Sadly, it doesn’t have all that. And as you’ve probably guessed already, it’s just not very good in general.

Netmarble Neo said Overdrive is separate from Solo Leveling: Arise. They’re correct: That one is free-to-play and launched in such a predatory fashion that it made hoYoVerse look like saints. This one costs $40, which might as well be a king’s ransom for what’s on offer. However, they’re otherwise the same game. The same combat, the same presentation issues, the same characters – it even has the same Destiny-style hub.

Yes, there are some differences in how certain sequences are seen in the opening (hilariously, one fight is now a simple cutscene). But if you didn’t like Arise, you probably won’t like this.

"Other times, you’ll have to control those same companions, with Jinwoo nowhere to be seen, and things take a turn for the clunky. Don’t want to? Too bad, but at least those Encore missions are few and far between. Once you’ve completed enough repetitive side missions, you can progress through the main story."

Solo Leveling follows Sung Jinwoo, the weakest Hunter in a world where Gates to other realms pop up and require slaying fantasy creatures. Sometimes, they’ll lead to a Dungeon, or even a Dungeon within a Dungeon, which can be bad news if you go in unprepared…which is exactly what happens to Jinwoo (not for any fault of his own, mind you). Left for dead, he gets a new lease on life by the System and begins augmenting his strength.

Why him? What is his purpose? How did he gain a mad eight-pack so quickly? Having read the entire manhwa, I can’t answer all of these questions without delving into spoilers, but Arise Overdrive does a passable job adapting the script, even blatantly inserting panels from the manhwa to advance the story.

But following its pacing? Not quite. After the eight-pack reveal, suddenly, you choose a skill tree for Jinwoo, who then joins the Hunter’s Association for his own wicked control room to partake in missions, complete with characters mindlessly walking around, a blacksmith to craft things, and strike teams to send on missions.

I’m sorry, do you not remember that part of the manhwa? Well, you shouldn’t. You’re not exploring the world, as it were, but simply travelling to isolated instances which barely qualify as “missions.” It’s not like other games haven’t had the same approach throughout history. But when the original Arise launched, most of its contemporaries had begun moving past it. It was the worst kind of throwback more than a year ago, and it hasn’t changed one bit.

Some of these missions will be small Gates with enemies and a boss to clear out. Others will be Dungeon Breaks with…enemies and a boss to defeat. First-time rewards, options to increase the level of each mission – which confers better rewards but also takes forever if you’re nowhere near the required level – and the option to tackle everything in co-op await. You can go solo in most missions, taking companions who provide support abilities but also sometimes fight alongside you.

Other times, you’ll have to control those same companions, with Jinwoo nowhere to be seen, and things take a turn for the clunky. Don’t want to? Too bad, but at least those Encore missions are few and far between. Once you’ve completed enough repetitive side missions, you can progress through the main story.

"But when you first try out the combat system, one thing is going to stick with you for hours and hours. When using a weapon, unleash the abilities equipped in that slot, and then the weapon ability, then swap to the other. Repeat."

For all its criticisms, Solo Leveling has excellent pacing and top-notch presentation. It gets to the fights that matter most, and they look great. Translating that can be challenging, so Netmarble Neo took the easy way out: Stretching levels past the point of credulity or enjoyment.

You’ll fight the same waves of enemies and mini-bosses, again and again, in the same corridor-like levels. Story missions tend to link several such stages together, which can sometimes result in fighting the same boss types multiple times in a row. One mission, I kid you not, involved slaying the same Goblin mage mini-boss five times. Even Booker T. would call it quits by that point.

If you happen to die at any point in that particular stage, have fun replaying it from the beginning. At least you still retain any levels gained, but the sheer tedium of going through the same encounters, whether it’s on Normal or Hard difficulty, is simply mind-numbing.

Now, you’ve probably seen enough of the combat by now to think that there’s something there, right? Sort of, but there are caveats galore.

Once you get over the fact that Jinwoo can use guns, katanas, halberds, bows and crossbows, you’ll notice that the overall movement feels good. Dodging is responsive, and the parrying, despite the overtly generous window, is on point. Several of the attacks have neat animations and effects, from the “We’re not calling it Judgment Cut, but it is 100 percent Judgment Cut” to gathering enemies together and then detonating the area. Some neat elemental effects can trigger, and even though I didn’t get into the nitty-gritty of what they all did, watching Scorch or Freeze become amplified while a target was also afflicted with Nightmare felt pretty cool.

