Andrea Shearon Recalls Her Early Days as a Priston Tale Archer

Andrea Shearon shares her first MMO character, Rennyfuu, an archer in Priston Tale, which she played during its lengthy beta. She remembers lively debates with older players in the Survive or Die arena and a fan forum thread dedicated to complaining about her. The game eventually moved to Suba Games, but her memories of that chaotic time remain fond.

Priston Tale's western beta stretched across several years, a rarity that let Shearon, then a young player, log countless hours without a full retail release. Her hardware struggles—a 4MB integrated GPU—made even basic movement treacherous, yet she persisted as an archer named Rennyfuu. The Survive or Die arena became her proving ground, where she traded strategies with players far older than herself. Her notoriety grew enough to spawn a dedicated complaint thread on a fan forum, a badge of honor she recalls with amusement. The game's eventual sale to Suba Games marked the end of that era, though she still considers revisiting it. Shearon's career path—from those chaotic beta days to writing for IGN, USA Today, Fanbyte, and Destructoid before joining PC Gamer—shows how formative those early online spaces could be for a future industry voice.