MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: Not-So-Massively Game of the Year

By
Bree Royce
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14

Welcome back to Massively Overpowered’s formal end-of-the-year awards!

Today’s award is for the Not-So-Massively Game of the Year, which was awarded Baldur’s Gate 3 last year. The games eligible for this category are online games that generally aren’t considered traditional MMORPGs; they’re MOBAs, online dungeon crawlers, ARPGs, online shooters, survival sandboxes, battle royale titles, and other games that tread into MMO territory but aren’t quite there. Once again, we’ve opted to include titles that launched before this year, as long as they accomplished something truly notable in this calendar year. Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!

And the MassivelyOP staff pick for the Not-So-Massively Game of 2024 is…

V RISING

​​Andrew Ross: Splatoon 3

Andy McAdams: V Rising

Brianna Royce: Wayfinder, Farm Together 2, Palia, Path of Exile 2, Ylands. We have a huge number of MMO-adjacent games to choose from this year. I can’t even decide. I’m hooked on POE2 now, but I’m hyped to see Palia thriving under Daybreak, and I spent a lot of time in my farming sandbox Farm Together 2 this year when not in MMORPGs. We’re spoiled for choice. Lemme shout out Ylands too, as I played it for the first time this year and loved it. But I have no problem with V Rising winning; it’s one of the most MMO-like not-MMO games we have, so of course our MMO people love it. Do note that as long as this poll is, we had a list of about 50 other games that could’ve gone on it!

Carlo Lacsina: Wuthering Waves. Gacha games are highly motivated to make good games if they want that sweet, sweet Weeaboo gambling money. Wuthering Waves came out of the right time; Genshin Impact was starting to lose steam, and the quality-of-life improvements Wuthering Waves added to the open world gacha subgenre made the game all the more immersive. Oh, and players can do really well with just skill alone and a single character. It helps make the game easier to digest as a gacha game.

Chris Neal: Party Animals, Helldivers 2, Palworld. Party Animals is delightful, fluffy chaos, and one of the only PvP games that I can actively stand to play. It’s a perfect blend of cuddly and violent, with a control scheme that manages to be both well-executed and flimsy at the same time. Plus, the added modes it’s been getting are so much fun. This is the best multiplayer party game going.

Eliot Lefebvre: Enshrouded

Justin Olivetti: Wayfinder, V Rising, Last Epoch. Last Epoch garnered a lot of pre-launch buzz, and that praise helped to catapult it into an early-year success story. It’s simply a darn good ARPG and a solid choice if you’re looking elsewhere than Diablo for a Diablo game. Then there’s V Rising; vampires, castle building, and ARPGs aren’t my thing at all, but I can acknowledge that it’s been a huge hit for a good segment of gamers this past year. It’s a game… with bite! Finally, Wayfinder: I played it, I like it, and I can whole-heartedly recommend this “pocket MMO” to anyone looking for WildStar feels, excellent housing, and a really fun dungeon-based gameplay loop.

Larry Everett: V Rising

MJ Guthrie: V Rising, Conan Exiles, Party Animals. I am torn between V Rising (Vampires! Building Gothic castles!) and Party Animals (cuddly yet deadly stuffed animals! Knocking the stuffing out of others!). With V Rising’s release, folks have a title that deftly scratches many of the small sandbox survival itches. You can easily set up free servers with very personalized settings making it as hard or easy as you want — from super hardmode PvP to full creative only mode. You can play on local servers just with friends or go big and join those open to the public. And did I mention building? As for Party Animals, not only is it the best and most adorable PvP ever, it has added numerous other modes, including board games, a road race, and now even PvE missions. Of course, lots of cosmetics and critters being added also keep things lively. Adorable and plenty to keep you entertained: How else would you define great?

Sam Kash: Multiversus, The Finals

Tyler Edwards: Godsworn for being the first game to convince me to pay for early access and Heroes of the Storm for showing that it still has some life in it.

V Rising took our award for Not-So-Massively Game of 2024. What’s your pick?

What was the best Not So Massively game of 2024?

View Results

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How does MassivelyOP choose the winner?
Our team gathers together to nominate and discuss candidates and hopefully settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include commentary from writers so that you can see our thought process. The site’s award goes to the staff selection, but we’ll include both it and the community’s top nomination in our debrief in January. Reader poll options include all MMOs nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.
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