MMO Week in Review: New World, Magic Legends, and the Dark Heart of Skyrim

Hope you’re not as sick of snowy northerny landscapes as I am because Elder Scrolls Online announced this week that we’re headed into Skyrim in 2020. (Yes I know lots of planets have a north, but they also have a lot of other places, folks! I’m mostly kidding; do your thing, ESO.) There were lots of other big reveals this week, including Cryptic’s Magic: Legends and Amazon’s New World both entering beta testing next year.

We also got some sad news this week: Daybreak is sunsetting PlanetSide Arena.

And of course, we’re working our way through our annual MMO awards!

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Daybreak is shutting PlanetSide Arena down in January 2020 - Fans of PlanetSide Arena will want to get their last fun in with the title over the next month, as Daybreak Executive Producer Andy Sites released a letter last night…

Perfect World has finally revealed Magic: Legends, its Magic the Gathering MMORPG - You know how Perfect World and Cryptic have been talking up a new Magic the Gathering MMORPG for like... years? It's still happening, and at The Game Awards tonight, we…

Elder Scrolls Online’s new trailer teases Dark Heart of Skyrim for 2020 - At The Game Awards tonight, ZeniMax revealed a sweet new Elder Scrolls Online trailer as promised, capping off the game's Season of the Dragon and following up its two earlier…

Amazon’s New World is launching in May of 2020 – check out the new videos - Amazon's been teasing big news for New World, the survivalish MMORPG that it had in alpha testing earlier this year but dropped back out of alpha so Amazon could "design…

Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Worst MMO Business Model - Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2019 awards continue today with our award for Worst MMO Business Model, which was awarded to Star Citizen last year. This faux-ward is a counterpart to our award…

All the big news from tonight’s Game Awards 2019 event - Geoff Keighley's Game Awards are not usually something we cover directly here on MOP, given that they branch far and away from MMORPGs and we have our own awards to…

Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Not-So-Massively Game of the Year - Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2019 awards continue today with our award for Not-So-Massively Game of the Year, which was awarded to Warframe last year. The games eligible for this category are online…

Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Most Improved MMORPG - Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2019 awards continue today with our award for Most Improved MMORPG, which was awarded to RuneScape last year. All live MMOs, regardless of release date, were eligible for…

Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Most Underrated MMORPG - Welcome one and all to Massively Overpowered's end-of-the-year 2019 awards! Every year, we poll our writers on the best and worst MMOs, stories, studios, and trends and assign awards to…

Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Biggest MMO Surprise - Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2019 awards continue today with our award for Biggest MMO Surprise, which was awarded to the buyouts of Trion Worlds and CCP Games last year. This was a…

Dang, Astellia Online is sunsetting in its native South Korea - Well, this is not a good sign: Nexon announced last night that it's closing Astellia Online in its native South Korea. If you'll forgive the Google translation of what appears…

Star Citizen fan says he spent $31,000 on the game following a near-death experience - Gather round, Star Citizen skeptics and superfans, because it's story time over on the game's subreddit. Redditor ILMsux has posted a gripping story about a television shoot he was conducting…

Massively OP’s 2019 Awards: Best MMO Player Housing - Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2019 awards continue today with our award for Best MMO Player Housing, which was awarded to EverQuest II and RIFT last year. MMORPGs eligible for this award may…

Gamigo’s taking another swing at getting ArcheAge Unchained’s ArchePass live today - We have a joke around the MOP offices that we are not an uptime monitor. Our site does not exist to chronicle the uptime and downtime of every MMO out…

Ask Mo: The hits and misses of MassivelyOP’s 2019 predictions - The day has come: the day when we look back at last year's predictions for this year and see how we did. Yep, this is a tradition around these parts…

Warframe’s Empyrean and Railjacks just went live on PC, with Rising Tide live on consoles - Start your engines! Warframe players eager to undock their Railjack and jump into the open space missions can turn the key right now (after they get the key, that is).…

Path of Exile’s Conquerors of the Atlas and Metamorph League launch today - [AL:POE]It's a big day for Path of Exile PC players as Conquerors of the Atlas arrives on the platform. If you heard MJ squeeing in some distant hall of the…

MMO Burnout: Pokemon Sword and Shield is fun but not innovative - I have a vivid memory from when I was younger - about 12 or so - of walking through the local Walmart with my mom to get this game that…

WoW Factor: How WoW’s Corruption system breaks the redeeming features of Titanforging - Last time around in WoW Factor, we took a nice healthy look back at how itemization has evolved in World of Warcraft over the years. This time, we can focus on…

Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MMO stories of 2019 - Earlier this week, we granted our formal award for the biggest MMO story of the year. But biggest doesn't necessarily mean best or most important, never mind most clicks or…

The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v3.0 - Behind history are people and stories, some of them well-known and some of them obscure. It has been my mission in The Game Archaeologist to research, document, and share these…

