[2] It has become popular since its October 1, 2003 launch in South Korea, reporting 40,027,918 unique users during the month of March 2007.

[5] In Lineage II, players create a character, choose the race and personalise the face and hair in style, colour, expression and gender.

There are currently seven races in the world of Lineage II: the Humans, who are similar to modern-day humans and who have all-around balanced characteristics; the Elves, who have superior dexterity, movement, and casting speed, but weaker offense; Dark Elves, who have higher magic and melee attack capabilities; Orcs, who have higher HP and MP but slower movement; Dwarves, who are powerful melee attackers and master craftsmen; Kamael, who are humanoids with single wings and gender-specific job classes; and Ertheia, female warriors with two completely unique classes, and different quest lines.

[7] Hyeong-Jin Kim, the production team head for Lineage II, came up with the basic concept for the game in early 2000.

[2] According to Kim and Bae, the game's initial subtitle, "The Chaotic Chronicle", was developed with the intention to express the large-scale war, strategies, conflicts, and collaborations that they hoped to encourage among players.

[2][9] According to Game Design team head, Cheol-Woong Hwang, there were different concepts for each of the race's home villages.

They designed the Dark Elven village based on a "grotesque and serious feeling in order to express the rough history of these who had been expelled from the Elves".

Andrew Park of GameSpot said that the game "offers either a repetitive grind or a stiff challenge", and is not suitable for casual gamers who can only play an hour or less per day.

[19] During the 9th Annual Interactive Achievement Awards, Lineage II received a nomination for "Massively Multiplayer Game of the Year".

[20] Lineage II is one of the MMOs that were subject to ethnographic study in Constance Steinkuehler and Dmitri Williams's article, "Where Everybody Knows Your (Screen) Name: Online Games as 'Third Places'".