MMO Week in Review: New World evades Amazon Games’ layoffs

Amazon Games was the latest victim of the broader Amazon corporation’s latest round of mass layoffs this week, specifically the San Diego branch whose top office John Smedley vacated earlier this year. Curiously, Amazon Games’ VP says that “the New World team in Irvine will grow as [execs] shift some resources to further support its continued development” – in perhaps yet another sign that New World is doing OK enough to keep getting resources.

Meanwhile, NCsoft is suing Kakao and XL Games, No Man’s Sky launched its Interceptor update, Ghostcrawler is forming a new MMO studio, and CCP Games doubled down on its blockchain babble.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Amazon Games hit with layoffs, but ‘the New World team in Irvine will grow’ - Amazon is apparently continuing its mass layoffs, as this week the company slashed jobs even more relevant to MMO fans than Twitch: This time, the cuts include Amazon Games' San…

Cryptic claims victory over login issues plaguing its PC MMORPGs and hands out apology goodies to players - If you were among the PC players who were having trouble getting into Cryptic's slate of MMORPGs like Star Trek Online, Champions Online, or Neverwinter, there's two times the good…

No Man’s Sky adds a new ship type, corrupted planets, and sentinel tech with the Interceptor update - Spicy new ships, planets and enemies suffering from a mysterious corruption, more sentinel foes; there is a lot to love (or fear) in the newly released Interceptor update for No…

Greg ‘Ghostcrawler’ Street is already forming a new MMO studio - When Greg "Ghostcrawler" Street announced a month ago that he was leaving Riot Games - and the MMORPG his team there was building - he teased that he wasn't just…

Perfect Ten: 10 MMO promises that are not filling me with confidence - Every game's development - and this includes MMOs - involves certain promises being made that the developers probably half-knows are not going to wind up being true. With a little…

Multiplayer survival sandbox Frozen Flame launches survival mode ‘open beta’ today - It's a release day of sorts for survival MMO Frozen Flame, as it launches its survival mode into what it's calling "open beta," though don't get too excited: It's still…

NCsoft is taking Kakao’s ArcheAge War to court over alleged plagiarism of Lineage 2M - ArcheAge War isn't just a delayed blockchain mess: It's also the subject of a new lawsuit. According to The Korea Times, NCsoft has filed a complaint in the Korean courts…

CCP Games’ CEO defends Project Awakening’s existence as the studio seeks a blockchain ecosystem dev - Any cryptocurrency-focused video that opens with a gigantic legal disclaimer stating its content shouldn't be taken as legal or financial advice should immediately set off every single instinct to flee,…

The Game Archaeologist: Pirates of the Caribbean Online - In 1967, Disneyland opened one of its most iconic attractions: a dark boat ride called Pirates of the Caribbean. A large fandom surrounding the pirate-themed attraction sprung up, prompting the…

Whatever happened to vampire MMO Shadow’s Kiss? - You are totally excused from having to remember that a somewhat obscure vampire MMO named Shadow's Kiss was the first (early access) release of the year for our genre. After…

Aion Classic’s arrival in Europe has been delayed again, this time to April 25 - So... Aion Classic's path to a European release has been a bit of a mess, and I can only imagine some producer at Gameforge tearing her hair out over this,…

Path of Exile’s Crucible expansion and league go live this afternoon on PC - It's expansion day for Path of Exile! Crucible is rolling out to PC this afternoon; it includes the new Atlas gateways for endgamers, the content revamp of Breach and Abyss,…

Storyboard: Pros and cons for scripted narrative stories in MMOs - Last week, we looked at the pros and cons for stories in MMOs that were purely player-driven, or at least using player actions and interactions as the primary driving force.…

EVE Online sees another large-scale battle erupt at X47L-Q, causing the server to groan under the strain - Over 4,000 pilots of EVE Online woke up and chose violence: Early this morning on our side of the globe, a mass of players from the Imperium and B2 alliances…

Interview: Spellcraft’s game director on the first public alpha and its intense gameplay - A good weekend is in store for anyone who loves to play the latest, hottest, fresh-off-the-press-est multiplayer games the moment they pop up. That's right, this weekend - right now…

Massively Overthinking: Tabletop and boardgames for MMORPG players - Last week, following the crowdfunding of an Elder Scrolls boardgame, the MOP staff got derailed by a discussion on boardgame prices (it's expensive, y'all). MOP's Sam showed off a pic…

Overwatch 2 previews Season 4 with a roadmap and trailer - Whatever you're feeling about Overwatch 2's Season 4, hopefully you'll feel happier with the introduction of your new handsome Thai support husbando. Look at Lifeweaver there. He's easily the most…

Microsoft welcomes UK governing body’s reassessment of ActiBlizz buyout while Sony cries foul - This is one of those "water is wet" news stories considering the parties involved, but in the interest of continuing to follow the ever-lengthening multi-billion dollar buyout of Activision-Blizzard by…

