Gamigo laid waste to its MMO stable this week, devastating the fanbases for Defiance, Twin Saga, and Eden Eternal – and worrying players of the rest of its titles. And it wasn’t an MMO exactly, but Anthem will see a permanent maintenance-moding now that BioWare has halted work on Anthem Next. Meanwhile, Black Desert came home, Dungeons and Dragons Online raised eyebrows with its mini-expansion announcement, and Dragon Age 4 dropped its multiplayer component.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
WoW Factor: WoW Classic is doing everything right in the wake of BlizzCon - In the wake of BlizzConline 2021, I have some criticisms about the WoW Classic presentation. Specifically, the first part of the panel about The Burning Crusade coming to Classic was kind of…
Leaderboard: So, is RIFT next? - Gamigo, which just bought the studio behind Wizard101 and Pirate101, cleaned house yesterday, purging multiple MMORPGs that it acquired during its past acquisitions of Aeria Games and Trion Worlds. Defiance…
Defiance and Defiance 2050 are dismissed from duty - Clearly, Gamigo is cleaning house today. Shortly after announcing that the MMO publisher is shutting down Twin Saga, it also posted a farewell notice for one of former developer Trion…
BioWare is halting development on Anthem Next, but Anthem itself will stay up - A few weeks back, we reported on credible rumors that BioWare was revisiting whether or not the Anthem reboot was still happening. BioWare had previously abandoned the game's planned seasonal…
Vague Patch Notes: Considering the soloer’s experience in MMOs - I sized him up from where he sat across from me. He was intelligent, that much I could tell just at a glance - or if not intelligent, at least…
Dungeons and Dragons Online is releasing its own ‘mini-expansion,’ Sinister Secret of Saltmarsh, this summer - The anniversary festivities aren't the only thing en route to Dungeons and Dragons Online: Standing Stone Games' Rob Ciccolini just dropped a letter from the producer bright and early this…
Black Desert has officially transitioned back to Pearl Abyss – and now it’s free-to-grab for two weeks - Black Desert was supposed to be back up last night, but if you stayed up for the Pearl Abyss relaunch, you know that it didn't go smoothly, with processing and…
The Game Archaeologist: EA’s Motor City Online - When we use the shorthand "MMO" for online games, it's always assumed that we're talking about swords-and-sorcery or sci-fi RPGs. However, the massively multiplayer online sports genre has existed practically…
Jukebox Heroes: The best of DK Online’s soundtrack - I don't have much familiarity with DK Online, although I doubt that you do too. But that's not going to stop me from swimming through the seas of its soundtrack…
Perfect 10: Ten features I want to see in Splatoon 3 - The announcement of Splatoon 3 has actually shown me that I know more Splat fans than I thought I did. Like, people who are still playing despite the lack of updates. Not that the game isn't…
Guild Wars 2 artist’s portfolio shows apparent artwork of ArenaNet’s UE4 and mobile game projects - ArenaNet is the studio that makes Guild Wars 2, but readers will also know that the company's had more than a few other game plans along the way, and now…
MMO Business Roundup: Apple’s Steam subpoena, CCP on the cheap, and Valheim’s 4M - Welcome back to yet another MMO and MMO-adjacent business news roundup - it's the season for these shenanigans, you know. Valve and Apple: Remember earlier this month when Apple attempted…
Destiny 2 promises an end to Infusion caps, new PvP balancing, armor transmog, and cross-play in 2021 - The fact that Bungie is expanding its operations in support of Destiny 2 should tell you that the studio has plans for the game, and a whole lot of those…
Sorry kids, Dragon Age 4 is cutting multiplayer after years of troubled development - BioWare is not being very kind to multiplayer this week, we've noticed. Right after announcing that the studio was effectively halting all development on Anthem, BioWare's now yanked multiplayer out…
Massively Overthinking: Are MMO chat bubbles the best thing ever or an interface eyesore? - One of the more unassuming threads to blow up on the MMORPG subreddit lately was one that asked about - wait for it - chat bubbles. It had never occurred…
Why I Play: Finally completing Final Fantasy XIV’s relic grind - When I started my relic grind in Final Fantasy XIV, I didn't know what I was getting myself into. But after finishing the first few steps, I was in too deep…
