Horse girls and Secret World fans, your unlikely hour of camaraderie has arrived, as this week, former Funcom dev Craig Morrison and his new studio Blue Scarab formally announced the name of their new “horse mystery” MMORPG: Equinox Homecoming. This is a real thing, and you didn’t even know you needed it. But you do.
Meanwhile, Dune Awakening kicked off preorders, Smed teased PlanetSide 3 what appears to be a new MMOFPS called Distinct Possibility, Stars Reach fully funded on Kickstarter, Final Fantasy XIV’s Seekers of Eternity update launched, Black Desert is killing its last-gen console version in favor of PS5 and Xbox X|S, and Marvel Heroes’ rogue server has reached an eminently playable stage. Kind of a big MMO week, in retrospect!
THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Craig Morrison’s ‘horse mystery’ MMORPG gets a new trailer and its official name: Equinox Homecoming - We appreciate how Craig Morrison's Horse Mystery MMO sounds a bit like a psychedelic prog rock group, but it's not; it's the elevator pitch for a new MMORPG being developed…
Dune Awakening has officially begun preorders ahead of its May 20 launch - As teased over the weekend, Funcom has now officially begun preorders for its survival MMO Dune Awakening, which is formally launching on May 20th. We say "formally launching" because technically,…
‘We like to make really big games’: John Smedley teases Distinct Possibility by namedropping PlanetSide 2 devs - Our regular readers and followers of the MMO genre already know the name of John Smedley. He was the former head of Sony Online Entertainment for almost two decades, overseeing…
Marvel Heroes’ emulator project has a playable test server in Project T.A.H.I.T.I. - When last we checked in on the Marvel Heroes emulator project, the developers were basically still in the "make code go and upload to github" stage of development, but at…
Stars Reach’s final Kickstarter haul inches past $750,000, unlocking the shield generators stretch goal - Last night, we covered the successful completion of Stars Reach's Kickstarter campaign: Thanks to gamers, Playable Worlds raised over $750,000 in crowdfunding, and at least that much again in off-site…
Tencent will hold a 25% stake in Ubisoft’s new subsidiary focused on Assassin’s Creed, Rainbow Six, and Far Cry - It hasn't been a great couple of years for Ubisoft, what with things like Skull and Bones launching to rather middling reception or the long-in-development XDefiant kicking off and then promptly…
Final Fantasy XIV’s Seekers of Eternity patch is live today - Bad news for people who are seeking new seltzer flavors, the ultimate low-fat yogurt, a four-door hatchback that drives like a sports car, or answers about why the caged bird…
WoW Factor: Evaluating World of Warcraft’s allied races seven years later - At the tail end of an exciting expansion cycle, World of Warcraft: Legion saved one last big surprise for the community. In 2018's Patch 7.3.5, Blizzard announced that it would…
Path of Exile 2’s Dawn of the Hunt introduces the Huntress, rogue exiles, a mount, and heaps of support gems - With Path of Exile 2 being in early access beta instead of launched, I was unsure whether Grinding Gear Games would be keeping to the three-month cadence for big updates…
Black Desert Console confirms native support for Xbox X|S and PS5 – and a sunset on Xbox One and PS4 - If you're still playing Black Desert on a PlayStation 4 or an Xbox One, you'll soon have to shift over to the current crop of consoles because Pearl Abyss has…
Massively Overthinking: Do you multibox in MMORPGs? - Last week on Twitter, I saw someone refer disparagingly to EVE Online as "the multiboxing game." I want to talk about the concept of multiboxing in this week's Massively Overthinking:…
Warframe of Mind: Full impressions of the Temple ‘frame experience - As much as I would like to be known as an absolute grinding machine when it comes to Warframe - and I absolutely can be, as evidenced by how much…
MMO Hype Train: Is there any hope – or hype – left for Camelot Unchained? - If there's any developer alive who knows realm-vs-realm MMO design better than Mark Jacobs, I haven't met him or her. Jacobs and Mythic Entertainment made an MMO genre name for…
Early access MMORPG Pax Dei releases a new roadmap, saying its next update will be a ‘significant step forward’ - Pax Dei is doing some hardcore, take-no-prisoners self-reflection in its March development update letter. The studio recapped its journey through early access so far, saying that it's had to make…
Ashes of Creation showcases the ‘stealth, precision, and deadly strikes’ of the Rogue archetype - Backstabbing, stealth, tricks, and lightning-fast attacks that whittle an enemy down are the hallmarks of any good Rogue class, and Ashes of Creation isn't about pass up on that kind…
