You know how I know the MMO genre still has some juice? Because it was hard as heck to catch up with everything that happened while I was sick in bed all week!
For example, RuneFest delivered long-term plans for RuneScape and OSRS, Jake Song apparently left XLGames and ArcheAge Chronicles, Dauntless admitted to a sunset, World of Warcraft’s Undermine(d) turned everyone into goblin mobsters, Blade & Soul NEO opened its doors, and of course, Stars Reach not only successfully funded on Kickstarter but is (as I type this) on the verge of half a million dollars. And on the non-MMO side of multiplayer, Monster Hunter Wilds finally launched and snagged everyone’s attention, and for good reason.
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
First Impressions: Monster Hunter Wilds is the apex form of the multiplayer series in practically every way - If you've been following my answers along in our weekly WRUP column, you'll know that I have been absolutely rabid for the arrival of Monster Hunter Wilds. It's easily my…
RuneFest 2025: RuneScape gets Leagues and new profession level caps in 2025, new vampiric region in 2026 - Are you ready to deal with vampires in RuneScape? You'd better be because the major reveal from this year's returning RuneFest event is the arrival of Havenhythe, a dangerous new…
RuneFest 2025: Old School RuneScape’s new Sailing skill enters open alpha later this month - The revivified RuneFest event brought Old School RuneScape fans a 2025 update plan of its own, and as one might expect, there was a lot to say about the MMORPG's…
ArcheAge Chronicles luminary Jake Song leaves XLGames, the company he founded, to ‘recharge’ - Jake Song, a name that many MMORPG fans are familiar with for his involvement with the ArcheAge and Lineage series and his founding of XLGames, has decided to leave the…
Raph Koster’s Stars Reach has launched its $200,000 crowdfunding campaign (and now it’s fully funded) - If you're seeing these words, then the Kickstarter for Stars Reach is finally live. [Update: And funded in its first hour, too - updates at the end of this article!]…
Dauntless is officially sunsetting following the layoff of the team back in January - I'm sorry to report this afternoon that Phoenix Labs' Dauntless is closing down. The sunset news came in the form of a brief tweet this afternoon. "Dauntless is shutting down…
World of Warcraft’s Undermine(d) patch is set to debut this evening - Start spreading the news, World of Warcraft fans: You're leaving today. You wanna be a part of it, wherein "it" refers to the Goblin capital of Undermine, the central feature…
Stars Reach Kickstarter hits $450K, unlocks crafting appearance customization as devs say headstart isn’t P2W - As the Stars Reach Kickstarter nears half a million dollars, the Playable Worlds team is using Kickstarter memos to further explain how the game's test phases will work - and…
NC America has officially launched Blade & Soul NEO in NA, EU, and SA - As promised, NCsoft is officially launching Blade & Soul NEO in the west for PC players today, so if you made a character in the character creator already, now is your…
The Soapbox: Difficulty is a means to an end in MMORPGs - A few weeks back, I took a peak into Corepunk's early access build, and I promptly got my ass kicked by even the most basic low-level quest mobs in that…
Lord of the Rings Online unexpectedly breaks out Update 43: Secrets of Utug-bûr - If there's one constant in Lord of the Rings Online's recent history, it's that patch days happen on Wednesdays. Always. That is, except for a week where Standing Stone Games…
Pantheon’s Druid class is launching on March 5 – here’s the new trailer - Pantheon Rise of the Fallen players have been for a while that the Druid is on the way to the game, but as of this afternoon, we finally have a…
Monster Hunter Wilds’ launch sees over 1M players on Steam and multiple PC performance complaints - The gaming world was already pretty certain that Monster Hunter Wilds was going to be a big deal, but today's launch of the multiplayer RPG is even bigger than expected,…
Elite Dangerous plans four more ships, an update for squadrons, and a new feature in 2025 roadmap - The current year looks to be another one where Elite: Dangerous is stepping on the gas. Or considering we're talking about internet spaceships, is it more like pushing on the…
Stars Reach crosses $400,000 pledged and unlocks waterworld Hansian species - The absolute juggernaut of Stars Reach's Kickstarter continues to barrel forward, with the fundraising campaign already doubling its starting $200K target and unlocking its first stretch goal. As of Wednesday…
Perfect Ten: MMORPG adaptations we’re never getting that I would love to get - One of the things that makes Design Mockument interesting, as a column, is that it is in part a place for me to spitball about ideas for MMORPGs which do…
Vague Patch Notes: Talking about power creep in MMOs - "Power creep" is a nasty term when talking about video games, and usually whenever it gets brought up, it gets brought up as a bad thing. In fact, I would…
WoW Factor: Six player-created challenges to spice up your World of Warcraft leveling - It seems almost impossible to play video games for extended periods of time and not fall into some sort of rut or routine. We figure out what's most beneficial and…
Pax Dei’s team is ‘confident’ that the sandbox MMORPG will launch in 2025 - Pax Dei has big plans for its future that it can't wait to share -- which is why the developers sat down to answer 27 pressing questions from the community.…
Techrot Encore rocks Warframe 1999 with new music, protoframes, a pub, and a sentient guitar on March 19 - Do Warframe players need more reasons to head back to Warframe 1999? Not necessarily (although where else can you hang out at a '90s mall?), but they're getting some anyway!…
