Ragnarok Online is a free-to-play fantasy MMORPG developed by South Korean developer GRAVITY Co., Ltd for Microsoft Windows. It is loosely based on the Korean manhwa Ragnarok: Into the Abyss. A SEA server is currently being published by Gravity Game Hub on its GNJoy portal since 2022 under the name Ragnarok Online GGH. The game is best known in the Philippines as the first officially licensed published MMORPG in the country.

The game was first published by Level Up! in the Philippines from 2003 until 2015. Players from the Level Up! community were migrated to the International Ragnarok Online management under the Thor server. Another server for the Philippines was published by Electronics Extreme from 2017 until 2021.

A play-to-earn variation of Ragnarok Online called Ragnarok Landverse was launched in 2023.

• September 2003: Ragnarok Online was launched commercially in the Philippines under Level Up!. It was named Philippine Ragnarok Online (pRO).
• March 31, 2015: pRO was shut down. Players were migrated to International Ragnarok Online on a new server named Thor.
• June 20, 2017: A new Philippine server was launched under Electronics Extreme. It was named Ragnarok Online Extreme.
• July 10, 2019: RO Extreme was merged with Malaysian/Singaporean server that was also handled by Electronics Extreme. The merged server was named Ragnarok Online MSP.
• November 28, 2021: RO MSP was shut down.
• February 23, 2022: A new SEA server was launched by GRAVITY Game Hub. The server is named Ragnarok Online GGH.

Ragnarok Online logo under Level Up!.

Philippine Ragnarok Online, abbreviated as pRO, is the first officially licensed MMORPG to be published in the Philippines. The game began its free-play open beta on June 2, 2003, with the launch of its first server, "Chaos". The beta ended in August and the game launched commercially in September of the same year. It launched the "Lydia" server on November 3, 2004.

On February 13, 2015, Level Up! announced that it would close the game on March 31, 2015. A new server in International Ragnarok Online (iRO), in cooperation with GRAVITY's Warp Portal, was established in April 2015 to accommodate players who wanted to continue playing the game. A migration program was started to help players move their assets to the new server.^[1] The new iRO server was named Thor.

In an interview with Jake San Diego, General Manager of PlayPark and Level Up!, he stated that the company never intended to close the game. He claimed that "the performance of [the game] was deteriorating through the years". Because of its decline, the developers of the game chose to service the Philippine players through international servers based in North America instead. San Diego also denied rumors that Level Up! was unable to pay the necessary royalties for the game.^[2]

The game managed to attract 10 million active subscribers. Gary Escobar, Product Director for Level Up!, stated that the game had over 57,000 concurrent users at its peak. Regarding the game's server popularity, "Chaos, being the first server, was the most populated followed by Loki. The third was a toss-up between Iris and Fenrir. Urdr, being a PK (PvP) server, was the least populated".^[3]

Ragnarok Online Philippines logo under Electronics Extreme.

In 2017, a new Thailand-based publisher Electronics Extreme entered the Philippine gaming industry after it became the new official publisher of Ragnarok Online in the country. It held the Ragna Festival event to celebrate its arrival. The new Philippine server was launched on June 20, 2017. The company also launched a separate Malaysian/Singaporean server on November 30, 2017.

The Philippine servers suffered a dwindling player count after its initial launch. A potential contribution to its population problem is the release of Ragnarok M: Eternal Love, a mobile game that was launched in the SEA region on November 28, 2018.

Two years after it was founded, the Philippine server was merged with the Malaysian/Singaporean server on July 10, 2019.^[4] It was rebranded as "Ragnarok Online MSP" (which stands for Malaysia, Singapore, Philippines) and "ROExtreme" (in reference to the publisher's name).

On November 28, 2021, the Ragnarok Online MSP was shut down.^[5] While no reason was stated, it was rumored that GRAVITY did not want to renew the contract so that it could manage a SEA server directly.

On February 23, 2022, Gravity Game Hub (GGH), a new Singaporean subsidiary of GRAVITY that was established in 2021, launched its own Ragnarok Online SEA server, then-named Ragnarok Online Ascendance.^[6] The server was open to the Philippines, Singapore, and Malaysia.

1. Philippine Ragnarok Online Moves To A New Home. February 15, 2015. Philippine Ragnarok Online news author. Philippine Ragnarok Online (Level Up!) website. Retrieved on 2023-08-02.
2. Level Up General Manager Reveals Reasons for Ragnarok Online’s Closure. March 06, 2015 at 08:58 AM. Esports by INQUIRER.net author. Esports by INQUIRER.net. Retrieved on 2023-08-02.
3. Leaving a Legacy: Philippine Ragnarok Online as Told by the Level Up! Team. March 02, 2015. Esports by INQUIRER.net author. Esports by INQUIRER.net. Retrieved on 2023-08-02.
4. SERVER MERGE ANNOUNCEMENT. June 4, 2019 at 3:56AM. ROExtreme news author. ROExtreme website. Retrieved on 2021-01-05.
5. Ragnarok Online MSP Facebook post on November 28, 2021. November 28, 2021. Ragnarok Online MSP Facebook page author. Ragnarok Online MSP Facebook page. Retrieved on 2023-08-02.
6. GRAVITY GAME HUB ANNOUNCES THE OFFICIAL LAUNCH OF RAGNAROK ONLINE ASCENDANCE. February 23, 2022. Gravity Game Hub. PR Newswire APAC. Retrieved on 2023-08-02.