MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: MMORPG of the Year

January 3, 2025 11:00 AM

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

Today’s award is for the MMORPG of the Year, which was awarded to Lord of the Rings Online last year. Longtime readers will recall that way back in 2014, our staff was so disillusioned with the new MMOs launching that we withheld this award and picked “nothing” as our winner. In subsequent years, we decided to open this award (and many of our others) up to all live MMOs, regardless of launch year, and that’s a tradition we’ve stuck to ever since, giving older MMOs a chance to compete with the new. Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end – and congratulations to all of this year’s nominees and winners!

And the MassivelyOP staff pick for the Best MMORPG of 2024 is…

THRONE & LIBERTY

Brianna Royce: Throne & Liberty, Guild Wars 2. I was actually surprised to see so much agreement among our writers that T&L should get a nod this year. I kinda thought it might just be Carlo and me. After so many years of delays and its botched Korean launch, my expectations were low going into the T&L global launch. But then the beta was actually fun, and then it apparently overperformed NCsoft and Amazon’s expectations and is actually doing fairly well with the global playerbase, and the teams have already started pushing out new content – and it’s new content for the global audience, not just content recycled from Korea. I have no idea what it will look like in another year, but it’s a massive new game in our genre, and it’s good. That deserves accolades.

Carlo Lacsina: Throne & Liberty. I did not expect this game to blow my socks off the way it did. Throne and Liberty shows that it’s still completely possible to have old-school mechanics like open world dungeons and killing mobs all day can still work in 2024. Unreal Engine 4 really made the game graphics look really good and I’m still impressed at how well the game runs too. The direction they took with telling a story along with neat tricks like teleporting between waypoints being instant adds a whole new level of immersion to the game world as well. Even if folks are not into this particular niche of MMORPG, the wider industry should look at what went right and adapt it into their own games. It would be absolutely folly if this game is simply written off for the simple fact that its endgame is mainly about PvP.

Chris Neal: Throne and Liberty, Guild Wars 2. I’ve already made it pretty plain in the related Choose My Adventure series that Throne and Liberty is definitely not for me, but not every game has to be, and it’s very clear that there is a very strong appetite for a game like this. Plus, I can’t claim that I had a horrible time all throughout my climb to level cap. And honestly? It’s nice that something new gets the nod. It’s a strong start for this one overall and I hope that it continues to expand for those who love it.

Eliot Lefebvre: Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIV

Justin Olivetti: Throne and Liberty, WoW Classic. The omens didn’t look good when Throne and Liberty underperformed in its native country, and NCsoft couldn’t downplay expectations more when it launched in the west. Then it surprised us all by being well-received and a well-rounded MMO that actually lived up to the lengthy wait. In a year of many launches, this stands out as the best of the bunch. Meanwhile, Blizzard’s side hustle WoW Classic continues to occasionally eclipse its big brother, especially this year. In 2024 we saw more Season of Discovery, the move into Cataclysm Classic, growth on the Classic Era servers, and the 20th anniversary realms.

Sam Kash: Throne & Liberty

Tyler Edwards: World of Warcraft. Even though I think this has been a great year for WoW, I don’t love the idea of giving this award to a 20-year-old game. It feels like a bit of a condemnation of the genre. But I don’t think any other game has done anything that particularly stands out this year, whereas WoW has reversed its long decline with a stellar expansion and crucial shifts in its design philosophy.

Throne & Liberty took our award for MMORPG of the Year. What’s your pick?

Loading ...

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.