What a hell of a week for the MMO genre! Good and bad, as it were. We got previews of FFXIV Dawntrail, Guild Wars 2’s Midnight King, and Star Trek Online’s Unparalleled; quarterly financials for NCsoft, Daybreak, and Square-Enix; and bad news for Square (layoffs), Phoenix Labs (layoffs), Palia (layoffs) and Ubisoft (canceled games). Plus World of Warcraft launched Pandaria Remix, Diablo IV rolled out Loot Reborn, Abyss pushed into early access, and Wayfinder found a new way to keep itself online: by going offline.
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
Interview: Wayfinder’s AJ LaSaracina on the Echoes transition, launch, and long-term plans - Following yesterday's surprise reveal that Airship Syndicate is planning to transition the always-online MMO looter shooter Wayfinder into a buy-to-play online-optional title - without microtransactions - we naturally had a…
Wayfinder’s summer Echoes update banishes always-online and microtransaction components - Wayfinder has been in limbo for months now following the split of Digital Extremes and Airship Syndicate that saw the game's publishing as well as development all move in-house at…
Perfect Ten: MMORPGs as fast food joints - Sometimes you go out to eat because you want something that's difficult to make on your own or just involves techniques you are unfamiliar with. Sometimes you go out to…
NCsoft Q1 2024: Guild Wars 2 is on one hell of a revenue streak as Throne & Liberty stalls - NCsoft's Q1 2024 financial report is a tale of two worlds as mobile games continue their decline in popularity. Corporate revenues fell 17% compared to Q1 2023, down to 293M…
World of Warcraft’s Pandaria Remix speed-leveling event is live this afternoon - As we alluded to in this morning's Daily Grind, today is the day for World of Warcraft's Mists of Pandaria remix hullabaloo, so if you're not already super busy in…
Final Fantasy XIV shows off its new job actions in a nearly five-hour-long Letter from the Producer - Fans of Final Fantasy XIV who are accustomed to the normal flow of information ahead of expansions will remember that usually, the media tour takes place before the job action…
EG7 Q1 2024: Daybreak still mum on PlanetSide 2, new H1Z1 game hires lead designer - It's not even been two weeks since Daybreak owner EG7 published its 2023 annual financial report, which of course omitted everything relevant that happened in Q1 of this year -…
Full-loot PvP MMO Abyss finally rolls into early access after several delays - It's been a slightly bumpy road between initial announcement and early access release -- including a flirtation with NFTs and several delays -- but Abyss is finally here. The indie…
LOTRO Legendarium: Moria, Gundabad, and LOTRO’s lessons on underground design - In late 2008, Lord of the Rings Online released its first and highly touted expansion, Mines of Moria, featuring the iconic Dwarven underground kingdom (with a balrog and Water or…
Fallout 76 vs Fallout 4: Which is better to play in 2024? - Growing up as a computer gaming geek, I've been quite the Fallout nerd since 1997 (and, arguably, since Wasteland in 1988). Other than Tactics, I've played through every installment in…
Activision opens a new studio in Poland for work on ‘narrative-based and genre-defining AAA franchise’ - Apparently Microsoft subsidiary Activision thinks now is a good time to open a new studio and put together a team to develop an entirely new franchise. The company unveiled Elsewhere…
WoW Factor: Guessing at World of Warcraft’s The War Within’s release date using math - Oh yeah. It's time. I actually have some thoughts to share about World of Warcraft's current Remix leveling event, which are complicated and multilayered and blend both the positive and…
Star Citizen’s current development roadmap tentatively plots alpha 4.0 for the third quarter of this year - Regular readers and followers of Star Citizen news know that CIG has been promising a "road to 4.0" in recent months -- recall that it was the throughline for 2022's…
Final Fantasy XIV goes all-in with its Mountain Dew cross-promotion - Is there a word when something goes so far into cringe territory that it loops back around and becomes glorious? We need that word to describe Final Fantasy XIV's Mountain…
Dauntless and Fae Farm dev Phoenix Labs has laid off another 100+ people in latest restructure - I'm sorry to add to the endless parade of bad news today, but this afternoon, we learned that Phoenix Labs has been hit with a large round of layoffs -…
Vague Patch Notes: There is no one-and-done with MMOs - Last week's Vague Patch Notes column focused on the struggle of adding new things to MMORPGs forever and ever. I think it was a pretty good column, but unintentionally it…
Ubisoft cancels The Division Heartland in spite of record annual corporate revenues - There's a big blast of bad news for Ubisoft and everyone else coming out of the company's latest financial report: The company has outright canceled The Division Heartland. The Heartland…
Tarisland opens applications for another technical beta test at the end of May - Well, it's not the release date Tencent was promising is coming soon, but Tarisland is finally getting a little movement thanks to an incoming technical beta test. "Since the Second…
Palia studio Singularity 6 has been slammed with yet another layoff round - Singularity 6, the studio behind beta cozy MMO Palia, is dealing with yet another round of layoffs this week, following a round back in April. "Palia developer Singularity 6 is…