MMO Hype Train: What can Dune Awakening’s character creator teach us about the MMO? - Sometimes when it rains, it really pours around these here MMO parts. To demonstrate this, last week we not only got the official release date for Dune Awakening -- May…
Whatever happened to 1996’s Meridian 59? - MMORPGs come and MMORPGs go, but one near-constant in this space since 1996 is the presence of Meridian 59. This 2.5D game has provided online adventures for nearly three decades…
Warhammer Online Return of Reckoning plots more dungeons and events for the spring and summer - It would be pretty easy to assume that content for the Warhammer Online rogue server Return of Reckoning is mostly focused on the RvR battles and how the other players…
Black Desert begins celebrating nine years on PC, opens new tales and boss fight on mobile - We are not ones to argue over when the PC version of Black Desert gets to celebrate a milestone, especially if it means we get to eat cake early. We…
Lord of the Rings Online players push back against deed log redesign, which is also crashing the game - If Standing Stone Games hoped that it was going to get Lord of the Rings Online's Update 43 quietly out the door before next week's server transfers, those hopes crashed…
Star Wars The Old Republic’s March update includes Andor and Skeleton Crew cosmetics - Earlier this week, Broadsword streamed a preview of Star Wars The Old Republic's 7.6.1 update, whose headline feature is Galactic Season 8, dubbed Rising Powers. "Kai Zykken reaches out offering…
Albion Online looks ahead to its next updates, including a better new player experience - With Rogue Frontier out in the wild and a "success" for the MMO, Albion Online and its team at Sandbox Interactive are turning their sights to the next update or…
Dungeons and Dragons Online tips Update 72: Balance the Scales in your favor - It's a two-for-one week over at Dungeons and Dragons Online, as this MMO is not only celebrating its 19th anniversary but rolling out a brand-new update for the occasion. [AL:DDO]Update…
Tower of Fantasy launches new character and events in latest update as Perfect World takes the reins - This week represents a big shift for the shared world RPG Tower of Fantasy as the latest content patch lands and the game's publishing officially trades hands, albeit not without…
Lost Ark posts its full patch notes and a video reading of same for the Wildsoul update - If you have somehow missed the news about the Wildsoul coming to Lost Ark, well... there it is. The Wildsoul is being added with today's patch, it's the topline feature…
DC Universe Online kicks off its 2025 campaign with a Shock to the System - Are you ready for a year-long adventure in DC Universe Online? If not... well, presumably, you will not be playing the game's 2025 campaign, which apparently is just called "Campaign…
Star Wars: The Old Republic could’ve changed EA forever if it had made billions - It's quite well-known that Star Wars: The Old Republic wasn't the World of Warcraft-toppling Godzilla that BioWare hoped it would be when the game launched a decade-and-a-half ago. But what…
PlanetSide 2 admits to delays for its US merges and Infiltrator rework - The Daybreak contractors still working on PlanetSide 2 are back with another monthly dev letter for fans that should add another layer of reassurance than development will continue, however slowly.…
Choose My Adventure: Aion Live, not Classic, is much more like the MMORPG I played at launch - After dipping some of my toe into the Aion Classic pool last week, the polls basically said to do the same thing, only with Aion Live. To be honest, I…
Little Orbit’s CEO flew to Amsterdam to supervise APB Reloaded and Fallen Earth’s new servers - The month-long downtime saga of APB Reloaded and Fallen Earth may be coming to an end relatively soon. The servers for both of Little Orbit's MMOs went down at the…
Fantastic Pixel Castle says NetEase isn’t cutting it loose and Ghost’s development is continuing - Fantastic Pixel Castle, the studio behind the slowly developing Project Ghost MMO, is one of many studios that have financial backing from NetEase, so it's easy to feel a fair…
Champions Online is losing its last known Cryptic developer this week - We've been focused on the transition from Cryptic to Deca for Star Trek Online and Neverwinter, but Cryptic other MMORPG, Champions Online, often gets forgotten. Unfortunately, we don't know whether…
Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV is running out of Final Fantasy - It wasn't so long ago that I did a series of columns talking about the many, many references in Final Fantasy XIV to date, although that predates Dawntrail's release, so…
Playable Worlds’ Raph Koster on Stars Reach’s origin story and his goal to create ‘an alternate reality’ - Regular readers of our site and followers of the MMORPG genre know by now that Raph Koster has a lot to say - and he often takes time to say…
Pokémon Go players aren’t thrilled with its potential sale, launch counter-campaign - News that Niantic may be selling off its game division and Pokémon Go to another studio sent the game's loyal community into a total tizzy this week. As Eurogamer noticed,…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 507: Get ‘er Dune
The Stream Team: Taking a live look at the open beta of MMO-style dungeon crawler Fellowship
The Stream Team: Attending adventures underwater for Dungeons & Dragons Online 19th anniversary
The Stream Team: Checking out character creation in Dune Awakening
The Stream Team: Discussing and examining Elite Dangerous’ new colonization feature
The Stream Team: Baby Aurene and Journey to Bitterfrost Frontier in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Investigating Elder Scrolls Online’s Feldagard Keep
The Stream Team: Just a feline Friday in Jumping Jazz Cats demo
The Stream Team: The great crashed ship salvaging operation in Planet Crafter
The Stream Team: Exploring more story and more hunts in Monster Hunter Wilds
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.
