Choose My Adventure: All of the MMOs you made us play in 2024

By
Chris Neal
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This past year was full of ups and downs. You could arguably say that about any year, sure, but I felt it much more acutely this year on both a personal level and for our weekly Choose My Adventure column; the highs were great and the lows were pretty down and dirty.

As is tradition here at MOP, I’m taking a look back at the communal journeys we took together, nodding in appreciation of another 12 months of forward movement, come what may. It’s an important thing to do at the end of a calendar year, again on both a personal level and for this column.

Let’s get comfy, sigh a bit, allow the months to settle into our collective bones, as achy as that can very much be, and recount the MMOs we journeyed through in 2024.

Villagers & Heroes

This one kind of took me by surprise, which is funny considering I remember playing it a little bit before January. I suppose the focus of this weekly column making me zero in more than I normally would was beneficial here because I ended up finding V&H to be a charmer of a game, even as it appeared to be pretty standard. That’s not necessarily a bad thing in this case, though; tropes stand the test of time for a reason.

Genshin Impact

I’m not that surprised that Hoyoverse (or Mihoyo or Hoyo’s Big Cheese Board or whatever it’s calling itself nowadays) decided to go with single-player gacha RPGs after Genshin released; this game really doesn’t require others to be around whatsoever, and the multiplayer aspect of it feels more and more erroneous the longer I play it. And that focus has been beneficial if popular response to things like Zenless Zone Zero and Honk Honk Space Train are any indication. I just wish I could mentally surmount my disgust of the gacha monetization model.

The Wagadu Chronicles

What an absolute waste. Not of time or anything like that, but of something worse: potential. The love and effort of Wagadu’s setting absolutely poured out of every pixel, but that gameplay though… I mean… damn. I’m not shocked it went belly-up, but that doesn’t make me feel vindicated or relieved. I’m more disappointed that this game was hung out to dry.

Nightingale

Watching Nightingale develop in early access is a lot like watching a football player running across the pitch towards a goal; you’re wringing your hands, holding your breath, silently generating your own willpower to project into the player in an attempt to help them make that winning shot. This is one of the few survival sandboxes I deeply enjoy playing in, and with its recent updates, I hope that it continues to refine itself. I’ll be holding my breath.

New World

I really wish I liked New World more than I do, and I felt that way even before the Aeternum update did… things. All I ended up feeling was frustrated by the buildcraft to the point that I was too exhausted to care, and now that they have pre-built classes, the mediocrity of this game’s gameplay feels even more laid bare. It’s not me, Amazon; it’s most definitely you.

The Elder Scrolls Online

2024 will be the year when ESO broke my heart. Or more specifically, the experience of playing ESO at a high level with others. There is nothing waiting at the top end other than feeling like I’m being tugged along by a leash, contributing literally nothing of value as a tank character because I haven’t spent months grinding my face into the champion point belt sander. I am so upset when I think back at my time in this game.

Star Citizen

The disappointment continued as I went back into Star Citizen for 2024, waylaid by a game that, by all objective measure, should have been capable of running in at least potato mode on my machine but refused to. And of course, I was made to feel like I was the error. I’ll be honest, this was the one that almost made me want to toss the column to the curb.

Elite: Dangerous

Here comes Elite to save my sanity and reignite my love of internet spaceship sandboxes. The fact that the game just actually works notwithstanding, I fell right back into some old habits and even began to chase new ones when the Type-8 Update went live. Thank you for an amazing 2024, FDev.

Pax Dei

…so naturally, since I felt good after playing Elite, I was immediately disappointed and disgusted by Pax Dei. Maybe I could have tried harder, but I’m not running this column to write a review-in-progress, and sometimes you just have to admit that a style of MMO is just not for you. If that makes me the asshole, then that will be my burden to bear. Here, let me put that tiny violin in my pocket.

Fractured Online

This one still confuses me when I think about it. Like, it’s got PvE sandbox gameplay available to me, and yet I just couldn’t bring myself to enjoy what I was doing. It just feels a bit too piecemeal and unfinished – and I don’t have confidence that it will stand up much longer.

Once Human

Why was this one good? Why was it fun? It reeks of ferally hungry monetization, and its seasonal server thing isn’t really something I think I jibe with, but I was honestly finding a lot more enjoyment out of this thing than I expected to. It’s nowhere near the best survival sandbox going, but I truly feel like it’s got some x factor that I cannot qualify or explain. It’s fun. I guess that’s just it; it’s fun.

Throne and Liberty

Oof, boys. This is one of the few MMOs where I made it to level cap during the column’s run, and all I had waiting at the top was this feeling of being left out in the rain. Unless I commit my life to doing required activities with one of the uber guilds in a server, there is no point for me to play this one ever again. Oof.

Red Dead Online

At this point, I actively chose joy for this series. I stacked the deck in my favor, locking the hackers and enjoying RDO with my family and friends. Hell can be other people, but selecting your own group is the right thing to do. And as it turns out, a game by freakin’ Rockstar is the most tactically interesting and in-depth adventure shooter that I’ve ever experienced. There are sim shooters that tried and failed to hit the sweet spot that this one has. It’s remarkable and remains a mainstay leisure game for me to this day.

Star Trek Online

The year ended with what’s still a confusing but charming but confusing but fun but confusing MMO. I’m probably too stupid for this game to glean sufficient enjoyment from it (at least not without leaning on the help of kind and far more intelligent people), but at least I had a good time with the Victory is Life story missions. One last hurrah before this one presumably slips into the void of mismanagement.

I can’t say I’m going to look back at all of this past year with fond memories and a warmth in my heart, but I am going to celebrate the fact that I made it through. So here’s to exhaling the miseries like a cloud of toxic smoke and focusing on the fun again. Together.

Welcome to Choose My Adventure, the column in which you join Chris each week as he journeys through mystical lands on fantastic adventures – and you get to decide his fate. Which is good because he can often be a pretty indecisive person unless he’s ordering a burger.
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