Last week was exhausting for news. The week before was exhausting for news. It feels like even betas are tuckered out completely from the news. Fortunately for fans of League of Legends, that game’s 10th anniversary came with an announcement of all the projects ever, none of which are necessarily in beta yet but which is basically every game you could possibly hope for. Maybe even an MMO, who knows now?
Other beleaguered beta news:
- Some big changes to combat are coming ahead of open beta for Bless Unleashed as the game attempts to overcome the curse of… well, the name alone, let’s be real.
- Ashes of Creation: Apocalypse rolled out a smaller map for testing. Those of you familiar with the premise of battle royale games might be a bit less than enthusiastic about that.
- The arrival of Star Citizen 3.7.1 will hopefully bring an end to random asteroid interdiction, which is probably a real problem if you’re playing the alpha. In the real world, hopefully not so much.
- Last but not least, if you want something wholly new, The Yellow King is promoting itself as a cosmic horror-themed online game with eponymous allusions to Hastur and a Halloween early access date.
Now, maybe we can all just… go to bed and wake up when things feel normal again. Somewhat normal, anyhow. You know, maybe we should just take a minute, take a breath, and catch up with everything down in the list below. You can let us know if anything should be in a different category, of course; we always appreciate that.
As always, we consider an MMO to be in open testing if it features free, public signups and will server wipe prior to launch. An MMO is marked in closed testing if it’s running a private test phase that cannot freely be accessed by the general public; it’s usually under NDA as well. Early access and crowdfunded MMOs whose tests we deem legitimate will be included. So-called “open beta” soft-launch MMOs with cash shops, no sign of launch in the west, or limited interest for our readers will not be listed; we also do not list expansions, with occasional exceptions.
AdventureQuest 3D: Open beta
Arcfall: Pre-alpha
Ashes of Creation: Alpha one phase one; Apocalypse early access
Bless Unleashed: Closed beta
Camelot Unchained: Closed beta one
Children of Ur: Open alpha, further development merged with Eleven
Chronicles of Elyria: Pre-alpha
Citadel: Forged with Fire: Early access, launch on October 11th
Crowfall: Backer pre-alpha, alpha now expected in 2020
Cube World: Closed beta since September 23rd
Dauntless: Open beta
Dark and Light: Early access
Divergence Online:Â Alpha
Dual Universe: Alpha
ECO: Early access
Edengrad: Early access
Eleven: Closed alpha
Ever, Jane: Open beta
Kurtzpel: Closed beta
Gloria Victis: Early access on Steam
Global Adventures: Closed beta
Guardians of Ember: Open beta
Life is Feudal: Early access
Line of Defense: Early access, removed from Steam
New World: Closed alpha – back on hiatus
Occupy White Walls: Early access
Osiris: New Dawn: Open beta
Outlaws of the Old West: Early access
Pantheon: Backer pre-alpha
Pathfinder Online: Subscription “early enrollment”
PlanetSide Arena: Early access
Project Genom: Closed alpha, servers offline for restructuring with SpatialOS
Project Gorgon: Early access beta
Prosperous Universe: Early access
SamuTale: Closed alpha
Ship of Heroes: Alpha
Star Citizen: Backer alpha
The Black Death: Early access alpha
The Cycle: Alpha, weekly test cycle
The Repopulation: Early access alpha
Torchlight Frontiers: Closed alpha, no NDA
Valiance Online: Alpha
Yes, MMO gamers, you too can perform the unpaid quality-control work otherwise known as game testing! Check out Massively Overpowered’s Betawatch every week for a run-down of MMOs that are still on the road to launch, even if they appear to have set up a permanent residence in a shed called early access.
