If you blinked on Friday night, you missed it: Daybreak slipped out a tiny announcement in its forums about Landmark’s launch date, confirmed for June 10th, which is also a Friday. Trailblazers will benefit from a two-day headstart period. Preorder packs stay on sale through June 6th; expect to pay $9.99 for a game copy on launch day. RIP, EQ Next.
Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions.
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Landmark announces a June 10th launch date - It's a little later in the "spring" than expected, depending on how strictly you adhere to the season or the solstice, but it's finally happening: Landmark is launching on June…
Trinium Wars has gone free-to-play today - Trinium Wars has officially gone free-to-play today "due to many requests," says InselGames CEO Patrick Streppel. "We have thought long and hard about this major change and while we always…
Mark Kern says Blizzard took his vanilla WoW petition meeting ‘very seriously’ - Mark Kern, who this weekend went to Blizzard's campus armed with the printed vanilla World of Warcraft server petition, has returned from his meeting there and has posted a video…
No Man’s Sky confirms August delay rumors, fields death threats - Remember those rumors about No Man's Sky's delay? Yeah, they're true. Hello Games' Sean Murray has posted about the delay on the PlayStation blog, admitting that the even though "development…
Darkfall has gone… dark - Darkfall -- the official version, not its up-and-coming player-run spinoffs -- has gone offline indefinitely, according to a new post on the official forums. Dear friends, We have been involved with…
Elder Scrolls Online’s ‘personalities’ are a roleplayer’s dream - Roleplayers, today's Elder Scrolls Online blog post is going to make you super happy. ZeniMax is teasing a new feature called Personalities, the first of which arrives as part of…
WildStar is apparently hitting Steam on June 1st (Update: Maybe not?) - WildStar's Steam page has been updated with an apparent launch date: June 1st. The Steam page itself went live sans promises back in April, but concerns over lingering rounds of…
Perfect Ten: Apologies I must make to my fellow Overwatch players - Fellow players of Overwatch, I am sorry. I don't know your names because I tried very hard to forget them, but I am still very sorry about the matches that…
Mark Kern says he’d buy Firefall back if it sunsets - Mark Kern, most recently recalled to MMORPG audiences for volunteering himself as a spokesperson in the Nostalrius World of Warcraft vanilla server ordeal, told followers earlier this month his side…
‘Boundless MMO’ Dual Universe announces itself to the world - Back in February of this year, Massively OP got wind of an upcoming science-fiction MMO in development called Dual Universe. This looked like an interesting sandbox that promised a single-server realm and…
Preview: In the saddle of Riders of Icarus’ mount system - Feel like flying? How about flying while you fight? In Riders of Icarus, you'll be able to do both. One of the main tenants of this upcoming MMORPG is building…
Camelot Unchained’s testers have placed over a billion building blocks - The latest Camelot Unchained update is all about the C.U.B.E. -- that is, the Camelot Unchained Building Environment. The player building tool has just hit a huge milestone. "Since we…
Star Citizen explains 2.4 test pace, begins work on 2.5 - This week's Star Citizen Around the Verse with hosts Sandi Gardiner and Zane Bien is all about alpha 2.4, which is currently still undergoing testing on the PTU. "We know 2.4…
Chronicles of Elyria AMA on alpha, middleware, griefing, and B2P - The Chronicles of Elyria team submitted itself to the wilds of an AMA on Reddit earlier this afternoon, allowing players to bombard the developers with questions about the soon-to-be-Kickstarted MMORPG.…
Black Desert delays planned June 1 Valencia launch - Daum has just announced that it's delaying Black Desert's Valencia update, which was originally scheduled for June 1st. Technical issues and security goals are to blame: "We are very sorry…
EVE Online war update: The Imperium loses its territory - Last month we brought you several war reports from the massive EVE Online conflict that's come to be known as World War Bee. After years of being the game's largest and most…
Analyst argues game devs are abandoning free-to-play in some genres - Red Fox Insights analyst Jake Parmley has another piece on Gamasutra this week, this one arguing that video game developers are "backing away from free-to-play" -- and why. Parmley suggests…
Funcom secures major private investments - If you're a fan of Funcom with a deep amount of concern for the company's long-term health, there's good news to be had today. The company has simultaneously undergone a…
Bless will be down to two Korean servers after its next round of merges - Back in February, Bless underwent a merge of its servers -- sorry, a "server integration" -- over in Korea. According to Steparu, June will bring yet another round of merges,…
World of Warcraft’s latest patch aims to clean up low-level play - The lower levels of World of Warcraft are kind of a mess and a half. Once you get to Outland at 60 or so, the questing experience feels more balanced,…
The first Warcraft movie reviews are in, and they’re not good - It may be that you were still holding on to some hope somewhere in your mind that Warcraft was going to be a good movie, the sort of thing that…
Tree of Savior is temporarily blocking new players - If you're planning on hopping into Tree of Savior and haven't done it yet, better get on it quickly. IMCGames has announced today that it's asked Valve to block new players on…
The Elder Scrolls Online’s getting extra character slots and expanded crafting inventories - ZeniMax has a shortish dev piece out today running down the chief cash shop and sub changes coming when The Elder Scrolls Online's Dark Brotherhood DLC launches next week. Of note,…
Overwatch shares plans for bringing back competitive play - Every match in Overwatch is, by its very nature, a competition. You have two teams struggling to complete an objective; it's not going to end in cuddles and nice words.…
Guild Wars 2 hacking post sheds light on 300 cheaters caught last April - If I had a dollar for every time someone wrote us a letter or comment about how he'd been unfairly banned from an MMORPG, we'd have enough cash to hire…
Overwatch’s launch day has arrived; here’s our giant roundup - Blizzard's Overwatch, the shooty remains of what was once destined to be MMORPG Project Titan, formally launches tonight at midnight -- if you're in London, anyway. For those of us…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 66: Meridian 59’s Brian Green
The Stream Team: Ambling across ARK’s The Center map
The Stream Team: A Steam-y Chronicle: RuneScape Legends match
The Stream Team: Facing Firemyst Gully on EverQuest II’s progression server
The Stream Team: A first peek at Battleborn
The Stream Team: Looking for (dungeons to) love in Landmark
AND FROM OUR FRIENDS AT BLIZZARD WATCH
Blizzard must now make Birst the next Overwatch hero
How difficult will it be to change Legion talents with Inscription?
Dreaming of a Diablo 3 expansion
Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the little bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.
