Well, that was a weird week. We worried over Stars Reach, contemplated the genre’s demographics, laid out a plan for returning to LOTRO’s new servers, took a look at Aloft, welcomed the reveal of Blade & Soul NEO, signed up for Craig Morrison’s Horse Mystery MMO (definitely a real and final name), and bought some extra popcorn for watching Jagex backpedal on its hilariously bad RuneScape survey. Oh yeah, and several ByteDance affiliates, including Marvel Snap, were taken offline temporarily over the extremely dumb TikTok ban scare.
Any other week, the Switch 2 reveal would’ve been the big news, but here we are – welcome to 2025.
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
The US TikTok ban (temporarily) took out mobile CCG Marvel Snap and mobile RPG Watcher of Realms - This week we have a classic case of the complex connection between one company and its multiple revenue streams, the geopolitical landscape, and how snap decisions can have some more…
Working As Intended: Stars Reach could be the demographic revolution MMORPGs need - When Raph Koster started talking in Discord on Saturday night, I was super annoyed because I knew I was going to lose my whole evening to writing about Stars Reach.…
Craig Morrison’s new studio is taking test signups for that ‘horse mystery’ MMORPG - Readers might recall that way back in July of last year, former Funcom and Blizzard luminary Craig Morrison announced he was studio director of a brand-new indie studio, Blue Scarab…
LOTRO Legendarium: MOP’s guide to unlocking Lord of the Rings Online content in 2025 - While Lord of the Rings Online is a tremendous MMORPG that I would recommend to anyone in a heartbeat, I won't deny that its business model is confusing and even…
Soul’s Remnant is an upcoming free-to-play 2-D MMORPG that emphasizes social gameplay and exploration - If an MMORPG that says it focuses on social gameplay and exploration with a cute-looking 2-D sprite style is your kind of thing, then you've got another new choice in…
RuneScape fans riot over Jagex survey on $33 subs, in-game ads, and account restrictions - Yesterday we reported on a conjoint survey being sent out by Jagex to players of RuneScape and Old School RuneScape with a stated intention of "[exploring] how players value different…
Massively Overthinking: What will be your three most played MMOs in 2025? - So here we are at the top of another year, looking ahead at what we think we're going to play. Consider this week's Massively Overthinking a personal predictions, a follow-up…
Lawful Neutral: All the big MMO-related law stories from 2024, from Palworld to Blizzard - 2024 was another quiet year on the gaming legal front. I think various AI dramas and associated legislative hand-wringing sucked all the air out of the room. But that's not…
Not So Massively: What we’d like to see from a StarCraft shooter - According to the rumour mill, Blizzard is currently working on a shooter game in the StarCraft universe - again. By my counting this would mark the company's third attempt at…
Vague Patch Notes: The unsettling optics of the Stars Reach Kickstarter - As soon as I saw the news that Stars Reach was going to be launching a Kickstarter, I immediately stood up, got dressed, and drove down to the nearest beach.…
Riot Games, still closed in LA thanks to the wildfires, opens aid fundraisers in Valorant and League of Legends - Last week, we covered the devastation happening in Southern California, where half a dozen wildfires were ripping through Los Angeles neighborhoods from working class areas to Malibu. If the story…
Age of Water stealth-launched out of early access this week with the release of Beyond the Waves - Remember back in November when seafaring survival MMO Age of Water announced a launch and then immediately walked it back, saying it was just a technical glitch on Steam? Well,…
Path of Exile 2’s endgame-focused patch 0.1.1 is live – here are the patch notes - Path of Exile 2's Grinding Gear Games already provided a video overview of patch 0.1.1, but maybe you would prefer to have your patch information in a readable changelist format…
US government agency is hoping to extend consumer protections to virtual currencies in games like Roblox - It's fairly well known by now that most governments and the laws they enact do not do a good job of keeping pace with technology. Even so, some moves being…
Last Epoch shares a general roadmap of additions and improvements for Season 2 as it eyes an April launch - If you were dismayed by September's reveal that Last Epoch is going to push its next content update into sometime early this year, perhaps you'll be mollified by some end-of-year…
Conan Exiles pauses content delivery and focuses spring 2025 update on bugs and stability - We know that MMORPG genre players are currently tapping their feet in Funcom's direction, urging on the development of Dune Awakening, but the studio is still maintaining Conan Exiles too,…
Rob Pardo’s Bonfire Studios announces Arkheron, a new PvP game he says defies easy description - Way back in 2016, when MassivelyOP was still young and innocent, former World of Warcraft lead designer Rob Pardo announced a new development studio called Bonfire Studios, and then everyone…
Once Human opens Visional Wheel servers, adjusts weapons, and launches a spring event in new update - Today is a big content day for fans of survival shooter Once Human as players can now hop into Visional Wheel servers and experience some familiar former scenarios that now…
Dungeons and Dragons Online opens its 64-bit server to everyone through April 15 - As Standing Stone Games is preparing to open up new permanent 64-bit servers for Lord of the Rings Online in the near future, there are good follow-up questions about what…
Guild Wars 2 delays January’s balance update into February - If you remember early November, which I realize feels like 10 years ago, ArenaNet released a roadmap for the rest of the Janthir Wilds expansion, basically plotting out Guild Wars…
Lost Ark teases its January 22 patch and its casual-friendly Frontier system - New year, new Eye on Arkesia coming out of Amazon and Smilegate's Lost Ark, as Community Manager Roxx is back with a brief look at what fans can expect in…
