2026-10-30T00:00:00Z 0hphttps://0hp.com/ https://0hp.com/games/tl/feed.xml https://0hp.com/patches/throne-and-liberty-4-9-0-nix-difficulty/ 2026-10-30T00:00:00Z 2026-08-30T00:00:00Z

Update 4.9.0 added a weapon tier above the top one, cut difficulty across the Nix region, and put purchasable power materials behind the paid reward track.

<p>Throne and Liberty's update 4.9.0 followed roughly three hours of downtime, which the notes said would begin at 10:30 p.m. Pacific on <strong>26 August 2026</strong>. The <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2429640/view/1842212951297672">patch notes on Steam</a> are dominated by a single theme. Most of what happens in Nix, which is the region of the map where the current content lives, now takes less time, fewer people, or both.</p> <p>Throne and Liberty is a fantasy world made by NCSOFT, which is a Korean studio, and released in the West by Amazon Games, Amazon's own game division. The Tumgir Vault below is an instanced dungeon inside Nix, and a Skill Core is an equippable item that changes how one of your skills works.</p> <h2 id="the-difficulty-pass-in-numbers">The difficulty pass, in numbers</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th>Where</th> <th>Change</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Tumgir Vault</td> <td>Chest interaction time down 30%, Skill Core acquisition down 50%, elevator sequences down 40%</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tumgir Vault</td> <td>Crowd control removed from named enemies on floors 2 and 4 and reduced on floor 3; the Frost effect removed on floor 1</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Ritual of Frost</td> <td>Frost Curses per magic circle down from 29 to 9</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Frozen Moment</td> <td>Three waves down to two, survival per wave up from 45 to 60 seconds</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Tumgir Hollow</td> <td>Water Energy requirement down from 15 to 10, geyser reactivation 60% faster</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Scarlet Dream, Primal Trial, Hall of Repentance and others</td> <td>Maximum participants cut from 6 to 3</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Remnants of Nix</td> <td>Masarax now spawns at a fixed location with a 30% chance at 15 minutes, more rewards, less difficulty</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Crowd control, in that second row, is the family of effects that stun, freeze or otherwise stop you acting.</p> <h2 id="our-take-what-it-means-for-players">Our take: what it means for players</h2> <p>The cuts are the right call, and the reason for them is not flattering.</p> <p>Instanced events that allowed up to six players now cap at three, and the interaction timers come down by 30 to 60 percent. The notes give the changes and no reason for them. Our reading is a studio concluding that content gated on assembling six people was gating on something its players could not supply. Better to fix it than leave it standing empty, and the fixes are real: faster chests, fewer curses, fewer waves, and Masarax now spawning in a fixed spot instead of a random one.</p> <p>What we will not wave through is the note at the bottom about the Battle Pass, which is this game's seasonal reward track and has a paid tier. Alongside Battle Pass: Smoldering Vow, the update says that moving forward, Battle Pass event shops will contain a Premium section. It sells extra Trait Unlockstone Fragments, Trait Enchantment Stone Fragments and Heroic Trait Unlockstone Fragments to players who have bought the Premium Pass. A Trait is a small permanent bonus attached to a piece of gear, so those are character power materials rather than cosmetics. Putting more of them behind a purchase is the plainest form of paying for strength there is. A game that has just spent a patch making its content reachable should not spend the same patch making its progression purchasable.</p> <p>The Snowsoul tier deserves a flag of its own, for a different reason. A new weapon rank above Ascended Archboss gear, crafted from the weapon you already own, resets the top of the ladder for everyone who finished the last one. An Archboss is the game's largest open-world boss, fought by many players at once. That is the treadmill working as designed, and it is at least earned through Ascended Deluzhnoa and Ascended Giant Cordy rather than sold.</p> <h2 id="what-s-next">What's next</h2> <p>By the same notes, Vegamor has moved to the end of September and the Primordial Wanderer milestone now ends <strong>24 September 2026</strong>. Both dates are on <a href="https://0hp.com/calendar/">the calendar</a> with the day we last checked them. The handover of this game's Western publishing, which we covered from Amazon's own announcement, is on <a href="https://0hp.com/games/tl/">our Throne and Liberty page</a>.</p> https://0hp.com/news/amazon-hands-back-throne-and-liberty-and-lost-ark/ 2026-10-30T00:00:00Z 2026-08-27T00:00:00Z

Amazon is handing Throne and Liberty to NC and its FirstSpark Games studio in late 2026, and Lost Ark to Smilegate in early 2027. Both announced the same day.

