Gobs of MMOs timed their releases and previews for Gamescom this week, and none of them disappointed: Most notably, Guild Wars 2 rolled out its Steam launch and anniversary, Final Fantasy XIV launched 6.2 Buried Memory, and Lord of the Rings Online took the wraps off Before the Shadow. And of course, Gamescom itself heralded the reveal of the long-awaited Funcom DUNE survival MMO, Dune Awakening.
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
Gamescom Opening Night Live: Funcom’s Dune Awakening survival MMO and more multiplayer news - In-person Gamescom is back in Cologne, Germany, and tonight - as it's tonight over there already of course - we're getting the Opening Night Live show featuring Geoff Keighley and…
Guild Wars 2 celebrates a decade online with 16M players, Steam launch, and birthday gifts - Guild Wars 2's anniversary hoopla and Steam rollout are underway today as planned, and it's got plenty of gifts in store. We checked out the freebies this afternoon on a…
Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.2, Buried Memory, is live with the new Island Sanctuary content - If you've been eagerly awaiting more story in Final Fantasy XIV since the first teases back when patch 6.1 arrived, your wait is finally over. Buried Memory is live on…
WoW Factor: Why trying to draw back former MMO raiders doesn’t work - World of Warcraft has gone harder on its raiding focus in recent years in a lot of ways, starting with Warlords of Draenor and moving on from there. It's pretty…
Lord of the Rings Online confirms the launch of its next mini-expansion Before the Shadow - The leaks were true: Standing Stone Games has just officially announced its next mini-expansion for Lord of the Rings Online called Before the Shadow, which does indeed introduce two new…
LOTRO Legendarium: Will Before the Shadow evade the mini-expansion stigma? - With the announcement this week at Gamescom's Devcom of Lord of the Rings Online's "mini-expansion," Before the Shadow, we now have a pretty good idea of what the rest of…
Pantheon calls Brad McQuaid’s old friend out of retirement to finish the game - A new article over at the International Business Times put together an uplifting portrait of one significant MMORPGs that is in the works. The piece gives a quick overview of…
Tales from the Holodeck: Altair Breaker is an unfinished and unsatisfying example of multiplayer VR swordplay - One of the best things I've experienced in VR gaming has been swordfighting. Sure, waving a controller around to translate it into sword strikes isn't precisely novel in gaming thanks…
Perfect Ten: My memories from the 2004 World of Warcraft launch - Back in November of 2004, I was a wide-eyed 28-year-old bachelor who had just met his future wife and was generally leery about MMOs to date. Now I'm a grizzled…
EG7 Q2 2022: Daybreak’s Jason Epstein is now chairman of the board - Remember a year ago when the Enad Global 7 board ousted CEO and co-founder Robin Flodin and replaced him - temporarily and in an "acting" capacity - with Daybreak's Ji…
Crypto WoW-wannabe Ragnarok loses $1.8M in ETH before it even gets off the ground - The crash of crypto has damaged another starry-eyed dreamer looking to blend MMORPG gaming, the metaverse, and NFTs together: Ragnarok, not to be confused with any of the existing MMOs…
Stick and Rudder: So you’ve completed the EVE Online tutorial – now what? - Since rejoining the player ranks of EVE Online, I’ve noticed a common sentiment from fellow newbies: Most agree that the environment is beautiful, the ships are fun, and the prospect…
Path of Exile’s Chris Wilson admits to not fully understanding Kalandra’s item drop changes - [AL:POE]Path of Exile producer Chris Wilson has released his latest dev blog all about the Lake of Kalandra's extremely unpopular changes to item drops, where he discusses the rationale behind…
Requiem Online’s reboot goes live amid crashes, confusion - The latest iteration of the post-apocalyptic horror MMO Requiem Online went live yesterday, although you might have been hard-pressed to notice due to its low-key rollout. Day One patch notes…
World of Warcraft hopes to have cross-faction guilds by the end of Dragonflight’s run - A new Team Liquid interview with World of Warcraft Game Director Ion Hazzikostas unearthed a few indicators of where the game is going in its immediate and far-flung future. Among…
Global shortages have delayed Elder Scrolls Online’s much-needed EU hardware upgrade well into 2023 - It's no secret that The Elder Scrolls Online's weakness has been its server and client performance, and over the last few years, ZeniMax Online Studios has made it one of…
No, Amazon is not trying to buy EA, probably - If your gaming-related social media feeds were full of breathless hot takes and panicked concern over rumors that Amazon was looking to buy up Electronic Arts, it would appear that…