Star Citizen alpha 4.1 releases with new persistent activity, new vehicles, and another limited-time store item - Today marks another addition to the alpha build of Star Citizen, and if the game's previous two vehicle showcases weren't a big enough clue, alpha 4.1 is mostly about mining.…
Lord of the Rings Online will begin reactivating housing next week – in phases, so don’t panic yet - Our long national nightmare will soon be over: Lord of the Rings Online is finally turning back on the housing system starting next week. OK, maybe a bit dramatic there,…
Vampire survivalbox V Rising will launch its 1.1 update, Invaders of Oakveil, on April 28 - We've finally got a map and a plan for V Rising's first big post-launch update: It's called Invaders of Oakveil, and it's launching April 28th on both Steam and PS5.…
Chronicles of Elyria dev addresses fumbled deadlines, the missing website, and press coverage - Updates on Chronicles of Elyria, the Kickstarted MMORPG that was canceled and then brought back even as backers attempted to sue for relief, have been few and far between lately,…
Vague Patch Notes: The MMO you play isn’t always the MMO that was designed - There was, for a brief period of time, a window when World of Warcraft was moving toward a more deterministic gear structure that de-emphasized the idea of raiding as the…
Co-op side-scrolling platformer roguelike Mother Machine officially releases - It's time to bring together some friends to take on the role of chaos gremlins and run, jump, and fart-dash through randomly generated platforming levels. Today is the day when…
FuzzyBot’s cozy co-op roguelite builder Lynked Banner of the Spark launches 1.0 and console on May 22 - This morning, we covered Mike Morhaime's Dreamhaven and its publishing of Wildgate, a new co-op sci-fi extraction RPG from Blizzard alumni at Moonshot Games. But Dreamhaven offered another announcement this…
Lord of the Rings Online plans for two additional 64-bit realms, indicates housing reactivation is coming soon - While Lord of the Rings Online's new 64-bit servers were touted as being capable of holding a substantially greater amount of players, SSG is finding out the hard-yet-interesting way that…
Stars Reach Kickstarter ends with over $750K raised – plus fresh investment and a new vampire species - Stars Reach, Raph Koster's grand sci-fi MMORPG sandbox adventure, has officially funded on Kickstarter this afternoon, soaring past $739,000 in crowdfunding with over 5,200 backers - far more than the…
Amazon says it knows it made Throne and Liberty’s solo dungeons too hard, and it’s fixing them - So how are Throne and Liberty players feeling about the Wilds of Talandre at this point? Because no matter how much you might be enjoying it, the latest video from…
Voxel-y MMORPG EverCraft Online rebrands as Adrullan Online Adventures ahead of May 2 stress test - What's in a name? Well, at least a few more syllables in the case of Adrullan Online Adventures, which is the new name for the voxel sandbox MMORPG EverCraft Online.…
Perfect Ten: The challenges of running challenge servers in MMOs - So there has been a bit of a kerfuffle over in the World of Warcraft world, which is a bit like saying that the Earth is continuing to rotate around…
No Man’s Sky invites you to try your hand at space paleontology in its new Relics update - Who's ready to hunt for dinosaur bones... in space? No Man's Sky thinks you are, and that's exactly what you'll be doing in its 5.6 Relics update as the B2P…
Embers Adrift is planning to soft launch on Steam around the end of April - We're not going to lie to you, the latest update to Embers Adrift is not particularly exciting. Oh, it has a number of quality-of-life changes, some bug fixes, some usability…
Mike Morhaime’s Dreamhaven is publishing Moonshot’s cute new co-op space extraction shooter Wildgate - Last night, Mike Morhaime's new outfit, Dreamhaven, revealed multiple new games in development, at least one of which touches the orbit of the MMO genre even if it isn't squarely…
‘It’s all coming back, just as you left it’: Fawkes hypes the return of Defiance with a new teaser video - Last week, we got the surprising but welcome news that Fawkes Games is unsunsetting Defiance, Trion Worlds' old "transmedia synergy MMO, come April 18th. Fawkes, which already has several cast-off…
Choose My Adventure: Bots and dungeon blocks douse enthusiasm for Blade & Soul NEO - "I've heard of DPS queues, but this is ridiculous." Imagine that being said while I tap on a fat cigar and waggle my bushy eyebrows. Or adjust the tie around…