<p>Amazon Game Studios is handing two of the online worlds it published back to their developers. On 12 August 2026 it announced, <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2429640/view/1840944183773314">in a post about Throne and Liberty</a>, that day-to-day running of that game moves to two other companies from <strong>the last quarter of 2026</strong>. <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1599340/view/1840944183773300">A post of its own</a> the same day sent Lost Ark back to Smilegate in <strong>early 2027</strong>.</p> <p>Who is who, in a line. Throne and Liberty goes to NC, its developer, which operates through its subsidiary FirstSpark Games. Lost Ark goes to Smilegate, the developer behind that one. Amazon Game Studios published both in the West. And both are MMOs, which stands for massively multiplayer online games, big shared worlds that lots of players are in at once.</p> <h2 id="two-handovers-side-by-side">Two handovers, side by side</h2> <table> <thead> <tr> <th></th> <th>Throne and Liberty</th> <th>Lost Ark</th> </tr> </thead> <tbody> <tr> <td>Going to</td> <td>FirstSpark Games / NC</td> <td>Smilegate</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Amazon's stated timing</td> <td>Starting the last quarter of 2026 (the day came in a 9 October post)</td> <td>Starting early 2027</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Time Amazon published it</td> <td>Nearly two years</td> <td>Nearly five years</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Exact date given</td> <td>Yes, since 9 October: maintenance begins 10 November 2026</td> <td>No</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Shutdown mentioned</td> <td>No</td> <td>No</td> </tr> <tr> <td>Amazon's framing</td> <td>Handing the game back to the developers</td> <td>Handing the game back to the developers</td> </tr> </tbody> </table> <p>Neither August post gave a day, and both use the same phrase about returning the game to the people who made it. Worth noticing, given both went out the same day. For Throne and Liberty, Amazon <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/2429640/view/1846018067931795">named the day on 9 October</a>: the service transition maintenance begins on 10 November 2026, and it will share the start time and length closer to then.</p> <h2 id="our-take-what-it-means-for-players">Our take: what it means for players</h2> <p>A handover is a different thing from a shutdown, and we want that stated before anything else. Our reading is that the two get mixed up often, and that the mix-up can cost a game its players.</p> <p>Both worlds keep running. What changes is who answers when something breaks and who decides the shop. Neither August post said anything about any of that. Amazon's 9 October post answers part of it. NC, the name it uses for the developer, which works through its FirstSpark Games studio, takes over customer support, and old support tickets don't transfer. In the shop, Celebration Packs, Character Boost and Lucent packs (Lucent is the game's shop currency) come off sale on 26 October until the transition is complete. Lucent and items you already own transfer with your account, and NC will say when the shop returns. Our expectation is that an operator with a direct line to the developers ships regional content faster, and that the shop is the thing to watch, because Amazon's post says only that NC will announce the shop once its service is live.</p> <p>The uncomfortable read is what these two posts say together, and we will label it as ours rather than Amazon's. Amazon spent nearly five years on one of these games and nearly two on the other, and announced both exits on one day. Both posts give the same reason, and it is a generous one: handing the game back to the developers, so their passion for it can keep being realised. Our reading is that a reason this warm, arriving twice on one day, is also a judgement about the business of running these games in the West. Players should weigh it that way rather than as a verdict on the worlds they play in.</p> <p>New World is on a different footing again: we covered <a href="https://0hp.com/news/new-world-aeternum-shutdown-timeline/">its dated shutdown</a> from the game's own separate notice.</p> <p>What we asked for here was a date. A quarter is not a date, and an account holder with a paid reward track or an unspent currency balance is entitled to know the day their relationship changes hands. Throne and Liberty players now know the day the handover begins, and Amazon's 9 October post says characters, items, currency and progress all transfer unless a player opts out before 30 October. Lost Ark's players have only <a href="https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1599340/view/1840944183773300">&quot;early 2027&quot;</a>, and until a day is published, everything downstream of it is a question nobody can answer.</p> <h2 id="what-s-next">What's next</h2> <p>Both transfers sit on our <a href="https://0hp.com/games/tl/">Throne and Liberty</a> and <a href="https://0hp.com/games/lostark/">Lost Ark</a> pages, with the dates or windows the publishers have actually given and the day we last checked each. New World's shutdown is on <a href="https://0hp.com/games/newworld/">its own page</a>, with the date its own notice gives.</p>