SHEET 01 / AURORIA
ArcheAge Chronicles,
charted from what
the studio published.
Four classes with separate weapon trees. Trait points taken out of the level treadmill and locked behind world bosses. PvP that you opt into by changing channel. No release date yet, and this survey says so wherever that matters.
Classes in demo
4
Warrior, Ranger, Berserker, Mage
Weapons per class
2
Separate trait tree each
Raid size
20
Party content also soloable
Dungeon party
1-4
Quest progress shared
Folio 00 / Where and when this sits
Auroria, roughly fifty years after the original
The developer diary of 2024-10-10 fixes the setting in two sentences. The story takes place during the discovery of Auroria, roughly fifty years after the events of the original ArcheAge. The earlier game followed a player trying to prevent a large-scale catastrophe; this one sets that plotline aside and puts the hopes and struggles of Auroria settlers at the front.
That shift explains the title. The studio says it chose the word chronicles because the aim is to tell untapped stories from different perspectives inside the same era, rather than to continue one hero thread. It also says more stories in Auroria are planned beyond this game.
One consequence matters for anyone reading guides: shared setting is not shared rules. This site does not import housing, trade or combat numbers from the 2020 original, because the studio has not said those carry over. Where the two games differ is exactly where a copied value would be wrong.
| Question | On record |
|---|---|
| When is it set? | During the discovery of Auroria, about fifty years after the original game. |
| Whose story? | The settlers of Auroria, not a single hero averting a catastrophe. |
| Is it a sequel? | Called a new, ambitious title that expands the world rather than continuing one plotline. |
| Named regions? | None published. No zone list, map or starting area has been shown. |
| Named characters? | None published beyond the studio staff who write the posts. |
No region names, faction names, timeline dates or character names exist in any official post read for this survey. Anything of that kind elsewhere is imported from the original game.
Folio A
Six mechanisms the studio has described
Each entry below is drawn from an official Steam announcement. The trailing note on every entry is the limit of what that announcement actually says.
Levels and stat points
Character level is the floor everything else stands on. You start at level one, earn EXP, and cross thresholds the way any MMO does. Monsters give some EXP, but the studio says most of it comes from questing, from finding things out in the world, and from completing points of interest.
Trait points are not level rewards
This is the part that separates the game from a standard level treadmill. Trait points are split off from character level entirely. Your level gives stat points; trait points come from other challenges, which is why a player who has been exploring can come back to the same boss and win with tools a higher-level player might not have.
Raeven's Coilstones gate trait points behind bosses
Trait points come from Raeven Coilstones, and every one of them sits near a powerful boss. Some of those bosses stand out in the open, some are hidden, and some only appear through particular quests. If you have found a Coilstone, the studio says, there is a fight standing between you and it.
Nui Tears raise maximum HP
Nui Tears are scattered across the open world. Carry them to a Nui Statue and your maximum HP goes up, which in practice means a few more hits before you go down.
Hersander's Tower and the Hereafter Challenge
Every zone hides a set of Hersander's Tower, and Hersander is the god of gambling with particular tastes. Each tower gives you a riddle describing the item it wants. Sometimes the answer is down the road; sometimes it is somewhere you would never look unless you were paying attention.
Chests are first-come but not contested
Treasure chests range from sitting in plain sight to hiding behind the waterfall you almost skipped. They hold gear, rare crafting recipes and other aids.
Folio B
The plates, as issued
FOURTEEN SCREENSHOTS AND TWO BACKGROUND PLATES, ALL FROM THE OFFICIAL STEAM LISTING.
Folio C
PvP is a channel, not a zone
ArcheAge Chronicles does not put everyone in the same copy of a zone. Each zone is split into channels holding roughly a hundred players, and the rules for player killing are a property of the channel rather than of the zone.
The consequence is unusual for the genre: you are never dropped into a fight you did not ask for, because the ability to attack another player is a property of the channel you chose. The switch happens at a Nui Statue, and it has a cooldown precisely so a losing fight cannot be escaped by flicking a toggle.
Channel rules at a glance
-
Standard channel
Players cannot attack each other at all.
No bonus
-
PvP channel
Everyone else can attack you, except your party and guild members.
10 to 15 percent bonus EXP on monster kills
Folio C.2 / Motion record
Three official videos
Published by XLGAMES. Nothing is fetched from a third party until you press play: the frames below are local files, and the player is only built on click.
A Quick Look at Auroria
The one official video with an English transcript. It states the setting plainly, then makes the design claim the whole site is organised around: Auroria is built to be wandered, not followed. Housing, crafting and trade are named here as ArcheAge DNA, the video counterpart to the written vision diary.
TRANSCRIPT ON FILE / 31 CUES / EN AUTO-GENERATED
The Direction the Devs Are Taking
Executive producer Ham on what the game is and how it will be monetised. Transcript on file, Korean auto-captions, 155 cues.
Official Demo Trailer
The Next Fest trailer attached to the demo announcement. Dialogue only, no narration, so it carries no claim the announcements do not already make.
PLAYBACK IS LOADED FROM YOUTUBE-NOCOOKIE ON CLICK. UNTIL THEN NO THIRD-PARTY REQUEST IS MADE BY THIS PAGE.
Folio D
Status ledger
| Item | State |
|---|---|
| Release date | TBA |
| Early Access window | Later this year, no day |
| Box price | Unannounced |
| Demo progress carry-over | No |
| Gender-locked classes | Kept at EA launch |
| Voice-over and facial animation | Implemented since network test |
| PvP rewards | None at launch, rankings later |
| Platforms beyond Steam | Not in official store data |
RED MARKS AN UNPUBLISHED VALUE. NOTHING ON THIS SITE IS PRESENTED AS MEASURED IN GAME.
Folio E
Straight answers
Is ArcheAge Chronicles out yet? +
No. Steam lists it as coming soon with the release date marked to be announced. A Steam Next Fest demo ran from October 19 to October 26, 2026.
Does demo progress carry into Early Access? +
No. The demo announcement states that progress and save data from the demo will not carry over to the Early Access version.
Is it an MMO or a single-player action game? +
Both descriptions appear in the studio own material, and the tension is real. Steam tags it Action, Adventure, Massively Multiplayer, RPG and Early Access. The vision diary calls it a seamless open world you share with other players while also describing a goal of translating single-player action combat into a persistent online world. Channels of roughly a hundred players per zone are the compromise.
How big are raids and dungeons? +
Raids are described as twenty-player. Dungeons are instanced for one player or a party of up to four, with quest progress shared inside.
Can I be killed while questing? +
Not in a standard channel, where player attacks are disabled entirely. In a PvP channel anyone outside your party and guild can attack you, and switching back carries a cooldown.
Do I get anything for killing another player? +
Not yet. The studio held off on rewards while getting the basics right. The demo has a kill log and PvP achievements, with rankings and trophies mentioned for after launch.
How many classes are there? +
Four are playable in the demo: Warrior, Ranger, Berserker and Mage, each with two weapons. Warrior is the only class whose weapon trees have been described in detail so far.
Is the game gender-locked? +
At Early Access launch the current gender-locked class system remains in place. The studio says development is underway to add gender options gradually, starting with select classes, and that this will not be ready for the demo.
Provenance
Every factual claim on this site traces to an announcement on the official Steam news feed or to the store listing itself. When two documents disagree, the conflict is recorded in research/CONFLICTS.md in the project and the higher-tier source wins. Questions and corrections go through the official Discord, where the developers actually read.
SOURCES: 9 DOCUMENTS / 6 HARD FACTS LOGGED / LAST PASS 2026-10-21