It’s not every week when MMO Week in Review gets to recap a week where the MMO genre got some incredibly good news, but this was just such a week, as Fawkes Games announced that it’s reviving – or unsunsetting, as we like to say around here – Trion/Gamigo’s old Defiance MMO. Everyone will be starting from scratch on PC when the April launch rolls around, but hey, we’ll take it.
Meanwhile, Guild Wars 2 launched its Janthir Wilds Repentance update, Elder Scrolls Online launched its Fallen Banners DLC, World of Warcraft teased its housing tools, BlizzCon is coming back in 2026, and the LOTRO transfer march continues.
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
Trion’s 2013 transmedia synergy MMO Defiance is being revived by Fawkes Games - Two days ago I was explaining to my gen alpha children the origins of Trove's Heckbugs event and how the whole game was a happy accident that came out of…
Defiance’s revival team didn’t get the database, will start with the final patch, and can’t commit to major updates yet - Back on Tuesday, we reported on the news that Fawkes Games - which in the past has picked up multiple discarded Gamigo MMORPGs - is unsunsetting and reviving the 2013…
Elder Scrolls Online’s Fallen Banners DLC and Update 45 are live on PC/Mac – but you can’t just buy the DLC outright - It's a big day for Elder Scrolls Online fans - as long as they're on PC or Mac, anyway - as the Fallen Banners DLC is officially live alongside Update…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Previewing Guild Wars 2 Janthir Wilds’ latest episode, Repentance - Repent! For the penultimate update to Guild Wars 2's Janthir Wilds expansion is at hand! We are at the midpoint of this expansion's continuing story with the launch of Repentance…
World of Warcraft teases its housing decoration tools, including 3-axis rotation and dyes - When Blizzard last talked about World of Warcraft's housing, it was a vague overview of the studio's philosophies that left a lot of players with more questions than answers. As…
Blizzard says BlizzCon will return again at last… in 2026 - If you had your hopes up for a 2025 BlizzCon, well, don't. But you can get excited for next year already. "Today, Blizzard Entertainment announced that BlizzCon, the ultimate celebration…
‘It is raw PvP’: Pantheon prepares for the return of lawless PvP in April - We hope that Pantheon players have enjoyed living in a world where the only things trying to kill them are controlled by computers because starting on April 2nd the game…
Lord of the Rings Online patches the old deed log back in today as transfers surpass 1M characters - It's patch day for the long-suffering Lord of the Rings Online playerbase as the patch originally planned for Wednesday is finally launching today. Update 43.1: Secrets of Utug-bûr, Patch 1,…
Massively Overthinking: Toxic positivity in the land of MMORPGs - As I type this, we've been watching the Lord of the Rings Online transfer situation unfold for over a week now, and I've personally been monitoring the game's Discord 64-bit…
The Steam spring sale is upon us with deals on MMOs from New World Aeternum to Pantheon - Is it actually spring? No. But do you actually need an excuse for a Steam sale? Also no! But that's exactly what we got last night as Valve's platform exploded…
Final Fantasy XIV’s Seekers of Eternity releases on March 25 - It's not long until Final Fantasy XIV's next major patch arrives according to the most recent live letter from producer and director Naoki Yoshida. The patch is going live on…
MMO Hype Train: Why are Monsters & Memories’ vibes so intriguing? - What attracts you to an upcoming MMORPG project? There are a few factors in my mind that result in a rather quick assessment of whether or not a title is…
LOTRO Legendarium: The great server transfer nightmare of 2025 - Can I be real with you right now? I really don't want to write this column. I wish I didn't have to, not just because I don't feel like piling…
Massively on the Go: Niantic games under Scopely may not be so bad, actually - In case you missed the news, Pokemon GO's Niantic has finally confirmed that it is indeed offloading its games to Scopely. Oddly enough, it was almost two years ago when…
Lord of the Rings Online devs talk about Rivendell housing and a new homestead currency - Providing a welcome distraction from the ongoing saga of Lord of the Rings Online's troubled server transfers was a new We Have a Cave Troll dev stream on Thursday that…
Design Mockument: How would a Marvel MMORPG actually work? - We've had an awful lot of Marvel-related online projects that never quite get over the finish line into an MMORPG. Sure, we have had a lot of Marvel MMOs serving…
Palworld announces plans to add cross-platform play and critter transferring features in late March - In the past, if you and your friends wanted to play Palworld, everyone had to agree which platform version of the survivalbox to buy and play on. It wasn't ideal,…
Black Desert opens its new hardcore server and makes the first of several PvE class changes on PC - Those who feel like life in Black Desert is a little too soft and cuddly can now show off how rough 'n' tough they are thanks to the opening of…
Not So Massively: Comparing the grinds of World of Warcraft and The First Descendant - Lately most of my gaming time has gone into two games: World of Warcraft and The First Descendant. They're both very grindy games, but in almost totally opposite ways, so…
