Whether or not it was a great idea to let a company long embroiled in antitrust lawsuits to buy one of the largest corporations in the gaming industry, that’s exactly what happened this week, as the final impediment to Microsoft’s buyout of Activision-Blizzard was finally cleared away and the deal was officially cemented. And now we wait to see how Microsoft aims to sort out one of the messiest companies in the gaming industry – especially once Bobby Kotick and his retainers are gone at the end of the year. That’s 77 days, for those counting along at home.
Coincidentally, Unity’s John Riccitiello also stepped down from his roles at the company this week, following intense backash prompted by its attempt to extort the games industry. It sure was a week!
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
Microsoft’s Activision-Blizzard buyout is official, Kotick to stay through end of 2023 - After nearly two years of drama, UK regulators have finally approved Microsoft's acquisition of Activision-Blizzard, and Microsoft announced the buyout is official this morning. The buyout has been in the…
WoW Factor: No-selling BlizzCon - On May 4th, 2019, tickets for BlizzCon 2019 went on sale. This was not in and of itself a surprise, with the event happening on November 1st of that same…
LOTRO Legendarium: What could a LOTRO challenge server look like? - Lord of the Rings Online's legendary server experiments aren't done yet. Even though it's been a while since we've seen a new shard come online, we do know that SSG…
Vague Patch Notes: Why procedural generation doesn’t solve the content problems of MMOs - Just yesterday, MOP's Justin ran down the various features that the long-canceled EverQuest Next promised before its demise - including the promise of all sorts of procedurally generated content. Procgen…
World Eternal Online bizarrely claims it ‘decoupled from the blockchain’ as it launches early access on Epic - Back in February we reported on the existence of World Eternal Online, an MMORPG under development by Core Loop Games that had previously raked in $22M specifically to create a…
Coreborn Nations of the Ultracore studio will work on new games after it ‘fell short’ with early access - German studio Blankhans has delivered a candid state-of-the-game update for Coreborn Nations of the Ultracore - candid in the painful way, though it's clearly trying to make the best of…
Massively Overthinking: What do you wish gamers knew about the games industry? - I was surfing the comments of another gaming site's article earlier this week when I stumbled upon a scathing note about games industry QA workers unionizing. "Nothing like a bunch…
Lord of the Rings Online’s Harvestmath Festival returns with a new mount and cosmetics - Lord of the Rings Online's autumn events are underway today as the Harvestmath Festival has officially returned to Middle-earth - and it's got fresh cosmetics in tow. "Fall is considered by…
Kickstarted VR MMO Ilysia rolls into early access with four servers and FreeForge characters - When VR MMORPG Ilysia announced it'd be hitting early access this month, we were a bit skeptical, given how many times it had to postpone its beta this year, but…
Remember that report about cops fired for playing Pokemon Go on duty? There’s video now, and it’s worse - Way back in 2016 and 2017, it was rare to see a month go by without some sort of dreadful story about Pokemon Go filtering up from local news media.…
Mortal Online 2 reiterates plan to begin subs with end-of-October UE5 launch - The latest developer livestream from Mortal Online 2 might seem to be repeating itself a bit at first blush, but perhaps fans should be happy to note that the upgrade…
Palia’s latest beta patch offers pumpkins, romance, and a challenging obstacle course - You didn't think a cozy MMO like Palia was doing to let the Halloween season slip by without mention, did you? No sir, and Singularity Six has rolled out the…
Activision-Blizzard’s latest internal town hall meeting was bizarrely helmed by a celebrity host - We appreciate that making a company meeting interesting is a challenge, but we also have to curl an eyebrow upwards at the choice made by Activision-Blizzard CEO Bobby Kotick, whose…
Wayfinder looks to 2024 for free-to-play launch and a new weapon type - Have you been waiting for Wayfinder to hit free-to-play before jumping on board? Then you might be waiting a bit longer than originally expected, as this week's "Wayfinder Wednesday" missive…
Star Wars: The Old Republic will host a livestream on October 18 for update 7.4 - If you were dreading the possibility that Star Wars: The Old Republic was just going to coast along under Broadsword's management, well, there's a livestream coming up soon with your…
Tower of Fantasy’s A Sword Dance of Ice update adds a frosty new region with new quests October 24 - It's almost time for players of sci-fantasy multiplayer RPG Tower of Fantasy to wonder how their chosen husbandos and waifus can wear those clothes in frigid weather. Or maybe it's…
Myth of Empires resolves ARK Survival Evolved copyright lawsuit, paving the way for its return - Who here had "Myth of Empires resolves its legal woes to the point it gets to re-release" on their 2023 bingo card? We certainly didn't, but sure enough, the survival…
Perfect Ten: The interesting features EverQuest Next promised before it was canceled - After way, way too long, it looks like an EverQuest 3 may be in the works after all. It's been rumored for years, of course, pretty much ever since Daybreak…
Ship of Heroes provides a full playthrough video of its demo’s very first mission - The Steam Next Fest demo for superheroic MMORPG Ship of Heroes may be online, but perhaps you'd rather see what's happening in the game before committing drive space to the…
