Two of the biggest gaming congloms chose this week to lay off a combined total of 2500 people, as Riot Games and Microsoft-owned-Activision-Blizzard shed the people who make our games in order to reassure stockholders and mitigate careless corporate gambles. Here in our corner of the genre, we’re taking notice not just of the cancelation of survival MMO Odyssey and the decimation of the World of Warcraft support team but also of the volte-face of now-former president Mike Ybarra, who’d previously suggested he had planted firm roots in the company but has now apparently been shown the door.
Meanwhile, everyone’s playing Palworld, a plot twist that leaves people who were covering Palworld for the years prior to this explosion of interest (i.e., us) a bit speechless.
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 lays off 1900 workers: Blizzard sheds Mike Ybarra, its survival game, and its customer support in one day - We've updated this story at the bottom with some of the latest news that has come forth about the scope of the layoffs and the cancellation of projects. It looks…
Palworld tops 2M concurrency on Steam as the Pokémon company ‘intends to investigate’ - When we started 2024, I don't think any of us had "bizarre Pokémon shooter was going to blow up huge in January," but, well, here we are. Palworld already has…
What we knew about Blizzard’s now-dead survival game, Odyssey - The history of Blizzard's game development includes a graveyard full of titles that never made it to launch, including the likes of Starcraft Ghost, Warcraft Adventures, and Project Titan. This…
Into the Super-Verse: Gearing up as a newcomer to City of Heroes Homecoming - I was originally going to spend this week opining on why the Incarnate system in City of Heroes didn't really work and why it will eventually need some work, but…
Massively Overthinking: Open world difficulty and puzzles in MMOs - During last week's press event ahead of the Gold Road announcement, Elder Scrolls Online's Rich Lambert said something I thought would turn out to be pretty provocative. Apparently, there's a…
Working As Intended: How to mod City of Heroes Homecoming the easy way - If you played City of Heroes a long time ago - or even back in 2019, when its secret server blossomed into a public rogue server community - then you…
Star Trek Online 31st season, Both Worlds, has launched for PC – here’s the new trailer! - As Cryptic teased earlier in January, Star Trek Online's Both Worlds is available today on PC, with console to follow on March 12th (ouch). So Both Worlds is not available…
Vague Patch Notes: Early access is just game development as performance art - I was reminded recently about Valheim. I do not own the game and thus have not played it; I cannot tell you if it is a good game in its…
Tamriel Infinium: The history of Elder Scrolls games (before and after Elder Scrolls Online) - There's nothing quite like that feeling when you first dip your toes into a particular game only to discover that it's part of a massive franchise that's been going on…
The Game Archaeologist: Dragon Ball Online, the MMO that never made it to the west - It was back in 1986 that Toei Animation, a Japanese company, brought a new series called Dragon Ball into the world. The initial run of the series proved successful, spawning…
Hawaii-themed zombie survivalbox Fractured Veil finally makes its early access release to mixed reviews - After a multi-year series of delays, Paddle Creek Games has made the early access launch for its survival sandbox Fractured Veil, inviting players to "kill, chill, and rebuild" in a…
Fight or Kite: Warhaven’s pre-season 2 is super fun but perilously unbalanced - Update: This column was written before we knew that Nexon has decided to sunset the game in April, unfortunately. Consider this our eulogy and a reminder of what could've been.…
Avatar franchise mobile MMO Avatar Reckoning has been canceled after split from Tencent - Almost exactly two years ago, we first caught wind of an MMO based on the Avatar franchise - mobile MMO, to be precise, although we were skeptical about how many…
Valofe’s Kritika Zero heralds launch on its own platform with ‘opening ceremony’ events - This week has officially seen the fourth attempt at making Kritika Online stick the landing, as Valofe's version of the anime action MMO has gone live on its bespoke VFUN…
EVE Online’s board game Kickstarter is live – and it met its funding goal in under an hour - Apparently there are plenty of EVE Online fans who would like the board game version of the spaceship sandbox to be a thing. Yesterday as planned, Titan Forge launched the…
Mad World finally arrives on Steam after a nine-month delay - Cast your mind all the way back to spring of 2023 when you were but a carefree gamer in a garden of delights. However, one treat was denied to you…
The Final Fantasy XIV live-action TV series is apparently dead in the water - Remember that talk about adapting Final Fantasy XIV into a live-action television series? No, not the Dad of Light series that included FFXIV as a concept, but an actual live-action…