But when you first try out the combat system, one thing is going to stick with you for hours and hours. When using a weapon, unleash the abilities equipped in that slot, and then the weapon ability, then swap to the other. Repeat. Over and over, and over and over, until you’re begging, pleading for something different (which is usually when you throw in a QTE attack or decide to unleash your Ultimate).

"As cool as Overdrive abilities and the Ultimate look, I might as well be tickling a boss if they’re even one level higher, despite leveraging damage bonuses from back attacks and whatnot. It’s a good thing almost all of them apply damage-over-time effects that take forever to go away and can stack multiple times."

Boss fights, both big and small, are very rarely the exception to that rule. Being able to unleash a powerful kick to temporarily stun a foe (which is different from the Crash effect) is neat. Mashing Shift to unleash it? Less intuitive. Otherwise, aside from several bosses constantly being recycled, they have such an annoying amount of health that you’re endlessly swiping your weapon and swapping between abilities.

As cool as Overdrive abilities and the Ultimate look, I might as well be tickling a boss if they’re even one level higher, despite leveraging damage bonuses from back attacks and whatnot. It’s a good thing almost all of them apply damage-over-time effects that take forever to go away and can stack multiple times.

If all that sounds like a dull time, well, too bad – you’re going to be doing a lot of it. That’s because the weapon crafting system takes a page out of Monster Hunter. Each weapon “type” has multiple options, and upon crafting the base type, you can upgrade it further into stronger versions. Sometimes you’ll branch off and make something different, and the whole idea is to refight certain foes for parts. Except the drop rates are somehow even more horrendous than Monster Hunter.

By the way, there’s almost no point to crafting unless you’re in the late or end-game. Loot drops, pitifully at that, from completing missions and follows the Destiny rule of higher rarities and tiers, which will most often be better than what you currently have from a stats point of view. The result is that you’ll pretty much equip whatever and then discard it just as regularly. As a result, you’ll probably replay missions or engage with the boring side content to raise your level. Yay.

The need to level your companions and craft separate weapons for them, which have their own upgrade trees (and of course, your resources are limited). The game “loading” every time I speak to someone to gain Hunter Coins. The input lag in the menus and the overall awful UI design. The rendering distance, which causes anything beyond 20 meters or so to become blurry. The frame rate dropping massively in certain environments with any foliage. Everything on Jinwoo’s model, except for his head and weapons, disappearing during his Ultimate in one of the more bizarre bugs.

"Regardless of whether you enjoy the flashy combat or witnessing certain scenes fully animated, Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is just too repetitive, soulless and grindy to really warrant much of your appreciation. Go re-read the manhwa or rewatch the anime rather than wasting your time on this mess."

The camera freaking out while fighting those Shadow Trials Mages, to the point where I didn’t lock on to avoid hurling mid-fight. The targeting in general which can make running away from an enemy’s AoE difficult. The game suddenly giving me dozens and dozens of the same Halberd as a quest reward, because imagine if those were all different weapons and gear instead of the same damn Halberd? Negative points to whoever decided the scrolling should be more like a touchscreen rather than simply using the mouse wheel. I also do not appreciate how low-quality some of the cutscenes look, but is that worse than the real-time scenes that stutter? Hard to say. At least you can pause during the action, something which I wouldn’t have thought to appreciate until Black Ops 7.

We could argue about cliches all day, but with each manhwa chapter, I wanted to know what Jinwoo would discover and face off against next. With Arise Overdrive, I dread each new connecting portal. My knowledge of the story is effectively a curse, since I know a mission won’t end until after defeating a specific boss, and it could stretch as long as possible before that happens.

Even worse is the fact that it takes massive creative liberties with the source material for no positive gain. The lead-up to the fight against Igris, for example, feels like just another trawl through some enemies rather than a battle of attrition. Despite Arise Overdrive prominently featuring panels about how Jinwoo can’t heal and that potions do nothing, they work just fine. Scavenging equipment from slain enemies to stand a better chance? That’s now just a cosmetic formality – like you’re acting out a sequence rather than actually being part of the story. Don’t even get me started on how you don’t even control some of the coolest moments, with the game simply defaulting to the manhwa.

Regardless of whether you enjoy the flashy combat or witnessing certain scenes fully animated, Solo Leveling: Arise Overdrive is just too repetitive, soulless and grindy to really warrant much of your appreciation.

This game was reviewed on PC.

Game of Thrones: Kingsroad puts players in the shoes of a brand new character to the franchise. Strange events happen, however, which end up with the player character becoming an heir to a small Northern noble house – House Tyre. The player can choose from one of three roles: Knight, Sellsword and Assassin. Throughout the game, players will be faced with numerous combat challenges that will require them to understand their class abilities in order to take them on in real-time action combat.

