Final Fantasy XIV’s Gods Revel, Lands Tremble released this week, introducing a new dungeon, trials, storyline, and island sanctuary expansions in the first big update of 2023.
Meanwhile, John Smedley announced his departure from Amazon Games Studio, The Repopulation’s stewards threw in the towel on the game, Skull and Bones admitted to a sixth public delay, WoW’s next big patch lands January 24th,
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
Kickstarted sandbox MMO The Repopulation is apparently dead as Idea Fabrik’s contracted dev team quits - When last we checked in on The Repopulation, it was in August, when I realized that the team behind the game had put out almost no information all year, not…
John Smedley is leaving his position as head of Amazon Games’ San Diego studio - John Smedley is moving on from his role heading the San Diego branch of Amazon Game Studios, according to a memo sent to staff and first published on Bloomberg this…
Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones has been delayed for the sixth time, potentially to 2024 - Listen, if you didn't put another Skull and Bones delay on your 2023 predictions list, you have already failed because Ubisoft has once again admitted the game won't make its…
World of Warcraft: Dragonflight drops its first content patch on January 24 - If you've been sitting back and complaining that you're already done with all the World of Warcraft: Dragonflight content there is to explore and you're already bored, gosh, you are…
Vague Patch Notes: Stop taking your released MMOs back to the drawing board - This is not a column about Kingshunt, but it is. It's not a column about Crowfall or Deathverse: Let it Die or even Crucible. But it's about all of those…
LOTRO Legendarium: 10 more tips to improve your LOTRO experience - A while back, I put together a list of 10 tips to enhance your everyday Lord of the Rings Online play experience. It was a fun list to do and…
Lord of the Rings Online promises a producer’s letter ‘soon,’ plans to start testing Update 35 - After an event-filled 2022, Lord of the Rings Online players are understandably interested in hearing what's coming this new year. While Standing Stone Games isn't quite ready to post its…
Following sixth delay, Ubisoft’s Skull and Bones devs talk up the game’s story in new video - Considering the events of this past week, we can't think of any position more unenviable than to be the guy who has to come out on a Skull and Bones…
Lapsed yet legitimate Lost Ark players were hit in the game’s latest ban wave - When Lost Ark decided to clean house and sweep away a huge number of bots from the game this past week, it might have swung a little too far, as…
NetEase lays off staffers who were working on Blizzard games in China - Lest we forget, the falling out between NetEase and Blizzard has a toll greater than either company's bottom line; it also saw a human toll paid as the Chinese giant…
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen discusses development plans for the first portion of 2023 - It's a new year and a new lineup of work for the developers of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen, which is the primary focus not only of the studio but…
The Daily Grind: Do you love or hate MMO pet classes? - In one of his recent Choose My Adventure columns, MOP's own Chris made a shocking admission: He really doesn't like pet classes. Like, ever. This is fine for him, but…
Tales of Yore is a ‘lightweight’ retro-style MMORPG ‘full of terrible RPG tropes, cliches, and dad jokes’ - When an MMORPG describes itself as "lightweight," there are a few assumptions one can leap to. Personally, I'm taking that description to mean a game that's easy to start, has…
Black Desert PC and mobile prepare for a Woosa and Maegu launch swap - Back at Black Desert's Calpheon Ball in December, there was a bit of confusion over which version of the game was getting which of the classes and when. We knew…
World of Warcraft is offering everyone bonus Trader’s Tender for purchasing Dragonflight - Have you bought Dragonflight yet? The developers of World of Warcraft are really hoping that the answer is yes, and in the game's continual efforts to incentivize precisely that, Blizzard…
Global Chat: The MMO blogs you should be reading in 2023 - Welcome to a new year of Global Chat -- and with it, the anticipation of a great assortment of MMO blog essays, questions, guides, and fan analysis. One of the…
Lawful Neutral: Recapping 2022’s MMO and gaming law dramas - Fam, it's been a year. I know we've been saying that pretty much every year since 2016, but we'll stop saying it when it stops being true. This year was…
Titan Reach changes its name, rebuts claims of copyright stealing, opens Kickstarter and Steam demo - Last month we followed up on tips from our readers about TitanReach, which apparently came back under a slightly different name and new ownership. The return of this already beleaguered…
Chronicles of Elyria boss insists Kingdoms of Elyria: Settlements will ship in 2023 in spite of lawsuit appeal - Chronicles of Elyria made our list of the biggest MMO crowdfunding stories of 2022, but unfortunately not for good reasons. The lawsuit that the game's backers had brought against Soulbound Studio…
The Daily Grind: What MMOs are you no longer anticipating? - There are several MMOs I'm no longer anticipating or even expecting to launch at this point, but let me pick one of the former out and be a little bit…