Wisdom of Nym: Impressions of Final Fantasy XIV’s first Blue Mage extension - Here we are. The newest Final Fantasy XIV patch is as much a proof of concept as the original Blue Mage launch was, showing how this can be expanded instead of simply…

Pearl Abyss drops new Crimson Desert screenshots and design notes - So, other than MOP's Carlo (who's absolutely losing his mind over the game), who's hyped for Pearl Abyss' Crimson Desert? Because the Korean mega-studio is cranking up the ol' hype…

Mortal Online devs announce Mortal Online 2 (again) – check out the trailer! - Way back in February, Mortal Online developer Star Vault announced it was following up that first MMORPG and its 2018 battle royale spinoff with another sequel: Mortal Online 2. At…

The Elder Scrolls Online is delaying the Undaunted event into January - Ironically, it appears that getting the Undaunted event running in The Elder Scrolls Online has proven to be an exceedingly daunting task. You all remember this, right? How the game happily…

Black Desert Mobile has officially launched now around the globe - [AL:BDO]Pearl Abyss has officially done it: It's launched Black Desert on four total platforms now, three of them this year, now that Black Desert Mobile is officially out the door…

Warframe of Mind: Previewing Empyrean and Railjacks with Digital Extremes - Last Friday's dev stream showed off more about Warframe Railjack - more as in flight and in fights! The devs detailed the new systems and aspects of progression inherent in…

Warsong Gulch, Alterac Valley, and plugin nerfs are live in WoW Classic - It may be too late for the WoW Classic folks who've already abandoned ship - or at least their PvP servers - but battlegrounds are live in the legacy version…

EVE Online’s ‘free market’ patch – and new gambling system – are live - Today's EVE Online update is a juicy one for players who dip into the economic corner of the game, and let's be honest, everyone who's anyone in EVE surely does.…

Flameseeker Chronicles: Guild Wars 2’s 2019 year in review, from the layoffs to Icebrood - It’s no secret that 2019 was a rough year for Guild Wars 2. There were some bright spots in there as well, however, and I don't want those to be…

Corepunk is a new top-down Dutch game with all the MMORPG trappings - Who wanted a new MMORPG for Christmas? Well, Corepunk isn't getting here in time for this Christmas, but it's now been officially announced to give you something to look forward…

Path of Exile’s Conquerors of the Atlas update sparks a $53,750 boss kill challenge - A new content update for an MMO is exciting enough, but when you pair it up with $53,750 worth of prizes, it blows off the roof. This week on December…

Amazon is teasing some sort of reveal for MMORPG New World - Remember how Amazon Game Studios announced it was taking in-development MMORPG New World’s always-on alpha offline last May? According to the studio, the game was taken down so Amazon could “design…

Kickstarted survival sandbox Day of Dragons’ early access launch is bogged down by drama - Remember the tussle over in-dev MMO Oath a while back? A sub-contractor for the game accused the developer of screwing with 'em, it hit YouTube, and then the developer fired…

Black Desert’s Pearl Abyss addresses new succession skills, the Red Battlefield, and more - The devs of Black Desert have been busy collecting gobs of player questions, and now they have a number of them answered, which not only include questions from the NA/EU…

Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s crafting class utility - There are eight crafting classes in Final Fantasy XIV, and in all likelihood we're always going to have eight crafting classes at this point. If we'd gotten an additional crafter…

Not So Massively: Kingdom Under Fire 2 is ambitious, unique, and deeply flawed - When I first heard about Kingdom Under Fire II by publisher Gameforge, I wasn't sure what to expect. I'd heard that it combined elements of an MMORPG and RTS, but…

At least one WoW Classic PvP server now appears to be 100% Horde - Did you think that the faction war in WoW Classic could never actually be won? Turns out it can, since it appears that the entirety of the Alliance population on the…

Star Trek Online fans mourn Deep Space Nine actor René ‘Odo’ Auberjonois - Another one of Star Trek's greats has fallen, as news broke out yesterday that Deep Space Nine actor René Auberjonois passed away from lung cancer at the age of 79.…

New World discusses opting out of PvP, addresses colonialism concern - While we continue to wrap our heads around the fact that New World not only emerged from its self-imposed exile but also announced a May 2020 release date, Amazon is…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 250: Blue Mage Christmas

Battle Bards Episode 158: Winter returns

The Stream Team: A first look at collecting critters in Temtem

The Stream Team: The first Warframe Railjack ride

The Stream Team: It’s Frostval vs Mogloween in AQ3D’s Friday the 13th event

The Stream Team: Festivult fun in Dungeons and Dragons Online

The Stream Team: Doing battle royale with cars in Forza Horizon 4

The Stream Team: Playing in the Black Desert snow

The Stream Team: A fun frolick in EverQuest II’s Frostfell festival

The Stream Team: Horsing around in Conan Exiles

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 bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.