This past summer saw a new PvP sandbox MMORPG arrive to our sphere in the form of Abyss, a sci-fantasy title that promised “immersive quests unique to each player based on [their] actions in the world,” plenty of crafting and gathering, PvP arenas or GvG skirmishes to clash in, and fights against “massive zerg armies.” The game also started trying to sell currency right from the jump, then admitted that it started life as a crypto game called Metagates – a fact that it didn’t bother to disclose in its initial reveal, and something that developer Old World Labs tried to claim was satire. The sale of poop NFTs was apparently a thing. Hilarious.
In any case, Abyss appears to be moving through its development phases, which have been chronicled in monthly update posts. September brought the end of some fresh closed testing; a move to Unreal Engine 5.2; “new” features like underwater gameplay, harvestable trees and ore, and the addition of mobs; and additional combat and PvE areas. Meanwhile, October’s post appears to be only some concept art, and a November post that went out last week talked up Abyss’ presence at various trade shows and the creation of additional enemies.
As for what’s next, the game’s Steam page is online and lists a release date of April 18th, 2024, while its YouTube channel has about a minute’s worth of in-game footage broken up into three videos, all of which can be watched below the cut.