EverQuest releases video and preorders for its December expansion, Laurion’s Song - Last week, Daybreak took the wraps off... well, kind of a lot of content for its six remaining MMORPGs, actually. But among them was a tease for Classic EverQuest's Laurion's…
Lost Ark’s Monster Bash October update launches the continent of Pleccia today - It's called the Monster Bash, and it was meant to go live this morning in Lost Ark's October update. Don't get too excited at the reference, as it's not technically…
Activision-Blizzard will add more games to Xbox Game Pass in 2024 - It's possible to be cognizant that Microsoft's acquisition of Activision represents a worrying ongoing trend of consolidation across the game industry while still be at least happy that it means…
Whatever happened to the pirate-themed survival sandbox Atlas? - The last time Atlas, the survival sandbox wearing a pirate costume, made any sort of public noise was on Friday, June 30th, when developer Grapeshot Games announced the start of…
Fractured Veil delays its early access to next year over infrastructure concerns - You know, last month when survivalbox Fractured Veil - that's the post-apocalyptic zombie sandbox set in a decaying Hawaii - announced an early access date of October 18th, we were…
Choose My Adventure: New World’s flail and void gauntlet go together like peanut butter and jelly - Honestly, that headline really condenses my entire feelings about my time through New World for this week's adventure for Choose My Adventure. I suppose I should have been more clever…
Pax Dei discusses classless characters, consensual PvP, and grueling corpse recovery post-death - Last summer, the devs of sandbox MMO Pax Dei asked players for "patience" regarding an alpha date and promised more info about the PvE and PvP experience "in the coming…
Lawful Neutral: Reverse engineering World of Warcraft’s subscriber numbers - Do you know what time it is? It's almost quarterly financial report time! We probably won't see a full quarterly report from Activision-Blizzard as it will be going through the…
Wayfinder’s mid-season update today offers new quests and the Call of the Void event - Wayfinder has been in early access for nearly two months now, and it just so happens that today marks the start of the MMO-lite's very first mid-season update, complete with…
World of Warcraft Classic Wrath finally brings about the downfall of the Lich King today - The big finale to Wrath of the Lich King's year-plus expansion cycle is finally here in WoW Classic. Blizzard released Patch 3.4.3 today with The Frozen Throne raid (which is…
Ship of Heroes’ free demo is live on Steam through next Monday - It's a bird, it's a plane, it's an upcoming superhero MMORPG that's opening its doors for a limited time only! OK, that slogan needs some work, but while we ponder…
Unity CEO John Riccitiello resigns after nearly a month of self-inflicted corporate drama - It probably won't come as a shock, but after all the Unity drama sparked almost exactly a month ago, Unity CEO John Riccitiello is stepping down from his role at…
Wisdom of Nym: Examining Final Fantasy XIV’s Growing Light group content (spoiler-free) - So, here we are at the end of the Endwalker patch cycle for Final Fantasy XIV. That isn't entirely true, of course; we all know that we're getting a few…
Vitae Aeternum: Rise of the Angry Earth mounts and flail are the lift New World needed - New World's first expansion is here, although if I'm being honest it feels more like the second expansion, considering the scale of the Brimstone Sands update. Still, Rise of the…
Embers Adrift goes free through November 5th for its first anniversary - The first anniversary for indie MMO Embers Adrift arrives this month, and Stormhaven Studios is capitalizing on the moment to entice players to its game world. The studio announced that…
RuneScape walks back detested Hero Pass, calls it a ‘misstep’ - After weeks of derision and divisiveness over the system, RuneScape's new Hero Pass is heading to an early grave. Jagex announced that it would be permanently ending the current battle…
New World’s concurrent players are higher than they’ve been all year thanks to Rise of the Angry Earth - I'm sure I'm not the only one who's been simultaneously taking nervous peeks at New World's player count the last week - and also trying to remind herself that there's…
The Daily Grind: Would you play EverQuest Next or Landmark if Daybreak revived them? - I know the big buzz for the EverQuest franchise is the potential for EverQuest 3, given that EG7 has been pitching it to investors. I'd actually love to see another…
New World unveils plans for a temporary free transfer system in congested worlds - With New World continuing to experience population peaks - and the server queues that go along with them - Amazon Games has begun considering solutions that go beyond opening more…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 440: It’s fall MMO content, y’all
The Stream Team: Directly reliving Destiny 2’s past with a visit to Shadowkeep
The Stream Team: Meeting with a medusa in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Pippi loves Conan Exiles
The Stream Team: Diving into the latest Ship of Heroes demo build
The Stream Team: Mabon’s Fate in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Storming the castle dungeon in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: It’s a Pirate101 11th birthday parrrrty
The Stream Team: Moving through Final Fantasy XIV’s Eden raids
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.
