With its entire world implemented in 3D, Lineage 2 was highly praised at home and abroad for its overwhelming graphic presentation. The game used an innovative ‘seamless overworld’ technology, allowing players to pass between worlds without extra loading delays, which was made possible by the seamless loading technique developed with the Unreal 2 engine before release.

Bartz Liberation War, a large-scale conflict that began on the Bartz server in June 2004, went down in history as an unparalleled ‘online citizen revolution’ in Korean gaming, attracting over 200 thousand players over the course of 4 years. Featured in various forms of cultural content, including articles, webtoons, novels, and exhibitions, this event showed the real extent of social, political and cultural influence that an online video game can exert.

After its release in North America, Lineage 2 expanded to Japan, China, Europe, Thailand, and Russia, becoming one of the most popular online games worldwide. It became so successful as to rank no. 1 in PC cafes in Japan, a country believed to be the most challenging market for online games.