Solo Leveling: Arise Cracks 5 Million Pre-Registrations Worldwide

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Fans are currently enjoying the gritty anime adaptation of Solo Leveling, a manhwa from South Korea, but that’s not the only way to experience a different version of the popular story – a new gacha game for PC, iOS, and Android, Solo Leveling: Arise, has surpassed the impressive milestone of five million global pre-registrations in less than one week since they opened up.

Solo Leveling: Arise has already been soft-launched in a few markets for testing purposes and is slated to be released worldwide later this year.

Netmarble, the biggest mobile game studio in all of South Korea, is behind the development. Previous projects by the company include Star Wars: Force Arena, Marvel Future Revolution, Seven Deadly Sins: Grand Cross, and Ni No Kuni: Cross Worlds. Aside from Solo Leveling, a game based on the successful Shangri-La Frontier is currently in the works as well.

Users from the test markets report that Solo Leveling: Arise is very fun to play, but expressed their worries around the game’s potentially exploitative monetization – something Netmarble is infamous for – and its grind-heavy progression system.

It looks like casual players, who are in it for story, should have a field day with the game: Users are praising its voice acting and story presentation, adding that playing through the main story does not require an in-game resource and is thus not limited in any way or conflicts with other aspects of the game, such as farming for equipment.

One major drawback testers have been reporting is the fact that pulling certain characters can actually screw players over – which is kind of the opposite thing you’d want in a gacha game. Some side missions apparently require you to use specific characters. If you don’t have them, the game provides a well-equipped and appropriately-leveled version of that character to you. However, if you’ve already pulled that person, you won’t get access to this offer – and might be forced to invest your precious resources to build that character up, even if you don’t really want to.

The gacha rates have been noted to be abysmal as well – getting a character rated SSR has a chance of 1.2% and you’ve got weapons on banners with the characters, making it even more difficult to get what you want.

Related: Solo Leveling English Dub Release Date Announced

Combat is fairly reminiscent of HoYoverse’s Honkai Impact 3rd and similar games – it happens in real time and contains some QTE sequences you can trigger. Players seem to find this very satisfying for the most part, so fans of the manhwa or the anime should definitely keep an eye out for it.

You can pre-register on the official website, if you're keen.