Sci-fantasy co-op shooter Outriders outlines the features of its newly released playable demo in a video - Are you curious about Outriders, the sci-fantastical co-op shooter RPG from developer People Can Fly and publisher Square Enix? Did you forget that this game is even a thing? If…
EVE Online’s new ‘expert systems’ are, uh, not winning over the community - EVE Online has some... interesting news updates to share this week, starting off with Tuesday's release of the Bastions of War update, which has applied a wide variety of ship…
Eden Eternal becomes the third MMORPG Gamigo killed off today - Right about now, a whole bunch of Gamigo MMORPGs are wishing they had to deal with only server merges. That's because Gamigo's now axed a third (or fourth, depending how…
SuperData says WoW’s player count is already ‘back to normal levels’ post-Shadowlands - How fast did the gaming world get over Cyberpunk 2077? One month, according to SuperData's latest revenue rankings. While CDPR's sprawling RPG dominated the PC revenue charts in December, it's…
Gamigo is sunsetting Twin Saga in April, saying it could ‘no longer sustain itself’ - Twin Saga wasn't the biggest MMO in town, but it's probably one of the cutest, so we're sad to report today that Gamigo has decided to close it down. "After…
Player-run Neocron just released a truly massive graphics and combat update - Who needs Cyberpunk 2077's increasingly distant multiplayer when the first cyberpunk MMO is still alive and kickin' out updates? We're talking about Neocron, of course, the Reakktor Media-made 2002 MMO that…
Perfect Ten: MMOs of the ‘internet spaceships’ genre - It's at once the most important and most underserved genre in MMOs, aside from gigantic robots - it's the valuable genre of internet spaceships. They're games where you get to fly…
The Daily Grind: Do you think the MMO genre is in decline? - A while back, there was a post on the MMORPG subreddit that was basically "the genre didn't change, we changed" - I've seen those types of threads for the last…
Massively On The Go: Pokemon Go’s Kanto Tour failed to Meet Go Fest 2020’s high standards - So Pokemon Go Kanto Tour has passed, and we're currently in the middle of the "week-long wrap-up event." I'm using quotes because, frankly, the Kanto Tour ticketed event was a mixed…
Choose My Adventure: In search of RvR in WAR Return of Reckoning; first steps in Darkfall Rise of Agon - The Warhammer Online: Return of Reckoning has effectively transformed into me doing two games at once for Choose My Adventure. Let me explain. First, I did my very best to…
Blizzard is definitely working on a Warcraft mobile game, studio artist says - 2020's deficiencies have continued to spill into 2021, so we'll let it slide if you've forgotten that just two and a half weeks ago, Activision reps said the Warcraft franchise…
Riot Games starts hiring ‘a raid team’ of devs for its Runeterra MMORPG - Riot Games put out an open call for "a lot of people" to join "a pretty big raid team" of developers working on the studio's upcoming MMORPG. The MMO, which…
Pearl Abyss Q4 2020: An overall drop in profits and revenue but a revenue rise on PC - The quarterly earnings report from Pearl Abyss is now available to peruse for armchair fiscal analysis types to chew over, and in the fourth quarter and 2020 overall, there was…
Wisdom of Nym: The shirt-based speculation around Final Fantasy XIV’s next melee job - Bad news, folks: We're going to be waiting a while longer to find out the new melee job for Final Fantasy XIV, and waiting even longer for people to stop…
BlizzConline 2021: Everything we learned from the Diablo Q&A - With the Diablo II remaster hot on everyone's minds and still lots to talk about regarding Diablo IV and Diablo Immortal, there were lots of questions for BlizzConline's Diablo Q&A.…
BlizzConline 2021: Why WoW Burning Crusade Classic won’t have the dungeon-finder - While not a surprise, confirmation that Burning Crusade Classic is coming this year has lit a fire underneath the classic community. Blizzard was out in force at BlizzConline to talk…
Chronicles of Elyria boss outlines four-tier release for Kingdoms of Elyria standalone game - Now that we all know that Kingdoms of Elyria - the recently announced standalone game that runs parallel to the development and release of the MMO Chronicles of Elyria -…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 310: The BlizzConline afterparty
The Stream Team: There will be fire in the mountain when she streams Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Sauntering into LOTRO’s Ill Omens skirmishes
The Stream Team: In the Thicket of It in EverQuest II
The Stream Team: The end of Elder Scrolls Online’s Greymoor
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.
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