New MMORPG launches on Steam with 5,000+ total reviews, designed by ex-Blizzard team

The extraction genre is having a bit of a moment lately. While most players are used to the shooting mechanics of Tarkov or relatively newer entries like Arc Raiders, Notorious Studios is betting that people want to swap rifles for broadswords and fireballs. Eldegarde, which spent the last year in early access under the name Legacy: Steel & Sorcery, officially hit version 1.0 on January 21, 2026. The team, led by Blizzard veteran Chris Kaleiki, has spent the last eleven months trying to find a middle ground between "hardcore PvPvE" and a more relaxed "mini-MMO" vibe.

The game itself is pretty straightforward: you pick one of six classic classes - like the Paladin, Rogue, or Wizard - and drop into one of five unique zones to hunt monsters, loot chests, and hopefully extract before another player takes your head off. The big addition for 1.0 is a dedicated PvE-only mode, which the devs added after realizing that a huge chunk of their community just wanted to explore the world and fight bosses like Mor'thog the Cruel without the constant stress of being "ganked" by other players. It’s a smart move that has seemingly helped stabilize the player base, which hit a 24-hour peak of 689 concurrent users shortly after the update went live.

Reviews are currently sitting at a "Mostly Positive" 70%, but if you look at the recent 1.0 feedback, the tone is a bit more mixed at 53%. Long-time fans love the depth of the "Lodge" system - where you build functional furniture like forges and beds for rested XP - but new players are pointing out that the combat can still feel a bit "stiff" and the UI is a cluttered mess of menus. There's also some grumbling about the monetization; while the gameplay is free, the "God Tier" supporter packs and cosmetic prices have some players raising eyebrows.

The game is built on Unreal Engine and supports modern bells and whistles like DLSS and Frame Generation. It’s a bit of a resource hog, though, often requiring a manual dive into the settings to get a stable framerate on mid-range builds. For the Steam Deck crowd, it's a "Some Assembly Required" situation. It’s playable, but you’ll be fighting the default controls and frequently pulling up the virtual keyboard just to go through the basic UI elements. It’s clearly a labor of love from an ex-AAA team, but whether it can sustain a long-term community depends on how fast they can smooth out those movement animations. 

You can check out Eldegarde here - it's priced at $24.99.