Monsters & Memories opens registration for *two* June tests – a stress test and playtest weekend - Last week, Monsters & Memories studio Niche Worlds Cult told players it's been plotting another playtest for June - and now we've got the details. In fact, there are two…
Unleashed’s MMORPG Haven is aimed at parents who grew up playing EverQuest and WoW - Back in February, we covered an upcoming but low-key crossplatform MMORPG called Haven by an indie studio called Unleashed games, whose star-studded dev team includes (among many others) World of…
EVE Online grants a closer look at Equinox’s four new hauler spaceships in latest video - New internet spaceships are always a big-ticket feature for a spaceship sandbox, so it would make sense that EVE Online would grant the four new ships coming with the Equinox…
Lord of the Rings Online goes underground with Update 40: Beneath the Surface - Who's ready to dive back underground in Lord of the Rings Online? Well, don't you all start whooping and hollering in agreement there. No matter your disposition, Lord of the…
Valheim’s F2P Ashlands biome patch has finally launched after a year and a half wait - Iron Gate has been talking about Valheim's Ashlands update since December. No, not last December. The December before that - 2022 December, when Mistlands launched. This is not a joke.…
Guild Wars 2’s spring and summer roadmap teases PvP, WvW, and content beyond SOTO - This morning's reveal of Guild Wars 2's The Midnight King episode isn't the only big GW2 news today, as ArenaNet's Josh "Grouch" Davis penned a spring and summer roadmap with…
RuneScape maps out Group Ironman, new bosses, new quests, and new seasonal events for the rest of 2024 - Jagex has just completed its 2024 roadmap reveal livestream for RuneScape, and even though we're only just entering the middle part of the year, the studio has a whole lot…
Choose My Adventure: Clearing Elsweyr and settling into tanking in Elder Scrolls Online - I appreciate why there appear to be a lot of Elder Scrolls Online fans who think so highly of the Northern Elsweyr story arc. Over the past few days I…
Star Trek Online announces Season 32 Unparalleled, starring Denise Crosby, for May 28 - It's been a couple of months now, but if you can remember the Cryptic dev stream back in March, you'll recall that the studio was keen to reassure gamers that…
Diablo IV’s ‘Loot Reborn’ overhaul patch arrives today - Diablo IV is upping its loot game quite literally with the arrival of today's quality-of-life patch and Season 4. Loot Reborn aims to correct and improve this online ARPG's itemization…
Black Desert celebrates 3000 days in the west with freebies, PvP teases, and endgame rings - Pearl Abyss is fond of celebrating odd milestones for Black Desert, but it sure beats a basic anniversary. Today, the company is touting the game's 3000th day of global service…
Albion Online has broken its population record again with 358K concurrent players - Last week we noticed that Albion Online had busted through its peak Steam concurrency numbers, setting a new record for the game on that platform following the launch of Albion…
Guild Wars 2’s The Midnight King, the last Secrets of the Obscure update, launches next week - The last and final entry in Guild Wars 2 Secrets of the Obscure content rollout is upon us in just one week: The Midnight King launches May 21st.[AL:GW2] "[T]his conclusionary…
Square-Enix confirms that layoffs are coming to US and EU employees in June - Yesterday we reported on Square-Enix's first quarter outlook for 2024, in which it announced among other things that it plans to "rebuild its [US and EU] business divisions from the…
New World frustrates players with bleeped-out video on its secret June reveal - The long wait for New World's big news continues as Summer Game Fest is now 25 days and change away, which means this week's Eye on Aeternum could never make…
Fight or Kite: Hey now, you’re Brawl Stars, get your game on, go play - A couple of weeks ago, I was at a birthday party when my nephew tugged on my sleeve and asked me if I still like to play video games. Um,…
Wisdom of Nym: Speculating on new job abilities for Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail - I'm not going to lie: It feels as if Dawntrail kind of leaped into action with the Final Fantasy XIV fandom. The fan festival felt a little muted, and we…
Square-Enix Q1 2024: Profits plummet as it promises to ‘reboot and awaken’ - The opening quarter of the 2024 fiscal year indeed isn't a good one for Square-Enix. Shortly after the company warned investors of "extraordinary losses" for the coming quarterly report, it's…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 469: Zoning out
The Stream Team: Looking for lute in DDO places
The Stream Team: Taking a taste of a New World endgame medley for Backseat Streaming
The Stream Team: Experiencing a first-ever romp in Farm Together 2’s multiplayer
The Stream Team: The Jungle Provides in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Unlocking Warframe’s planetary nodes
The Stream Team: Springtime flower power in AdventureQuest 3D
The Stream Team: Taking the first steps toward crafting planets in Planet Crafters
The Stream Team: Meln’s spirit and the Master’s Mouth in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: Discussing the incoming class updates for Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail
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.
