So Titan Reach is launching into its paid early access, and it announced that fact. That’s good. What is less good is the fact that the announcement casually noted that some of the people working on the game were working unpaid out of “passion.” What is even worse is the developers apparently tried to stealth-edit that announcement later to state that people are being paid – just not for overtime. That’s not really… better. Fortunately, the internet archive never forgets.
Other less-shady beta news:
- Amazon has delayed New World once again, now to August of this year. That’s still not good, but it’s not very shady.
- Zenith has returned from its brief radio silence to take a look at city levels. That’s not shady at all! Depending on your feelings about radio silence.
- The upcoming final release for Temtem has both new islands and new tutorial tweaks. Finally, that’s very unshady! We’re all happy about that.
- Last but not least, the Chronicles of Elyria team is releasing Kingdoms of Elyria for free for backers, which… uh… okay, anything about this game is kind of shady.
Darn it, that got shady again at the end! Let’s retire to the nice cool shade of our beta list just below here with all of the games we know about in testing. If something is missing from that list or we missed something along the way, there’s no need to throw shade; you can just let us know about that down in the comments.
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
Blankos Block Party: Open beta
Bless Unleashed (PC): Closed beta
Book of Travels: Closed beta
Camelot Unchained: Closed beta one
Children of Ur: Open alpha, further development merged with Eleven
Chronicles of Elyria: Pre-alpha, again
City of Titans: Alpha
Craftopia: Early access
Crowfall: Closed beta
Dauntless: Open beta
Dark and Light: Early access
Dual Universe: Paid beta
ECO: Early access
Eleven: Closed alpha
Elyon: Korean beta (fka Ascent Infinite Realm)
Fractured: Alpha
Frozen Flame: Closed beta
Gloria Victis: Beta (early access) on Steam
Inferna: Early access
Kurtzpel: Closed beta
Line of Defense: Early access, removed from Steam
Magic: Legends: Beta testing in 2021
Mortal Online 2: Closed alpha
Naica: Open beta
New World: Closed testing, launch planned for 2021
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”
Population Zero: Early access
Project Genom: Closed alpha, servers offline for restructuring with SpatialOS
Project Gorgon: Early access beta
Prosperous Universe: Early access
Saga of Lucimia: Closed alpha
SamuTale: Closed alpha
Ship of Heroes: Alpha
Star Citizen: Backer alpha
Temtem: Early access
The Black Death: Early access alpha
The Cycle: Alpha, weekly test cycle
The Repopulation: Early access alpha
Valiance Online: Alpha
Wild Terra 2: Early access
Zenith: Pre-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.