World of Warcraft Classic will add the Karazhan Crypts with the next phase of Season of Discovery - Well, they did it. They finally freaking did it. Years after players were finding the hidden crypt segment beneath Karazhan in World of Warcraft that never actually got used for content,…
Nintendo finally announced the Switch 2, launching this year - After endless hemming and hawing and leaks and fuss, Nintendo has finally formally revealed the Nintendo Switch 2 as of this morning, and yes, it's launching this year. We don't…
Wolcen studio unveils ‘ExtrAction RPG’ Project Pantheon, plans closed alpha in February - No, we didn't sneeze while typing the word "extraction" in that headline; that's literally the kind of game sub-genre that Wolcen: Lords of Mayhem developer Wolcen Studio gave to its…
Rumor: Tencent and Guillemot family are considering creation of a venture using Ubisoft assets - The rumors of some form of deal between Tencent and Ubisoft's Guillemot family owners now have a fresh wrinkle this week, as new insider reporting suggests that the two are…
Brighter Shores says it ‘wasted time’ improving leaderboards for ‘top players’ following boycott - The quality of life in Brighter Shores continues to be the main focus for the MMORPG's most recent patches, as this week has seen two more patches go live that…
End-of-Year Eleven: The MMOs with the most uncertain futures in 2025 - I am the sort of person who derives no small amount of ongoing satisfaction from the idea that I have had an influence upon yearly traditions. This is true for…
Its long-term future still in limbo, PlanetSide 2 is actually getting a small Lunar New Year promo update today - The PlanetSide 2 community was naturally in a panic last weekend following the Friday evening revelation that EG7 is planning to close down Toadman Interactive, the EG7 substudio to which…
LOTRO Legendarium: Lord of the Rings Online’s new servers are going to be an exciting mess - After sending us into conniptions with partial information about Lord of the Rings Online's newly announced 64-bit servers, Standing Stone Games' Rob Ciccolini cleared the air when he sat down…
Elder Scrolls Online addresses DLC purchase confusion and ongoing DDOS attacks - ZeniMax Online Studios' Matt Firor swung by the Elder Scrolls Online forums last night with two updates for fans, one on the upcoming DPC and the other on the state…
Diablo IV’s Season of Witchcraft finally arrives next week on January 21 - Blizzard has set a hard date for Diablo IV's next season, and it's the witchy one that the studio has already been testing since December: It's called Season of Witchcraft,…
New World elaborates on its PvP season worlds, death penalties, and ephemeral gear - We haven't heard a whole lot out of New World since before the new year, when Amazon first revealed its so-called living roadmap for the newly multiplatform MMORPG. At the…
SMITE 2 introduces Aladdin and opens up its beta as a free-to-play product - Hi-Rez tossed out a fresh batch of confusion when it announced that its new MOBA SMITE 2 is going free-to-play today. However, this is not a launch as some people…
World of Warcraft activates multiple weeks of Timewalking expansions and brings back Plunderstorm today - As World of Warcraft players count down the days until Patch 11.1: Undermined releases, there's plenty to keep them occupied. Blizzard recently activated seven weeks of Timewalking dungeon events for…
Choose My Adventure: The highly engaging start of a Necromancer’s journey in RuneScape - I did not expect that this old dog of an MMORPG would be capable of learning such new tricks. As requested by the Choose My Adventure-reading public, this month saw…
Interview: NCsoft America’s new CEO, Jeonghee Jin, on awakening the ‘sleeping giant in the West’ - A few years ago, I attended Black Desert Online's Heidel Ball, one of the yearly events that Pearl Abyss holds to make major announcements for the game. An unexpected surprise at…
Blade & Soul NEO is finally en route to the west – pre-registration and buyables are live today - Last week, you may have picked up on the rumor that Blade & Soul NEO had scored a new English website. Well, it was true, and there was a good…
First Impressions: Multiplayer sandbox Aloft doesn’t revel in your misery – it relishes mystery - Cozy survival sandbox Aloft has been on our radar since last year, and as of tomorrow, it's officially moving from its public demo stage to a proper early access on…
Dune Awakening promises it’s still on track to meet its projected launch window - Walking without rhythm will not attract the worm, but walking without a launch window will not attract players who are eager to see Dune Awakening be playable, and Funcom hasn't…
The Daily Grind: Have you ever let someone else level your MMO account? You know, like Musk did in Path of Exile 2 - Claims that tech tycoon and Twitter mismanager Elon Musk is some sort of Diablo and Path of Exile savant gave way last week to accusations that maybe he doesn't actually…
MMO Project Ghost can be made faster than the ‘big boys’ for three reasons, says FPC’s Greg Street - If you're not already pulling for Fantastic Pixel Castle's Project Ghost as one of your most anticipated MMOs because you think it's too far off, you may want to revise…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s story does not know you are playing a video game - In Rich Burlew's long-running webcomic Order of the Stick, there's a moment early in the comic when a fire has engulfed the inn the characters are staying at. Haley, the…
Lord of the Rings Online explains why it’s never had randomized dungeons - In an interesting discussion on the Lord of the Rings Online forums, players wondered why the MMO never introduced randomized dungeons that you might see in other MMOs or even…
Participation metrics suggest World of Warcraft’s Mythic+ dungeon runs are at an ‘all-time low’ - If you've been finding it harder to form a Mythic+ dungeon group in World of Warcraft: The War Within, it would appear that it's not in your head: A popular…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

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.