Monster Hunter Wilds brings new monsters, a massive multiplayer social hub, and arena quests April 4 - Today saw Capcom's preview broadcast for Monster Hunter Wilds' first post-launch title update, which provided a release date for the first major content addition to the multiplayer RPG as well…
Interview: Mother Machine talks inspiration, platforming, and pining for an MMO - I'm generally pretty picky when it comes to roguelikes, but I also really adore cute-looking platformers, so when I was first introduced to Mother Machine, a co-op side-scrolling platformer roguelike…
DC Universe Online’s latest Day of Reckoning chapter, Aftershock, arrives with cross-faction leagues - The Day of Reckoning saga continues to play out in DC Universe Online, as the superhero MMO patches in Aftershock today. [AL:DCUO]"Prepare for the arrival of Neron as the newest…
The Elder Scrolls Online starts up its week-long Cyrodiil Champions PvP test - Adventurers of The Elder Scrolls Online, the nation of Cyrodiil needs you! Wait, is Cyrodiil a nation or a region? I searched on my phone, but it auto-corrected to "cyclotron,"…
Pantheon lays out a roadmap of content goals for 2025 and beyond, starting with next week’s PvP servers - Visionary Realms released its 2025 roadmap for Pantheon last night, committing to "releasing new content every six to eight weeks." In the short term, the devs are focused on the…
Blizzard will rez hardcore WoW Classic characters after a DDOS wiped out OnlyFangs streamers - A fascinating firestorm of events and controversy erupted in WoW Classic's hardcore scene over the past 24 hours, starting with a DDOS attack that caused the (perma)deaths of many characters…
Now Snail Games USA says it didn’t know about ARK Survival Evolved’s AI-gen Aquatica map trailer either - So hey, remember when Snail Games USA shared more details about its Aquatica map DLC arriving for survival sandbox ARK: Survival Evolved? And how pretty much everyone was focusing on…
Blockchain MMO EVE Frontier is selling $100 ‘primal tribe packs’ that feature two cosmetic items apiece - If the pricing for some of the founder's packs for blockchain MMO EVE Frontier made your eyes water, then brace yourself for mental impact because CCP Games has decided to…
Recapping the Warcraft 30th anniversary tour’s Toronto stop - Despite the event selling out virtually instantaneously, I managed to be one of the lucky few to snag a ticket to the Toronto stop of Warcraft's 30th anniversary tour. Being…
Wisdom of Nym: Speculating about phantom jobs in Final Fantasy XIV - At this point, we don't have a full list of the phantom jobs that will be available in Final Fantasy XIV's new field exploration area, and we're not really going…
Ultima Online is launching a new server as it brings New Legacy to its thriving Japanese playerbase - Ultima Online is actually about to launch a new server - specifically, a New Legacy server for the Japanese region. The 27-year-old MMORPG has a long history with the Japanese…
Star Citizen studio shutters its LA offices as players argue CIG’s whaling is anti-consumer - Star Citizen studio Cloud Imperium has announced in its Chairman's Club newsletter that it is officially shuttering its Los Angeles studio. Last year, the company told fans that it was…
BitCraft Online will be $30 in early access but F2P at launch - The in-development sandbox MMORPG BitCraft has discussed its monetization plans before, but those were more conceptual than anything that was fully decided. That was four years ago, and with the…
Star Wars The Old Republic begins public testing of character facial updates, targets boss fight test for April - Are you ready to try on a new look in Star Wars: The Old Republic? Unfortunately this isn't to suggest that there are some new character customization options on hand.…
Ashes of Creation provides a look at its first version of naval gameplay in latest video - The latest Alpha Two build for Ashes of Creation wasn't only about bringing the stab-happy Rogue class; it's also offering up the very first iteration of the MMORPG's naval gameplay…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 511: Heroes shall arise
Battle Bards: The Final Refrain
The Stream Team: Best Laid Plans in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Focusing on Palia’s story
The Stream Team: Feeds the death counter in Split Fiction
The Stream Team: Searching for salvaging scraps in Elite Dangerous
The Stream Team: To bee or not to bee in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: King Nantharion’s Gambit in Elder Scrolls Online
Star Citizen studio shutters its LA offices as players argue CIG’s whaling is anti-consumer
The Stream Team: Getting our gremlin on in Mother Machine
The Stream Team: Last-minute spring cleaning in Astroneer
The Stream Team: Tuning and training for the next Final Fantasy XIV raid
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.
