Guild Wars 2 dropped a ton of good news this week: It promised a new expansion, said End of Dragons has outsold Path of Fire, doubled its playerbase in two years, teased the Steam launch, and set a date for the return of no less than living world season one on April 19th.
Meanwhile, Amazon Games lost its studio head, GDC is a mess, Black Desert’s getting a new class, and Activision-Blizzard got hit with yet another lawsuit.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday (since 2010!) in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Guild Wars 2 promises fourth expansion, brings back first Living World season as proper episodes - ArenaNet has just dropped a press release and dev blog full of good news for Guild Wars 2 and its players. Let's go over the highlights! Guild Wars 2 is…
Amazon Games’ Mike Frazzini has stepped down following multiple rocky MMO launches - The head of Amazon Games, Mike Frazzini, has apparently stepped down from his role, announcing the move internally in a Friday announcement, as first reported by Bloomberg. The stated reason?…
Black Desert unveils the Drakania class, zone and quest changes, and reduced item copy costs - The digital CalpheON Ball's second act has once more unveiled lots of new stuff headed to Black Desert, offering up previews of a new class, some changes to zones and…
GDC 2022: Blockchain, NFTs, and play-to-earn scams go mainstream - It's GDC again, guys, and it's... woof, a rough-looking year. While we had some really interesting panels during COVID, the first in-person event (which we are attending virtually) features a…
Into the Super-Verse: No, I do not want Daybreak’s Marvel MMO - Greetings, true believers! This particular column is actually not the result of reader requests but specifically from our editor, who has long noted that we have never done a column…
Perfect Ten: Obnoxious MMO buzzwords found in press releases - So say that you write for MassivelyOP. Or say that you work for another news site while wistfully refreshing MassivelyOP's front page hoping to see a "we're hiring!" notice pop…
Gamigo-published Fractured wants players to volunteer to work as unpaid game masters - Hey, do you want a games industry job? How about one that doesn't actually pay money? Dynamight Studios' Fractured Online, which is currently under the publishing stewardship of Gamigo, is…
Grand Theft Auto Online launches $6 monthly subscription program on console - What if I told you that there was an easy way to turn six bucks into a half-million dollars with the click of a button? You'd probably say that it…
Insiders unveil PlayStation’s plans for a Game Pass-like subscription service - There's plenty of folks - 25 million of them, in fact - who love Microsoft's Game Pass service, a subscription plan that lets players enjoy a rotating lineup of games…
Guild Wars 2 previews changes to Exposed effect and further Catalyst tweaks arriving next week - There's a new patch coming to Guild Wars 2 this Tuesday, March 29th, and while we don't have the full patch notes available just yet, we do have a preview…
Vague Patch Notes: When you like the idea of an MMO more than the game itself - So I was reading Chris' recent CMA entry on The Secret World, and I found myself in a curious state. I definitely agree with his initial assertion that this is a good…
Elder Scrolls Online’s stability mess was caused not by account-wide achieves but by a hardware failure - The Elder Scrolls Online has been struggling with console and PC stability ever since The Ascending Tide DLC and its associated patch rolled out last week, particularly on the North…
Another worker lodges a sexual harassment and discrimination lawsuit against Activision-Blizzard - The lawsuits continue to pile up around Activision-Blizzard. Readers will recall that back in December, an Activision-Blizzard worker identified as Christine held a press conference with her lawyer to publicly…
Massively Overthinking: How long should MMO expansions be? - Star Wars The Old Republic's Legacy of the Sith struggled for many reasons, but the one I've seen echoed over and over is that it was simply too short for…
World of Warcraft highlights a permanent Mage Tower and 9.2.5 testing in its latest development update - World of Warcraft players will have to wait a little while longer for the full epilogue to the Shadowlands story, as that's not coming out until March 29th. But players in…
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s April Community Day strategy hurts its own goals – and players - Once again, Pokemon GO is marching forward to places its players don't want to go. Niantic, the same company that pivoted commendably during the pandemic but is at GDC 2022…
Crowfall promises shorter and more intense Dregs campaigns and a long-term roadmap in the future - There are still things being done in Crowfall. We examined where the PvP MMO sits this past February after developer ArtCraft sold the game to Monumental, but things have been…
New World teases Heart of Madness’ new blunderbuss weapon line - All month, Amazon has been teasing a new weapon coming to New World in Heart of Madness - next week, we can only presume. Last night, the studio dropped a…
Final Fantasy XIV offers a few more tidbits for patch 6.1, Newfound Adventure, on its teaser site - Players aren't going to know a lot more about the upcoming patch 6.1 for Final Fantasy XIV until the game's next live letter on April 1st. Still, the developers are teasing…
12-year-old Nexon MMO Vindictus just launched its 20th playable hero, Letty - Well here's a name we haven't heard in a long time: Vindictus. Nexon's long-running action-combat MMORPG this week released a brand-new hero - heroine, in fact - for players. Letty,…
Ship of Heroes teases challenge missions and its 20-mile-long spaceship - When a dev blog begins with "Massive Plasma Cannons!" you know you're in for something explode-y. So begins Ship of Heroes' latest entry, in which Heroic Games highlights Plasma Cannon…
New World is apparently blocking players in Russia and Belarus - Overnight, gamers on Amazon's official New World forums posted the news that players from Russia and Belarus are being blocked from playing on the game's servers in what is widely…
Elyon announces PvP flagging, new classes, new instances, progression system tweaks, and more - This year is apparently going to be bringing a whole bunch of content to Elyon. A video letter from the game's producer discusses new content features in the works and…
Choose My Adventure: Why does The Secret World feel so bad to play? - The Secret World is a good game. A great one, even. It’s worthy of all of the praise and adoration it gets from its fans. It’s a fun game, and…
World of Warcraft CM Josh Allen leaves Blizzard for ‘new opportunity’ - WoW community manager Josh "Lore" Allen announced that he, too, is departing Blizzard Entertainment for new vistas. After serving as one of the spokespersons for World of Warcraft over the…
SWTOR’s GU 7.0.1 rolls out today with updates to artifact gear and combat styles - It's patch day for Star Wars The Old Republic as GU 7.0.1 is now underway. The patch includes a hefty hodgepodge of tweaks and bug fixes, including the delivery of…
Wisdom of Nym: Why [redacted] closed up shop at the end of Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker - If you still haven't finished the main scenario of Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, I think we are officially at the point where avoiding spoilers is a you problem. Still, out…
Fight or Kite: End of Dragons did little for the state of Guild Wars 2 PvP - Anyone who’s been paying attention to Guild Wars 2 lately knows that the recent release of End of Dragons brought with it a whole bunch of new features and content…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 365: Free Middle-earth
The Stream Team: Sailing the seas in search of island adventure in Lost Ark
The Stream Team: Saturday shenanigans in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Eight years of SMITE is great
The Stream Team: Celebrating Warframe’s birthday as Teshin in The New War
The Stream Team: Neverwinter’s Sloopul and the Thing in the Lake
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming hops into Elyon
The Stream Team: Securing skiffs and finding phoenixes in Guild Wars 2
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.
