Riders Of Icarus

Riders of Icarus Review

Riders of Icarus is set in the kingdom of Hakanas and frames your character as a disgraced soldier blamed for the princess’s disappearance during the transport of a powerful relic. The setup is familiar fantasy material, political betrayal, a looming evil presence, and a personal redemption arc, but the game does a decent job of keeping momentum through frequent cut-scenes and a steady stream of quest beats. A shadowy ally group, The Onyx Order, acts as a recurring thread as you push forward to clear your name.

On the presentation side, CryEngine 3 does a lot of heavy lifting. Environments have strong atmosphere, character models are detailed, and spell effects are bright and readable in combat. The overall aesthetic will remind many MMO players of TERA’s style, although Riders of Icarus generally aims for a sharper, more technically polished look. It also supports 4K resolution if your hardware can handle it. Sound design is competent and immersive, with music that fits the mood and voice work that helps sell major story moments, even if some ambient loops become noticeable over long sessions.

Character Creation

The character creator offers a practical mix of presets and customization sliders. You get enough control over face shape, hair, proportions, and fine details to build a character that feels personal, without burying you under an overly complex sculpting suite. It also includes the expected body adjustment options, including more granular sliders than older MMOs tended to provide. The end result is a system that is flexible for most players while staying quick to use when you just want to get into the game.

Two Control Schemes, One Targeting Backbone

Before you begin, Riders of Icarus lets you pick between Standard and Action controls. Standard plays closer to a conventional MMO setup: click movement, Tab targeting, and keyboard hotkeys for skills. Action shifts movement to WASD and adds a reticle-style aiming feel, with skills mapped across keys and mouse buttons in a way that will feel familiar to players coming from games like Neverwinter.

In practice, ranged classes like Wizard and Priest tend to feel more comfortable in Standard, while melee classes (Assassin, Berserker, Guardian) benefit from the extra mobility and camera control of Action. That said, even in Action mode the game still relies heavily on tab-target logic, and that can create occasional friction. There are moments where your camera aim and your selected target do not align cleanly, which can lead to unintended dashes or attacks connecting with the wrong enemy. When you are playing a fragile melee class, those mistakes can be costly.

When the targeting behaves, combat is enjoyable. Skill chaining has a satisfying rhythm, and the overall pacing is quick enough to keep standard mob fights from feeling sluggish. It does not fully become a pure action MMO, but it does sit in a middle ground that many players will find approachable.

An Intro That Doubles as a Tutorial

The opening sequence starts with your character imprisoned, then quickly transitions into an escape scenario guided by an NPC ally called Crow. This early segment functions as a narrative prologue and a hands-on tutorial, finishing with a boss encounter to introduce basic combat expectations. It is a straightforward onboarding process, and it does its job well for first-time players, although it is not something you can bypass when rolling additional characters, which may frustrate players who like to experiment with alts.

Old-School Structure, for Better and Worse

Riders of Icarus is comfortable being a traditional theme park MMORPG. You move zone to zone through a breadcrumb quest flow, completing hub objectives to unlock the next area and advance the story. Along the way you will find the genre staples: dungeons, mini-bosses, gathering and crafting systems, and PvP activities. Compared to more modern MMOs that emphasize dynamic events or broad build experimentation, the progression here is relatively linear.

One of the most noticeable limitations is the lack of a skill tree. Abilities unlock and improve automatically as you level, with no skill points or branching specialization to shape a unique build. That design keeps the learning curve low, but it also means two characters of the same class will often feel very similar mechanically, outside of rotation preference and gear choices.

Taming and Mount Play, the Game’s Signature

The familiar system is where Riders of Icarus separates itself. The concept is simple, the world is filled with creatures you can capture, and those captures matter because they influence how you travel, how you fight, and how you show off your collection. The headline feature is flying mounts and the ability to engage in mounted aerial combat, which changes how certain encounters feel and makes the world’s vertical spaces relevant rather than decorative.

Taming is more involved than a simple click-and-collect. To capture a creature, you need to approach and mount it, triggering a timing-based mini-game where you input the indicated WASD prompts to fill a taming meter. There is some luck involved, but execution is the bigger factor. Things get more intense when you attempt this against aggressive mobs or when trying to latch onto a flying target in mid-air. The system can also be chaotic if other enemies are nearby and you draw aggro during the attempt.

