MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Indie MMO of the Year

December 26, 2022 11:00 AM

Welcome back to Massively Overpowered’s formal end-of-the-year awards!

Today’s award is for the Indie MMO of the Year, which was awarded to Ship of Heroes last year. All indie MMOs, crowdfunded or not, are eligible for this award; the game needn’t actually have launched yet, though it does need to be in some form of playable state. Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!

And the MassivelyOP staff pick for the Indie MMO of 2022 is…

ZENITH

Andrew Ross: Orna. My bias for MMOARGs, especially after COVID, makes me prefer a game that encourages both remote and in-person play without feeling like it punishes either. It’s a difficult balance to strike, but Orna hits it for those who love to grind or have large, open, safe spaces to explore.

Andy McAdams: Embers Adrift.

Brianna Royce: Embers Adrift, Zenith, Project Gorgon. So this award turned out to be difficult as a bunch of folks nominated games that were ineligible (usually due to not being indie) and not everyone had time to submit new nominations. Zenith won a plurality of noms by a hair, and I’m fine with it; personally, until it launched, I was extremely skeptical about this game because of the scripted way it went into Kickstarter and the fact that we still don’t have a PC version, but it turned out to be one of the better launches of the year, and it’s a crowdfunded title at that. Good for them.

Chris Neal: Zenith. This will sound kind of trite on paper, but it is very hard to express how remarkable it felt literally being in the world of Zenith. It might not have the best graphical fidelity, but boy did Zenith turn me on to the idea of VR MMORPG gaming.

Eliot Lefebvre: Some absolute gormless idiots keep voting for Albion Online despite the fact that it’s not very indie because they forget it’s bigger than that. It’s me. I’m idiots. But when I’m asked to actually vote from the list of games that deserve it, the obvious nominees are Zenith and Embers Adrift, and the former gets the nod because I am not giving credit to the latter just for launching.

Zenith took our award for Indie MMO of the Year. What’s your pick?

Reader poll: What was the best indie MMO of 2022?

Zenith (8%, 31 Votes)
Embers Adrift (10%, 36 Votes)
Dual Universe (1%, 5 Votes)
Fractured Online (1%, 5 Votes)
Temtem (4%, 15 Votes)
Project Gorgon (11%, 41 Votes)
Temtem (3%, 12 Votes)
Mortal Online 2 (3%, 11 Votes)
Ship of Heroes (2%, 7 Votes)
Book of Travels (2%, 8 Votes)
Ashes of Creation (7%, 27 Votes)
Villagers and Heroes (3%, 10 Votes)
AdventureQuest 3D (4%, 13 Votes)
Pantheon (31%, 113 Votes)
Wagadu Chronicles (2%, 6 Votes)
OrbusVR (0%, 1 Votes)
Monsters and Memories (2%, 6 Votes)
Wild Terra 2 (0%, 0 Votes)
Broken Ranks (1%, 5 Votes)
Prosperous Universe (1%, 2 Votes)
Arcane Waters (0%, 1 Votes)
Mythic (0%, 0 Votes)
Occupy White Walls (1%, 2 Votes)
Cinderstone (0%, 1 Votes)
Genfanad (1%, 2 Votes)
Noah's Heart (0%, 1 Votes)
World Seed (1%, 2 Votes)
Something else (tell us in the comments!) (1%, 5 Votes)

Total Voters: 315

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How does MassivelyOP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together to nominate and discuss candidates and hopefully settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include commentary from writers so that you can see our thought process. The site’s award goes to the staff selection, but we’ll include both it and the community’s top nomination in our debrief in January.

How does MassivelyOP populate this poll?

Poll options include all MMOs nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.