Massively Overthinking: The biggest 2022 MMO trainwrecks (almost) nobody noticed - As we wrap up our end-of-the-year and turn-of-the-calendar content until next December, there's one more recurring Massively Overthinking I like to do - and that's this one that makes sure…
City of Heroes rogue server Rebirth preps travel power revamp for I5 Clockstoppers - City of Heroes rogue server Rebirth has been teasing its Issue 5: Clockstoppers release since at least last week, when it dropped a feature overview trailer. Today, it's posted a…
Blade & Soul celebrates seven years and the new year in latest update - Blade & Soul is throwing a party and you're invited. The game's latest update is hosting several celebratory events to mark the game's seventh anniversary and ring in the new…
Working As Intended: The MMOs we lost in 2022 - Perhaps one of our saddest traditions at the turn of every year is taking stock of all the MMOs we lost along the way. Unfortunately, 2022 ensured we said farewell…
Classic EverQuest plans new progression server and 30th expansion launch in 2023 - If EverQuest II's 2023 roadmap wasn't your cup of fizzle pop, then perhaps the classic EverQuest is, and Daybreak's dropped a roadmap for your eyeballs now too. In addition to…
End-of-Year Eleven: The MMOs with the most uncertain futures in 2023 - Years ago, I did the first version of this yearly column in a one-off format in the middle of the year just because I thought of it and it seemed…
The Elder Scrolls Online’s big 2023 reveal is set for January 25 - If you're still wondering what exactly the dissolution of year-long story arcs will mean for the future of The Elder Scrolls Online, you won't be left confused for much longer:…
Blue Protocol delays Japanese test event a few weeks over unspecified bug - If you were lucky enough to be in the Japanese network test for Blue Protocol this weekend, well, no you're not. That's because Bandai Namco had to postpone it as…
EverQuest II’s 2023 roadmap teases GU122, GU123, and the game’s 20th expansion - Daybreak dropped a tasty roadmap for EverQuest II last night, and while roadmaps aren't new at all for the franchise, this one's the slickest we can recall in a very…
The Daily Grind: What MMO hill would you die on? - As this is the internet, everyone is absolutely required to have an opinion on everything. There are degrees of conviction, of course, and how passionate you may feel about PvP…
Kingshunt has shut down its servers for what the developers are claiming will be further development - We hope you got in your enjoyment with Kingshunt while it lasted because it's over now. The game's servers shut down on January 6th, after entering early access just a…
Guild Wars 2’s Lunar New Year festival is live for the Year of the Rabbit - Lunar New Year doesn't technically begin until January 22nd, but try telling that to the MMO genre, which seldom misses an opportunity to party for weeks on end. So it…
Lost Ark’s Witcher collab and quality-of-life update launch January 18 - The fact that Lost Ark is running a transmedia-synergistic crossover event with The Witcher franchise is not news; we've known about it since before the holidays, and indeed, Korean players…
Massively on the Go: Splatoon 3 begins 2023 with its best Tricolor Battle iteration yet - Well, the latest Splatfest has come and gone, and while my personal win streak is over, I think the event was a sweet victory for the playerbase overall. As we've…
Wisdom of Nym: Examining Final Fantasy XIV’s patch 6.3 job changes - It's kind of a good thing that my life changes have involved a massive shift to my overall schedule because that was very useful for this particular set of patch…
Choose My Adventure: How good advice led to some minor comfort with Classic Guild Wars - I have to admit, the Choose My Adventure voting did not fall the way I had expected it to last week. Apparently folks were really eager for me to continue…
Final Fantasy XIV’s latest update, Gods Revel, Lands Tremble, is live now - It's time to go fight a new batch of deities in Final Fantasy XIV today, as the latest patch for the game has arrived and brought with it the second…
Workers at Blizzard-owned Proletariat say management refused its union and is ‘forcing’ them to go through NLRB voting - At the tail end of December, we reported that Blizzard-owned studio Proletariat was forming a union known as the Proletariat Workers Alliance. The announcement confirmed that the fledgling union would…
Wisdom of Nym: Takeaways from the Final Fantasy XIV 6.3 preliminary patch notes - Here we are, a day before the first major Final Fantasy XIV patch of the year... which is also very, very early in the year, as it happens. That's kind…
Level 5’s Fantasy Life Online is shutting down for good next month - It's been a short, weird, and depressing trip for Level 5's Fantasy Life Online. The colorful mobile MMORPG launched in Japan in 2018 on Android and iOS, only to shut…
Fight or Kite: Hi-Rez’s shooter Rogue Company is a less-punishing Valorant - High-intensity, action-packed matches are my bread and butter these days. If I can find a game that keeps my attention long enough to even entertain the idea of logging back…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 404: Believe the MMO hype!
The Stream Team: Going on a tiny pixelated adventure in Tales of Yore
The Stream Team: Celebrating the Year of the Bunny in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Returning to AQ3D’s Camp Gonnagetcha
The Stream Team: It’s time to play with fire in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: Heading into the newest raid of Final Fantasy XIV’s Patch 6.3
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.