Once captured, a creature becomes a familiar. You can ride it as a mount, or you can convert it into a combat pet using a Pet Scroll. The tradeoff is important: turning a familiar into a pet removes your ability to ride it, so there is an actual decision to make rather than a purely additive upgrade.

PvP

Riders of Icarus includes player-versus-player features that range from simple duels to dedicated PvP spaces. At the time of the North American open beta, the available options were more limited than in Korea, with duels and the level 25 open-world PvP zone Exarahn Basin being the main activities. Because the Korean version had been running longer, it is reasonable to expect additional PvP systems to arrive over time, including modes such as guild wars and arenas, as content parity improves.

Ellora’s Shop

With the move into open beta and free-to-play, Riders of Icarus introduced its cash shop. The selection leans toward convenience items, buffs, and cosmetics such as costumes, rather than direct power spikes through gear. Importantly, it does not appear to sell items that outright dominate crafting or taming progression. As with any free-to-play MMO, long-term balance depends on how the shop evolves, but the initial setup is comparatively restrained.

Final Verdict – Excellent

Riders of Icarus is a conventional MMORPG in its questing and progression structure, but it is elevated by a familiar system that is both mechanically meaningful and genuinely fun to engage with. The ability to tame creatures across the world, then use them in ground and aerial combat, gives the game a defining hook that many MMOs simply do not have. Strong visuals, solid audio, and frequent story presentation help maintain momentum, even if the narrative premise itself stays within familiar fantasy territory.

Combat will be the most divisive element. The hybrid approach can feel smooth and satisfying when it clicks, but the underlying tab-target behavior can clash with the more action-styled controls. If you can accept that middle ground, Riders of Icarus offers a distinctive mount-driven experience that is easy to recommend to players who enjoy Korean MMORPGs and want something with more personality than the usual mount-as-a-speed-boost design.

Riders of Icarus Links

Riders of Icarus Official Site
Riders of Icarus Steam
Riders of Icarus Korean Site
Riders of Icarus Developer Site
Riders of Icarus Inven [Fansite/Guides] (Korean)

Riders of Icarus System Requirements

Minimum Requirements:

OS: Windows Vista (SP2)
Processor: Intel Core i3-2120 @ 3.3GHz or higher / AMD A8-5500 @3.3GHz or higher
Memory: At least 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 260 (1GB) or better / Radeon HD 7670 (1GB) or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c or higher
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: At least 30 GB of free space
Sound Card: 16-bit Sound Card

Recommended Requirements:

OS: Windows 7 (SP1) or later
Processor: Intel Core i5-2500K @ 3.3GHz or higher / AMD FX-6200 @3.3GHz or higher
Memory: At least 4 GB RAM
Graphics: GeForce GTX 460 (1GB) or better / Radeon HD 6870 (1GB) or better
DirectX: Version 9.0c or higher
Network: Broadband Internet connection
Hard Drive: At least 30 GB of free space
Sound Card: 16-bit Sound Card

Riders of Icarus Music & Soundtrack

Coming soon…

Riders of Icarus Additional Information

Developer: WeMade Entertainment
Publisher: Nexon
Game Engine: CryEngine 3

Closed Beta: May 2 – 5 2013 (Korea)
Open Beta: April 16, 2014 (Korea)

Foreign Release:
Japan: April 16, 2015 (NHN PlayArt)

Closed Beta 1 NA: January 28, 2016 – February 02, 2016
Closed Beta 2 NA: April 21, 2016 – April 28, 2016
Closed Beta 3 NA: June 2, 2016 – June 7, 2016
Open Beta NA: July 6, 2016

Development History / Background:

Riders of Icarus, also known as Icarus Online in some regions, was first shown publicly in 2012 and later launched in South Korea before expanding to additional markets such as Japan. Nexon America confirmed in January 2016 that it would handle publishing for the western release. The North American rollout included multiple closed beta phases (January 28 to February 02, 2016; April 21 to April 28, 2016; and June 2 to June 7, 2016), with the earlier tests operating under NDA and the later test opening access more broadly. The NA open beta began on July 6, with Founders Pack owners receiving a 7-day head start.

WeMade Entertainment is known for classic MMORPGs such as The Legend of Mir 2 and The Legend of Mir 3. While the studio has released titles that reached audiences outside Asia, its strongest recognition has historically been in its home region, making Riders of Icarus one of its more prominent attempts to compete in the western MMO space.