Elder Scrolls Online released High Isle this week, sending MMORPG players on PC into its yearly chapter to confront pirates, brigands, cultists, and worst of all, aristocrats on vacay.
Meanwhile, we got a fresh peek into Diablo IV, Diablo Immortal continued alienating gamers, and Fallout 76’s development was even messier than we thought.
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
Elder Scrolls Online’s big 2022 chapter, High Isle, is live on PC today - Today's a big day for The Elder Scrolls Online, though it may not be official until tomorrow: The MMORPG's big expansion for the year, the High Isle chapter, technically rolls…
Overwatch 2 launches early access October 4, Diablo IV is slated for 2023 - One of the big news stories of 2021 was the revelation that Blizzard had to delay both Overwatch 2 and Diablo IV. As of today, we're getting a clearer picture…
Diablo Immortal players uncover a ‘hidden’ third form of legendary crest lootbox - It's already been well documented that Diablo Immortal's monetization is off the wall, whaling players for as much as $50K-$80K to earn best-in-slot - a "discount" from initial estimations of…
Starkeepers may be the massively multiplayer Valheim you’ve been craving - A new MMORPG emerged from this past week's IGN Expo 2022, looking both familiar and exotic at the same time. Wolfpack Games announced that it is working on Starkeepers, an…
The Lord of the Rings: Return to Moria buries the survival crafting genre deep underground - Lord of the Rings Online is going to have to scoot over and share some of its online space because there's a new Moria in town. Free Range Games announced…
Not So Massively: First impressions of Diablo Immortal on PC - There was a time when the release of a new Diablo game might have been a big deal for me. But I've never been much of a mobile gamer, so…
Perfect Ten: 10 things you can spend money on instead of Diablo Immortal - So how about that Diablo Immortal eh? Sure is a lot of "weeping and gnashing of teeth" surrounding its release, huh? But hey, it's for a good reason. In an ironic twist,…
WoW Factor: The shrinking landmass of World of Warcraft’s ‘Azeroth’ - Last week in this column, I told y'all a bit of a bluff. Well, all right, that's not true. Last week's column was about what the point of Shadowlands ultimately…
Global Chat: Hot takes from the MMO community on Diablo Immortal’s release - The latest iteration of the Diablo franchise is here with Diablo Immortal, but it doesn't seem to be stirring as much interest among the MMO community as one might have…
New World talks tuning orbs, perk and loot changes, and the July PTR - Amazon just dropped a brand-new video all about what New World players can expect from the July update - and beyond. Notably, Scot Lane and Katy Kaszynski - both of…
Final Fantasy XIV’s band The Primals shows off its concert (and you can still watch it) - At this point it is pretty redundant for anyone to point out that Final Fantasy XIV has some awesome music throughout, and the Primals (the band formed to perform the…
Its legal options exhausted, Activision-Blizzard finally agrees to negotiate with union after half a year of clowning - As readers will recall, QA workers at Activision-Blizzard's Raven Software have spent the last half a year organizing to form a union following the company's multiple scandals, lawsuits, and layoffs.…
Massively Overthinking: ‘Every MMO inconvenience is someone else’s game’ - A while back, someone in our comments (I can't find it again, so I can't remember who!) dug up a quote from Raph Koster that I wanted to resurface and…
Nightingale previews its realm card system and more at Summer Game Fest - At this afternoon's Summer Game Fest, Inflexion Games dropped a fresh trailer and mechanics preview for Nightingale, the steampunkish survival not-quite-an-MMO. It's accompanied by a blog that dives way into…
Summer Game Fest 2022: Warframe’s Duviri Paradox, Nightingale teaser, and more - Geoff Keighley's not-E3 aka Summer Game Fest kicks off today with the live showcase stream, so I hope you've set aside a couple of hours to watch ads. I mean…
Diablo Immortal is no longer whaling as hard as we thought, but it’s still pretty bad - Earlier this week, the internet was abuzz over a Reddit thread and subsequent viral videos that pointed out it could cost players over $100,000 to full equip their Diablo Immortal…
Perfect Ten: The stupid reasons I have had for sacrificing sleep for MMOs - One of the most useful pieces of advice that I've gotten regarding making decisions for the future is also the simplest: Imagine yourself taking the action and then imagine the…
ArcheAge announces Great Prairie of the West update for June 23 - Kakao dropped a big preview for ArcheAge today, homing in on the game's impending Great Prairie of the West update that will constitute its summer offerings as of June 23rd.…