The title, based on HBO’s Game of Thrones, which in turn is based on George R. R. Martin’s A Song of Ice and Fire series of books, tells an original story that also involves characters from the source material. The looks of these characters have been based on the actors that took on these characters’ roles in HBO’s TV adaptation. Among the notable cameos in the game is the dragon Drogon, who can be taken on as a Field Boss.

Game of Thrones: Kingsroad’s release builds on what the studio learned from its short time spent in Early Access on Steam. Now that it is fully out, players can explore the world beyond the two chapters that were available during the Early Access period, including new zones like Storm’s End and Felwood, which have been brought to the game with with the Chapter 3 update accompanying the game’s launch.

Over time, more content will be added to Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, which will bring even more zones from the books and TV series, allowing players to ultimately fully explore the continent of Westeros.

Alongside the launch of Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, Netmarble has also issued a notice that players who had not purchased the Founder’s Pack DLC for the game, which was available during its Early Access period, might be seeing it show up in their in-game mailbox. The studio has noted that players who did not buy the Founder’s Pack will see it removed from their mailbox soon.

Back in April, game director Hyunil Jang had spoken about future plans for the game, including updates that were being made to the title for better player engagement leading up to its launch. Speaking about how the game’s story will start evolving moving forward, Jang said that there will be darker chapters as well.

“The narrative for this next chapter will be slightly darker as well,” he said. “We’ll dive a little more into the aspects of religion and what it would mean to a medieval society like that of Westeros to have their king suddenly declare that all the people under his rule are now obliged to change their faith to that of a god whose name they can’t even pronounce.”

If you’re curious about Game of Thrones: Kingsroad, here’s everything you need to know.

Early Access Content and Reception

Kingsroad has been in early access since March 26^th with a full release set for May 21^st. 63 days is not a very long early access period, but the developers at Netmarble are confident in the stability of their game. The early access build is nothing to sneeze at content-wise, boasting a whopping 50 chapters within the main story as well as large number of explorable cities and landmarks including King’s Landing, Winterfall, and Highgarden. That said, regardless of how Netmarble feels about the state of the game, player reception hasn’t been all sunshine and rainbows. Kingsroad currently sits with a ‘mixed’ rating on Steam across over a thousand players. Most critical reviews cite aggressive pay-to-win monetization as a major hindrance to enjoying the game.

Built in UE5

Epic recently released an interview with the devs of Kingsroad, discussing the methods used to craft the open-world mobile title. So, it’s no secret just how proud the graphics engine leader is in this game. One of the key takeaways from the interview is the world partition technique used to lighten the performance load of the open world. This is done by only loading in zones within proximity of the player. Draw distances are pretty impressive as well, with HLOD being employed to keep the 700 foot wall and other towering landmarks detailed from most vantage points.

Open-World Exploration

While we don’t know the complete surface size of the game’s map, we do know the early access areas are quite large. Opening up the map reveals all of Westeros with the Kingsroad dividing the center. A majority of the early access areas are in the North, including large zones around Castle Black just south of The Wall. Areas are so large that horse mounts are available early on in the game to traverse around with. Like other open world RPGs, the environment is filled with crafting ingredients, shops, treasure chests, quests, and world bosses. If you’re looking for a bunch of open world activities to lose yourself in, this has plenty.

Crafting and Loot

The most ubiquitous of these activities is, of course, ingredient gathering. Kingsroad has a healthy amount of crafting materials that can be plucked from the environment and some are quest rewards and daily bonuses too. Materials have a rarity tier to them, which determines the quality of items you craft. Some of the more common items that can be made from crafting are potions like HP tinctures, but elemental arrows, bolts, and throwing daggers can be crafted as well. Inventory is limited in the game, so frequently crafting and selling items is well advised.

Quests

If it’s the story you’ve come to experience, Kingsroad has a very lengthy main quest. You start out as a heir (shocker) to house Tyre in the North and eventually become entangled in the political escapades the series has been known for. There’s a lot of classic Game of Thrones lore found throughout this game’s quests, with the main character’s journey coming to a head with the ultimate showdown between the Nightswatch and White Walkers. The game is set during the later half of the show’s season 4, so it’ll be interesting to see if the story can fill in some of the holes that season ended on. The hundreds of side quests, faction quests, and artifact quests compliment the main story with faction disputes, hunts, and helping popular characters out from the show. Kingsroad is a very story-heavy game, with 10-long talking sessions and cutscenes being somewhat common.

