End-of-Year Eleven: All the upcoming MMOs to watch in 2025 and beyond

As we turn the page on another fascinating year of MMORPG history, we cross into fresh territory. What lies ahead? Surprises, disappointments, and endless potential, my friends. And while we don’t know everything that’s going to be happening in 2025, we do have a good idea of some significant titles to watch as they wind their way through development, testing, and early access.

So what’s coming down the road for the MMO genre? In today’s list, we’ll be looking at the 12 most exciting upcoming projects — and then give you a bonus list of 22 more besides! That’s 34 games all for the price of your patience and attention. Let’s do this!

Stars Reach

Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds put Stars Reach on the most-wanted map virtually the first second that its existence was confirmed. This colorful scifi sandbox aims to be an ambitious spiritual successor to a certain Star Wars Galaxies and is already undergoing limited tests. We won’t be seeing it in 2025, but we can hope for a lot more information, articles, and even hands-on experiences over the course of next year!

Dune Awakening

Funcom is swinging for the fences with its return to the MMORPG genre. Dune Awakening not only draws upon the red-hot Dune franchise but implements survival mechanics, MMO design, and base building. It’s a major project from an experienced developer, and we should be getting a PC launch this year.

Ashes of Creation

This crowdfunding phenomenon has had a lot of players’ attention — and money — for several years now as this team full of veteran MMO developers fashion a complex, growable world. Right now the game is in the thick of a year-long Alpha Two test, after which anything is possible. Will the community be primed for its release when it finally happens, or will people have grown disinterested and wandered away? That’s a question we can’t answer for you.

Chrono Odyssey

Officially coming in Q4 2025, this time-travel MMO is slowly but gradually raising awareness as Kakao took over as publisher. Thus far, the title’s been very quiet, which has hampered the growth of a community, but it’s certainly a promising title with a lot of that eastern MMO eye candy and crazy concept that some players enjoy.

Star Citizen

I mean, when is this game never not going to be on this list? Even the joke of its extremely long-running and exploded scope development is stale now, yet there’s no denying that Star Citizen has a lot of invested fans who are enjoying the alpha and any hope of an eventual release. At this point we must remind you that this game was first announced in 2012, the same year that The Secret World, Guild Wars 2, and TERA launched.

Soulframe

All you had to say was “an online action RPG made by the Warframe developers,” and you know that thousands upon thousands are going to show up. We are fascinated to see what Digital Extremes can do with a fantasy setting, and we will all get our chance when an open pre-alpha happens next year.

Light No Fire

And speaking of notable follow-up efforts, Hello Games promised some more information about its survival MMO Light No Fire after a mostly hush-hush 2024. There’s keen interest to see the studio explore a “truly open world” where players can explore an “ancient earth” and mold it to their liking.

Ghost

MMO designer Greg Street took us on a great ride with his vision for the Riot MMO, and now he asks us to saddle up once again as he runs his own studio over at Fantastic Pixel Castle. Ghost (or whatever it will eventually be called) still has a few years to go, but already it’s put out a prototype gameplay video and plenty of promises for the engaging world it wishes to fashion.

EverQuest 3

Long rumored to be happening, an EverQuest follow-up was confirmed (again) to be in development over at Daybreak this past November. The project is a reboot of sorts, taking the best of the EverQuest franchise and bringing it forward into the modern era. Don’t expect this soon, however; Daybreak said the game is still in the concept phase, same as it was in 2023.

ArcheAge Chronicles

With the original ArcheAge dead and buried, the only hope that fans have now for a continuation of that franchise lies with ArcheAge 2 – aka ArcheAge Chronicles. From what XLGAMES has indicated, this will be a slightly different kind of MMO without some of the sandbox features players usually expect, but it still has plenty of bells and whistles. Publisher Kakao is now putting this one at a 2026 release.

Monsters & Memories

It’s hard not to be utterly charmed by the homebrew efforts of Niche Worlds Cult as it works on a “throwback” MMO that also seeks to encapsulate old-school tabletop roleplaying. Limited tests of Monsters & Memories are happening all the time, and there’s a small but fervent fanbase for this title that wouldn’t mind if you joined them.

Guild Wars 3

NCsoft confirmed in a shareholder meeting last spring that ArenaNet is, indeed, working on a third entry to the Guild Wars series after years of rumored development. Our best hope is that we get an official announcement and game reveal next year, but until such an event happens, all we can do is speculate on what the sequel might entail.

But wait, here are 22 more MMOs to keep tabs on, with some in open development and others as heavy rumors behind closed doors. One big announcement from any of these could skyrocket them into the big leagues, so don’t let them slip by you!

• Ship of Heroes: After eight years of development, this indie superhero MMO is hoping to launch in Q2 2025.
• Project Gorgon: Effectively but not officially a launched game, this Asheron’s Call spiritual successor is definitely worth your time.
• Pantheon: Like Gorgon, Pantheon is technically only in early access, not launched, so expect a lot more development before it truly hits 1.0.
• Loftia: Who’s up for some cozy solarpunk living and neighborhood housing? We certainly are!
• Ashfall: NetEase’s post-apocalyptic MMO went radio silent in 2024, but there’s always the possibility of its reemergence.
• Past Fate: This game didn’t make its projected goal of an early access launch in 2024, but it did host an open alpha, so that’s promising.
• Anvil Empires: This medieval MMO is not lacking for systems, including cargo ships and underground spelunking.
• Camelot Unchained: The studio claims that this long-delayed RvR game is slated to come out in 2025. We’ll see. We’ll see.
• The Quinfall: This ambitious project may be the first MMO release of the year, as it’s aiming for a January launch.
• Eternal Tombs: This hardcore, GM-influenced MMO actually looks pretty cool and continues to build up its offerings.
• World of Warcraft Midnight: The second expansion in the “Worldsoul Saga” deserves a mention for a major addition to this game: housing for 2025.
• Crimson Desert: This game has changed and morphed that we don’t quite know what it’s going to be if and when it releases, but it’s still a notable title.
• Aloft: This co-op survivalbox has floating islands, Funcom’s publishing arm behind it, and a January 15 early access date.
• EVE Vanguard: Could this be the integrated MMOFPS that this franchise always wanted? CCP seems to think so.
• FFXIV Mobile: Fans of this popular MMO will soon have a mobile edition to carry around with them, although it will be its own thing and not a port.
• BitCraft: You ever wanted an MMO MineCraft? Here you go.
• Ubisoft’s Cozy MMO: There’s a pretty strong rumor floating about that this mega-company is working on its own voxel-based MMO.
• Riot’s Runeterra MMO: Fans holding a torch for this project, don’t despair — Riot says it’s still working very hard on this behind closed doors.
• ZeniMax’s MMO: We’ve known for years that the ESO developer is making another MMO, but other than sucking up huge amounts of money and devs, it’s not giving us any solid details. Yet.
• Nintendo’s MMO: Word on the virtual street is that Nintendo has a Switch MMO in the works. That could make it a major player in the span of an official announcement.
• Jack Emmert’s WAR40K MMO: This veteran developer is heading up a studio that’s focused on a Warhammer 40,000 MMO, but we’ve yet to get full details.
• Amazon’s Lord of the Rings MMO: Amazon deeply wants to make its Lord of the Rings MMO, but the project currently sounds like it hasn’t found its focus as of yet.

Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten usually takes an MMO topic and divides it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. And per tradition, we’re cranking this column up to eleven with our annual special features in the End-of-Year Eleven!