Dune Awakening hypes up ornithopters and a new Arrakis exploration video - For Dune MMO fans, May 20th can't come soon enough. And although we still have over two months to wait for the early access release of Dune Awakening, Funcom's hoping…
Guild Wars 2 nerfs Lowland Expertise to fix it in today’s mini-update - Today's Guild Wars 2 hotfix comes with a specific fix for a Janthir Wilds bug that has sent some players into a tizzy. Initially, players reported that the Repentance patch…
Vague Patch Notes: Learning to hate the MMORPGs you love - I had to teach myself how to hate Star Trek Online. It didn't come naturally to me. If you've read the stuff that I've written about the game over the…
Gran Saga’s global version will shut down on April 30 - If there was anyone out there who was enjoying the global version of NPixel's anime MMO Gran Saga, then we've got some unfortunate news to report: The studio has announced…
Path of Exile 2 gets a teaser for its next major content update, Dawn of the Hunt - Good news, Path of Exile 2 fans, you're not going to need to go hunting for information on the game's next major update! Do you get it? It's a play on…
Throne & Liberty’s Wilds of Talandre expansion expands more today with the addition of Nebula Island - When Throne & Liberty's Wilds of Talandre launched last week, it did so with a new zone - but without one of the key PvP pillars for the expansion. Now,…
Inflexion says Nightingale City, live today, is a ‘satisfying denouement’ to the Nightingale experience - When last we looked in on Nightingale, the early access fantasy-steampunk sandbox was celebrating its first birthday, Inflexion was busy rolling out the dyes and customization patch, and the release…
Project Gorgon celebrates its seventh year of Steam early access with a gift of explosive love - When I saw the memo on Discord about Project Gorgon's seventh anniversary on Steam, I did a little double-take, as I knew the game had lingered long in early access…
World of Warcraft previews Update 11.1.5 and arrests Brann’s tanking spec for being too much fun - World of Warcraft's Update 11.1 hasn't lost its new Goblin car smell yet, but Blizzard's already testing the next patch right now. In a preview post for Update 11.1.5, the…
Perfect Ten: The strangest weapons you wind up using in MMORPGs - Human beings have been using things as weapons for about as long as human beings have had hands and needed to hit stuff. That's just the simple reality. Most of…
Stars Reach’s Raph Koster discusses plans for outer space and ‘full-blown sandbox MMO’ mechanics - Right now the pre-alpha for Stars Reach is pretty much focused entirely on ground-based things like mining, killing creatures, and during this week, seasons and public events. That prompts an…
Dungeons & Dragons Online releases update 72.1 today with a free raid for all - It's the year of the snake, which means that it makes a certain amount of sense that Dungeons & Dragons Online has a new raid free for everyone called the…
Niantic has indeed sold Pokemon Go, Pikmin Bloom, and Monster Hunter Now to Savvy Games’ Scopely - Not quite a month ago, we got wind of rumors that Niantic was negotiating a sale of its games division - including Pokemon Go - to Scopely, a US-based studio…
Choose My Adventure: A class switch reignites the combat chops of Blade & Soul NEO - It was touch and go there for a little while, but man am I glad that the voting for Blade & Soul NEO went the way it did because my…
New World cranks out Update 1.3 and the latest iteration of the Legacy of Crassus event - It's patch week for New World, as the most-definitely-still-an-MMORPG released Update 1.3 early this morning with a number of combat skill improvements, better UI stability, perk balance changes, and a…
Star Wars The Old Republic shows off its reward for today’s Galactic Season 8 - It's time for Game Update 7.6.1 and a new galactic season called Rising Powers in Star Wars: The Old Republic, and if you assume that means you need to get…
Wisdom of Nym: Completely unlikely theories for the future of Final Fantasy XIV stories - I frequently like to make predictions for the future of Final Fantasy XIV that seem reasonable and make logical sense. I'd say "that's kind of my job," but it's really…
Anachronia is an indie survival MMORPG with dimensional gates to zones with unique gameplay rules - We've got a fresh survival sandbox MMORPG hoping to break its way into the scene and raise some extra Kickstarter money in the process. Today we're introducing our fine readers…
Roblox CEO to parents: ‘If you’re not comfortable, don’t let your kids be on Roblox’ - Roblox co-founder and CEO Dave Baszucki has a message for parents who are concerned that the games platform is an exploitative place that makes money off of child labor and…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 509: Lord of the Transfers
The Stream Team: Getting a taste of seasons and events in Stars Reach’s pre-alpha
The Stream Team: A Sharn Welcome in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Today, we Split Fiction!
The Stream Team: Eating space rocks in Elite Dangerous
The Stream Team: Into The Bitter Cold of Guild Wars 2 with Twitch drops (and no spoilers!)
The Stream Team: Seeking the Skein of Secrets in Elder Scrolls Online
The Stream Team: The horrors of R.E.P.O.
The Stream Team: Hoping to get lucky in Planet Crafter
The Stream Team: Putting together a new weapon build 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.
