MMO Devs Made This New Anime RPG With NO P2W

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MMO Devs Made This New Anime RPG With NO P2W - DragonSword Awakening First Impressions & Review
DragonSword: Awakening is a new anime co-op action RPG from Hound13, a studio that includes some of the developers behind the classic MMO Dragon Nest, and it might be the most consumer friendly game I've played in years. It launched on July 22nd 2026 as a buy to play title with no cash shop, no banners, no energy system and no gacha pulls whatsoever, which is genuinely unheard of for a game built entirely around gacha style progression. In this video I'm going in completely blind to give you my first impressions, breaking down the combat, the open world, the progression systems, and explaining the wild story behind why this game has the monetization model it does.
Progression in DragonSword: Awakening works almost identically to Genshin Impact, Wuthering Waves and NTE. You run the main story, level up your characters, equip and upgrade gear and weapons, do breakthrough quests every 10-20 levels and ascend your characters the same way you'd pull for dupes in a gacha game. The difference is there's no daily time gate, no stamina system, no weapon banner and nothing you'd normally be paying to skip. You buy the game once and you get the entire experience, with the only microtransactions being a handful of optional cosmetic costumes and mounts on the Steam page.
The reason this game exists in such an unusual form is honestly a story worth telling on its own, and I cover it in full in the video.

I also talk about:
- The status ailment tag-team combat system and how it makes team swapping actually strategic
- Why flying mounts are essential to traversal - you can't climb walls or dive underwater without one
- The Webzen publishing collapse, the legal battle, and how Hound13 won their game back
- How the world exploration compares to Genshin Impact and Wuthering Waves
- World bosses, co-op hunt bosses, dungeons, puzzles and collectables
- Combo attacks and Dragon's Dogma style boss climbing
- Whether $30 buy to play is actually good value in 2026
- My full pros and cons list for DragonSword: Awakening

Overall DragonSword: Awakening isn't the highest quality game in this genre and it doesn't hit the same production values as Genshin or Wuthering Waves, but as someone who has sunk a stupid amount of money into gacha games over the years it felt genuinely refreshing to play something with this progression style that isn't constantly trying to reach into my wallet. Let me know your thoughts on DragonSword: Awakening in the comments below, especially if you're someone who has spent thousands on gacha games like I unfortunately have.

Chapters
0:00 What Is Dragonsword Awakening?
4:31 Dragon Sword Awakening First Impressions Gameplay
10:28 Why The Devs Made Game No P2W & Buy To Play
11:53 Dragonsword Awakening Gameplay
21:37 Dragonsword Awakening Pros And Cons "Is It Worth Playing?"

►Other MMO videos you'll like:
▶️ Soulframe Just Revealed HUGE Updates - https://youtu.be/bqas5Y3RJrg
▶️ The Absolute State Of MMOs In 2026 "ACTUAL Good News" - https://youtu.be/HkJ9l0Z-ews

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Tags
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MMO Devs Made This New Anime RPG With NO P2W - DragonSword Awakening First Impressions & Review: https://youtu.be/G5Mc47Opg9g