Newly relaunched Kritika Online’s cash shop is just as gross as you’d assume - Normally around these parts we would be cheering on the resurrection of an MMORPG. But in the case of Kritika Online, which has returned this week for its third go-around,…
Fallout 76 exposé reveals a culture of crunch and chaos from devs who snubbed MMOs - Kotaku dropped a scathing exposé of the Bethsoft studio behind Fallout 76 last night, and however bad you thought it was, it was probably worse. The site took accounts from…
Saudi Arabia buys a $1B chunk of Gearbox’s Embracer Group to extend games reach to the MENA region - Last December we reported on the news of Gearbox Entertainment subsidiary Embracer Group buying up PWE and Cryptic to the tune of $125M in cash and shares. We now follow…
Design Mockument: Mocking up Final Fantasy XI-2 - "Wait just one cotton-picking minute," you say. "Square-Enix is not hurting for another MMO after Final Fantasy XI. It has one. It's called Final Fantasy XIV, and I know you are…
PSO2 New Genesis’ frost-filled Frozen Resolution update goes live - Even though we're just into the month of June, players of Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis would do well to dress their characters up in warm clothes. The Frozen…
Crowfall’s Gordon Walton joins Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds MMO and platform - Raph Koster's Playable Worlds MMORPG has picked up two new executives today: Gordon Walton and Omar Abdelwahed. Walton will be immediately recognizable to modern MMO fans as he was one…
The Cycle Frontier kicks off its free-to-play ‘pre-season’ launch as players decry a pay-to-win DLC pack - Near the end of May, developer Yager noted that its PvPvE survival shooter The Cycle: Frontier was "very close" to release. Apparently that means today, as the game has now…
Albion Online heads Into the Fray with today’s update – check out the new trailer! - After weeks of previews, the day is finally here: PvP sandbox MMO Albion Online has released its Into the Fray patch. Headlining the update is the overhaul to magic staffs,…
Dual Universe begins the countdown to its launch, won’t perform a full wipe - Houston, we are go for launch. That's the message that NovaQuark has for its Dual Universe community. The studio said that after assessing the state of the game, it has…
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go Fest 2022 was not the worst Go Fest by a long shot - Let me start off by saying Go Fest 2022 was not perfect. We saw Pokemon learning moves they weren't supposed to, Flygon learning its Community Day move without advertisement, broken…
Guild Wars 2 kicks off Dragon Bash 2022, retools classic dungeon rewards - As promised, Guild Wars 2's Dragon Bash is live this afternoon in the game's latest patch. Bring your ale mugs and your finest Norn jokes to Hoelbrak for the fun.…
Choose My Adventure: Slow-going through Final Fantasy XI’s more recently added systems - First thing’s first: I have sorted out the way the aspect ratio option works. No more squished kitty! You’d think that’d be a pretty easy option to figure out, and…
LOTRO Legendarium: Which LOTRO race is the best to play? - Sometimes column topics come from idle inner dialogue, while other times they may arise from a desire to do some personal research that ends up getting out of hand. In…
Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 6.15 goes live with hippo carts, custom deliveries, and quests - Who wants to go screaming around Thavnair on hippo-drawn carriages? The answer to that question is "the Arkasodara," but if you instinctively answered that by silently nodding and pointing to…
Monsters & Memories shares its first video update from development - Feeling as though the work that the team was doing last month would be better represented in a visual fashion, Monsters & Memories' developers put together a nine-minute video to…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.15 is a bit late in its arrival - I'm going to be honest: I hope this is the last time we have to wait for a halfway patch to get our tribal quests in Final Fantasy XIV. I…
Diablo Immortal players estimate being fully geared up will cost $110,000 in microtransactions - When Diablo Immortal launched on mobile and PC last week, it did so with some truly rancorous levels of microtransaction nonsense, but perhaps most blew it off as gamers being…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 376: Diablo mortal
The Stream Team: Underwater combat with Dungeons & Dragons Online’s Drow
The Stream Team: A first-time peek into the vampiric survivalbox world of V Rising
The Stream Team: Commemorating a 12th Massiversary in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Hunting down monsters and mission objectives in Final Fantasy XI
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.
