Asheron's Call 2 was the short-lived would be successor to the successful mmorpg Asheron's Call. The original title enjoyed great popularity, with speculation (uncomfirmed by Microsoft) that subscription reached as high as 120,000 players at it's peak. Asheron's Call 2 did not meet the expectations of the publishers, having launched in November of 2002 with "Asheron's Call 2: Fallen Kings" and continuing on with the "Legions" content expansion until the plug was pulled on December 30, 2005.

The original game still lives beyond it's sequel, now having been returned to the control of the developer Turbine Entertainment Software, and has moved on to it's second expansion "Asheron's Call: Thrones of Destiny", currently the latest content available.

As for Asheron's Call 2, although players were chiefly approving of the content, gameplay dynamics and greatly enhanced graphics, the original Asheron's Call player base was somewhat divided, and at release the game suffered initial problems of server instability, engine bugs, balance and combat flaws, and critical chat system problems. Also of note are the high system requirements, challenging to many gamers of the time, and perhaps even moreso to the rpg community in particular.

Although Turbine and Microsoft proved capable and commited to addressing the many release issues, the game never overcame the poor launch. Although the publishers have not disclosed the numbers, it is estimated that Asheron's Call 2 peaked briefly at about 50,000 players, and was closer to 10,000 at the time that is was cancelled.

Additional Game Features:

• Brand new graphics engine, new combat system and an updated interface.
  
• Third person adventure in a subscription based mmorpg.
  
• Combat, exploration and adventure in the persistent lush fantasy world of Dereth.
  
• Free monthly (or sometimes bi-monthly) content updates.
  
• Create from a choice of 3 basic races, each with dozens of branches on the skill tree available to develop a unique character.
  
• Complex gameplay and combat systems based on a hybrid class-skill system. Player rank levelling according to XP, increasing and unlocking skill potentials.
  

Developer: Turbine Entertainment Software
Publisher: Microsoft, subsequently Turbine Entertainment Software
Released: November 22, 2002

System Requirements
98SE/2000/ME/XP, 2 GHz CPU, 1GB RAM, 128MB DirectX 9.0-compliant video card w/ T&L and vertex shaders, 56K Internet access, compliant sound card