Another global version of Tree of Savior is launching in Q2 on Papaya Play - When last we checked in on the Tree of Savior franchise, it was last autumn, when IMC Games was pushing Tree of Savior M to Korean players and had shelved…

Vague Patch Notes: E3 is gone, but it’s only half a victory - So E3 is dead, and we've already shared some of our thoughts on the matter earlier this week. But as someone who literally wrote a whole article about how much…

Dark and Darker studio claims Nexon is trying to ‘bleed [it] dry in court fees’ - Readers who were following the brewing legal drama between Korean publisher Nexon and Dark and Darker developer Ironmace might have suspected it would be a mess - but maybe not…

Monster Energy drink is hassling indie game Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals over its name and logo - Dark Deception: Monsters & Mortals hasn't ever crossed our desk before, not being anything resembling an MMORPG, but it's multiplayer with PvP and co-op play, so it's close enough to…

Elder Scrolls Online is prepping nine (!) Necrom preview streams next week - We're inching up on Elder Scrolls Online's live event in Las Vegas - it's just a week away now - and ZeniMax Online Studios is preparing players for the digital…

Diablo IV deep-dives its endgame systems – and PvP map – in new video - Blizzard's latest dev video on Diablo IV pokes a bit further into the depths of the endgame - systems and content that players couldn't see during the level-capped beta events…

Massively on the Go: It’s Pokemon NO time again for Pokemon Go players - Niantic is the master of drip information, and most of it is both poor and incomplete, which is why we relegate most Pokemon GO news to monthly event roundups here in…

Early access retro PvP MMORPG Leafling Online has sunsetted over waning interest - Hey, remember Leafling Online? It first scooted onto our radar about two years ago as a free-to-play retro 2-D, nostalgia-driven open PvP sandbox; players described it as a cross between…

New World fixes the naked character bug as the game zips up Steam sales charts - Aight, New World, what is going on over there? First we got a personal public apology from the lead dev over the delay for Fellowship & Fire, which did indeed…

Fight or Kite: Starborne Frontiers is an autobattler with plentiful monetization schemes - When Starborne: Frontiers was first announced back in June of 2021 (which, wow, I can’t believe it was that long ago), I was extremely excited to play an MMO in…

Choose My Adventure: The Neverwinter Bard continues to rock even as the challenge level rises - This week in Neverwinter could be best described as broken up into two halves: a half of chicken time and a half of regular gameplay time. In case you missed…

New World’s Fellowship & Fire launches today as Amazon apologizes for the delay - After a week of delay, Amazon is finally rolling out Fellowship & Fire to New World - its first season and season pass. Servers went down at 8 a.m. EDT…

New video on Decentraland paints the ‘metaverse’ as the digital version of a dead mall - Hey kids! Do you want to see a dead retail environment? Go to a shopping mall in the United States of America of slightly smaller size and gaze at such…

Galaxies of Eden devs cancel plans for social sandbox MMO to develop dubious AI-generated playground - So remember how Galaxies of Eden had delayed its pre-alpha testing because of technical roadblocks and bugs? Well, we've finally heard from the studio behind the game again, and it's...…

World of Warcraft is releasing the first major patch of Dragonflight, Embers of Neltharion, on May 2 - Despite the name, it has been a really long time since Neltharion was actively tending to anything in World of Warcraft's Dragon Isles, so at this point his embers have…

Why I Play: Diablo III – From Reaper of Souls to today - In the first part of this Why I Play retrospective on Diablo III, I discussed the early issues that accompanied the game's record-setting debut. And while that rocky period is…

Star Wars The Old Republic opens its first cloud-based server for testing in the Asia-Pacific region - Last week, Star Wars: The Old Republic announced plans to move its servers to newer cloud-based tech hosted by Amazon Web Services as part of a wider effort to "modernize…

Wisdom of Nym: What we know so far about Final Fantasy XIV patch 6.4, the Dark Throne - I realize this means more to me than it does literally anyone reading this, but gosh, Square-Enix has gotten kind of terrible at dealing with its press site. It used…

ARK 2 is delayed into 2024, original ARK will get an August UE5 remaster you’ll have to re-buy - The weekly newsletter out of ARK: Survival Evolved is arguably a tale of bad news, then interesting news, then worse news. On the bad news side, the sequel has been…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 416: Jedi mind trick

The Stream Team: Peeking at the battle pass and latest quest lines of New World

The Stream Team: Hunting for resources in No Man’s Sky

The Stream Team: Going after Grenwog and time carrots in AdventureQuest 3D

The Stream Team: Leveling toons on City of Heroes’ Homecoming rogue server

The Stream Team: World of Warships’ rubber duckies to the rescue

The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming rides into the multiplayer demolition derby of Wreckfest

The Stream Team: Strapping in to the command couch for the first time in MechWarrior Online

The Stream Team: Exploring Guild Wars 2’s Super Adventure Box new world 3

The Stream Team: Playing pranks at Elder Scrolls Online’s 9th birthday party

The Stream Team: Fun with Warframe’s flamethrower and Frost

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.