buy a Founder’s Pack here for guaranteed access to the next Closed Beta.