Fun Action Combat

Since this is an action RPG, the player has full range of movement and manual attack inputs during combat. Dodging, countering, and guarding all come into play here, with enemies also performing the same range of defensive moves depending on their intelligence. Oh, and you can even animation-cancel, which is always one of the key hallmarks of a good action RPG for me. Each class has unique attacks that are set on a timer, so don’t go in expecting a thoughtless button masher. There’s a basic attack, heavy attack, and various skill attacks to choose from with the three classes determining more unique abilities.

Classes

Yes, even the full release of the game is locked to just three classes. Hopefully the limited range of classes is enough to sustain the game for a while. Sellsword is the middle of the line warrior class balancing defense with offense. This is likely the class to choose if you’re planning to use a hybrid swordsman/archer. The Knight is the defensive tank build meant to establish an array of defensive buffs. Knights get the heaviest weapons in the game and excel in heavy attacks. I’m hearing a lot of good things about the Assassin class thanks to their agile DPS output. Flipping around with daggers like a ninja is no doubt going to be the choice for those wanting to really get in close with stealth kills.

Boss Fights

There are plenty of unique boss fights in the game to test a player’s endurance and skill (and maybe bank account but we’ll get into that later). These battles will especially test one’s mastery of cooldowns and inventory management as the pressure to heal and apply antidotes becomes a necessity. The bosses with multiple group enemies require target lock usage more than the larger bosses. If you want a cool Monster Hunter Wilds-like experience, hunt down some of the World Bosses for some jolly cooperation against Westeros’ dragons and the like.

Altar of Memories

And that’s where this dedicated mode comes in. The Altar of Memories mode is where players can join others in raid type boss battles. Teams of up to four players battle through dungeons, where special traps are used to immobilize large bosses like the Ironbeak Griffin and giant ice spiders.

Skills

Skills grant players the more interesting attacks and abilities in the game. Only a set number of Active Skills can be equipped, and they’re typically unique to the a particular class. Skills like the Riposte Stance and Shoulder Charge require Rage (which accumulates by attacking) to perform. Meanwhile, Basic Skills enhance ordinary basic attacks and cooldowns. Levelling up Active and Basic Skills requires Skill Points, which are attained mostly through quests and levelling up your character level.

Trait Trees

Of course, being the RPG that it is, Skills aren’t the only way to progress a character. Traits confer a variety of passive stat increases along with unique abilities. Attack, Defense, and Support are the three Trait trees, and if you’re like me, you’ll be heading straight to the Parry ability located within the Defense tree.

Estate Management ‘minigame’

Being the heir to one of the houses comes with some responsibilities. And in this case, one of those is rebuilding an estate filled with various services and buildings. Building materials and currency are needed to upgrade aspects of the Estate, so there’s a potential for some grind, especially given the free to play live service nature of the game. Estate buildings range from workshops that sell equipment to Stables which sell and store horses.

Daily Activity Caps

So yeah, back to why the game has a mixed rating on Steam. While basic story progression isn’t exactly gated behind any paywall, it can be restricted based on the Recharge Point system. When RP runs out, the player must either spend virtual currencies to buy more or wait until the next day.  The way the developers have addressed RP concerns is not exactly comforting either. Netmarble reassures that the “team is actively discussing balance adjustments to increase the daily amount of RP provided.” So, RP limitations are still a thing with the full release; wonderful. Additionally, there’s timed missions, which just further adds a sense of FOMO in a game where there really shouldn’t be any.

Monetization

Well, this is a mobile live service game after all, so maybe FOMO and monetization is expected. In-game currency can be used to fast travel and share equipment across different characters on the same account. There’s also a lot of cosmetics to purchase within the game’s various menus.

Platforms and Pricing

But at least the game is free to play, right? Well, it will be when it officially launches. To play during the early access period, you have to shell out $24.99 for the standard edition, which grants an additional outfit. Game of Thrones Kingsroad comes out of early access with its official launch on May 21^st on PC, Android, and IOS.

Of course, this leads to one of the bigger standoffs in the series as the Shadow Monarch’s summons go up against the Ant King’s forces. Though a release date for the new episode hasn’t been revealed (beyond “coming soon”), the production values are some of the action RPG’s best yet. Pre-registrations are currently live, with various rewards promised. Head here for more details.

Netmarble also confirmed that the title is coming to Steam in 2025, with wishlists available now. Solo Leveling: ARISE is available for iOS, Android, and PC via a dedicated launcher. It’s based on Chugong’s web novel turned webtoon series, which garnered massive popularity over recent years. Stay tuned for more details on the Jeju Island Raid update and its release.