The future of player housing, ‘hoods, and hooks in Lord of the Rings Online - Last week, Standing Stone Games ran an audio Q&A on the Deco du Milieu fansite focused entirely on Lord of the Rings Online's housing, and now, the group has kindly…
Guild Wars 2 players have cleared 41M fractals in the last eight years according to infographic - While the crux of the 10 year anniversary for Guild Wars 2 is primarily being marked by a Steam launch and presents for players, ArenaNet has also assembled an infographic…
Vague Patch Notes: Novelty is a contradiction in an MMORPG genre that discourages it - The newest member of the Big Five in the MMO space released in the west back in 2015, which was seven years ago now. The oldest one released in 2004,…
The Chinese version of the Life is Feudal MMO will be shut down in October - Fans of the sandbox MMO version of Life is Feudal are unfortunately dying a second death in a manner of speaking. Tiancity, the publisher of the Chinese version of the…
Tower of Fantasy shares video previews of the upcoming Vera region and a new Simulacrum character - What do an arid desert, a cyberpunk cityscape, and a katana-wielding badass have in common with one another? They're all part of some new preview videos debuted by Tower of…
Genshin Impact’s 3.0 update is live now and has one final trailer - The good news if you're a Genshin Impact fan is that the game's sizable 3.0 update is already live for the game now. The even better news if you're stuck…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Rich Lambert admits to ‘some’ crunch at the studio - An interview with ZeniMax Online Studio's Rich Lambert has regrettably confirmed that there is indeed some crunch that occurs while developing and updating Elder Scrolls Online.[AL:ESO] The matter of crunch…
CCP Games is hunting for veteran DUST 514 players to test its next EVE universe FPS - If you're hankering to take peek at CCP Games' next big thing - and yes it's another attempt at an EVE Online-universe shooter - then you're going to want to…
Lost Ark launches the pet ranch, adds new water park content, and brings back event guardians in tomorrow’s update - It's time for players of Lost Ark to bask Under the Arkesian Sun, aka the ARPG's latest patch, which is bringing some more fun and sunny activities and some lower-tier…
Destiny 2 begins the Season of Plunder today, readies a new raid August 26, unveils Lightfall expansion for February 2023 - The showcase presentation for Destiny 2 is well underway and Bungie has been absolutely flooding fans with video previews, update plans, and (sure enough) confirming some earlier leaks.[AL:D2] Today, August…
City of Heroes Homecoming’s Issue 27 Page 4 goes live with its new music-wielding powersets - The testing phase has ended, and the live update is now available for the Homecoming rogue server of City of Heroes. Issue 27 Page 4 has arrived to the live…
Choose My Adventure: Chimeraland’s weirdness routine continues to become a comfortable cadence - There's always a point when you're playing a new game that things become comfortable. A lot of folks tend to refer to that as an end of a honeymoon, but…
World of Warcraft gives Shadowlands away for free through September 5 - So let's assume for the sake of argument that you decided not to purchase World of Warcraft: Shadowlands when it came out, and following the news has made this increasingly…
Fight or Kite: I had a MultiVersus hole in my heart all this time and never knew it - I honestly can’t get enough of MultiVersus. It’s completely consumed my nightly game time, almost in its entirety. Maybe it’s just been too long since I had a good PvP…
Wisdom of Nym: Highlights from Final Fantasy XIV’s Buried Memory patch notes ahead of launch - The nice thing about having the patch notes always released well ahead of time for Final Fantasy XIV is that we can always pick out a fair bit of what's…
Tencent lays off over 5000 workers following Q2 revenue decline - Chinese gaming giant Tencent has developed a gap in its business armor: The company's second quarter earnings report has posted a decline in quarterly revenue, dropping by 3% to $19.7…
The Elder Scrolls Online releases Update 35 and Lost Depths DLC for PC – here are the patch notes - Today is the day for players of Elder Scrolls Online to hop into some new dungeons or check out some new combat adjustments as today marks the release of the…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 386: Lord of Lord of the Rings Online
The Stream Team: Playing around with different weapons in Monster Hunter Rise
The Stream Team: Aiding AQ3D’s new Dragon Archer
The Stream Team: Examining the recently updated Trials mode of Dauntless
The Stream Team: Neverwinter’s Elemental Evil Adventures
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming some cartoon beat-em-up MultiVersus mayhem
The Stream Team: Jaunting off to the world of Chimeraland
The Stream Team: Guild Wars 2’s Snargle needs more inspiration
The Stream Team: Trying Warframe’s taser whip
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.