The Day Before studio claims to be the target of misinformation and a hate campaign - When Fntastic's survival shooter The Day Before officially shut down its servers, we had assumed it would be the last headline to come out of the mismanaged game. However, the…
SoulWorker hands publishing duties off to Valofe ‘for its continued enhancement and maintenance’ - SoulWorker is another one of those action MMOs that has had a history of being passed about more frequently than a football: The game's original western publisher Gameforge sunsetted the…
Perfect Ten: The 10 most utterly bizarre Final Fantasy XIV NPC names - A lot of times when I write these columns, I have either a point to make or a higher concept that I am touching upon. This is not one of…
ArenaNet opens up more job postings for Guild Wars 2 and its still-developing unannounced project - In a month where we saw multiple gaming and tech companies kick employees to the curb, we're going to offer a puff of fresh oxygen thanks to ArenaNet, which is…
Co-op survivalbox Enshrouded just launched into Steam early access - When I logged into my guild's Discord this morning, I realized half my crew was excitedly chattering about Enshrouded, multiplayer survival sandbox that we have covered, twice, and managed to…
Diablo IV’s robot-filled Season of the Construct is live – here are the patch notes - Diablo IV's Sanctuary is already a pretty dangerous place what with all of the demonic threats crawling around it, but as of today its heroes now have to contend with…
Kritika Global is officially shut down on Steam today while Kritika Zero heads for release tomorrow - This is a tale of two Kritika Online titles, which might be a mercy since this game has come back four different times. Specifically, we're referring to the nominal end…
Blizzard revives Overwatch 2 esports with the newly announced Overwatch Champions Series - Remember back before Christmas when it became clear that Overwatch League, the bajillion-dollar esports league that embroiled global investors and players and then was left to sort of fizzle out…
Tarisland shows female Paladin concept while saying that gender unlocking is going to take time - You know that when there's good news and bad news, it's best to take that nasty medicine first, right? Well when it comes to Tarisland's unpopular gender-locking design in the…
The Day Before has officially sunsetted, bringing its early access drama to a final ending - This year's popcorn drama is currently being provided by the likes of Palworld, but last year, it was The Day Before - and now it is no more. MOP readers…
Choose My Adventure: Genshin Impact is slowly working its charms on me - Perhaps this is just time away from the game or the full mental and literal reset talking, but I have to say that right now, Genshin Impact is beginning to…
Nightingale is less than a month away – here’s a six-minute preview of its features - This is your formal heads-up that one of the most anticipated online games of 2024 is less than a month away. After years of development and a few delays, Victorian…
Riot Games laid off over 500 people last night, and no we don’t know what it means for the Riot MMO - Riot Games is joining the seemingly endless list of game studios continuing to dump workers overboard: Last night, the company announced it is shedding a whopping 530 employees, representing 11%…
Wisdom of Nym: Impressions of Final Fantasy XIV’s petite patch 6.55 - There's an odd thing that keeps going back and forth in my head when I look at last week's patch 6.55 for Final Fantasy XIV, and that's a simple but…
EVE Online plans two expansions, Vanguard tests, returning events, and a 21st anniversary in 2024 roadmap - The content roadmaps continue to flow freely from our corner of gaming, as CCP Games has put out its full-year plan for EVE Online, which is headlined by two upcoming…
Chronicles of Elyria begins alpha testing… a feedback form - Despite vows to bring about an alpha for one of the Chronicles of Elyria titles by the end of 2023, it should shock precisely no one to hear that Soulbound…
Warframe unveils ‘book-wielding warrior of words’ frame Dante, launching in March - January isn't quite over, but March will be here before you know it, and that month will mean some hopefully exciting things for Warframe players, as the Dante Unbound update…
Former Bungie legal exec: ‘The company will never love you back, but if you let it, it’ll kill you’ - Among the workers affected by Bungie's round of layoffs last October was former chief legal officer Don McGowan, who was the man heading the legal charge against cheat makers and…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 454: MMO roadmap roundup
The Stream Team: A first look at Valofe’s Kritika Zero
The Stream Team: Returning to DDO’s Ravenloft castle for A Raven at the Door
The Stream Team: Backseat Streaming assembles for LEGO Fortnite
The Stream Team: Taking a first peek into the early access of Palworld
The Stream Team: An Amnytas grind for Guild Wars 2 currencies
The Stream Team: Exploring the vessel of Warframe’s Whispers in the Walls
The Stream Team: Exploring ICARUS via horseback (or buffaloback)
The Stream Team: Leading a first-timer through Final Fantasy XIV’s Pandaemonium 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.
