If you had already taken time off for Dune Awakening launching, bad news as the game has been delayed until June 10th to give it more time to cook. Of course, if you believed the launch date given by Funcom, you… well, you don’t deserve this kind of shabby treatment, but you have now learned why people are so skeptical. By contrast, Dragonwilds has already steamrolled into early access, at which point the developers will grind for hours to get one more point on the development progress bar. Because it’s Jagex. Do you get it?
Fine, fine, enough jabs at studios. We’ll move on. Move on to Lost Skies, in fact, which has also found its way into early access! Or maybe we’ll move on to Havenhold which is doing a closed beta test. Heck, maybe we’ll move on to Defiance, which relaunched this week. Yeah, that came back! Seriously! It’s the What Year Is It meme all over again.
If you want more alliteration in your Betawatch titles, do not bother looking at our roundup of beta news just below because there is very little alliteration and none of it is intentional. If you just want a roundup of the week’s big beta news, though… good news! That’s what we have, along with our list of games in testing. Let us know if we missed anything down in the comments.
Path of Exile 2 devs admit to ‘firing from the hip’ with ‘blatant’ mistakes in Dawn of the Hunt
MMO Hype Train: Is Equinox Homecoming for real or is it a pony fever dream?
Last Epoch showcases April 17’s new faction, new and reworked skills, and quality-of-life additions
Squirreled Away is a multiplayer co-op ‘squirrel survival adventure’ that you can play on Steam now
Survival Kids is a new Switch 2 survivalbox with callbacks to a 1999 Game Boy Color title
Ship of Heroes calls attention to its ‘gorgeous’ visuals and how they serve game design as donations reopen
These are the servers that will be merged together in Pantheon Rise of the Fallen today
World of Warcraft has opened signups for Mists of Pandaria Classic
Here’s how to get into the April 11 Monsters & Memories weekend open playtest
Martial arts MMO Havenhold talks up its 14-day cyclical gameplay as it heads to April 17 closed beta
Wolcen Studio’s Project Pantheon sets the stage for this month’s Closed Alpha 2 with a new teaser
Fawkes is running another Defiance stress test April 11, having rebalanced the cash shop ‘pain points’
Project Ghost’s first dev stream video and Q&A shows off the Wychwood zone
Astroneer-spinoff Starseeker talks multiplayer co-op focus, monetization, and beta sign-ups
Hardcore PvP MMO Warborne Above Ashes is launching a massive playtest on April 24
Tomo Endless Blue is a new anime survivalish MMO (kinda) from new studio Onibi
Sci-fi sandbox SpaceCraft confirms multiplayer focus, offers vague closed alpha plans
Pixel sandbox Necesse counts 250K new players last month alone, adds deep caves with Update 0.32
Star Resonance, the mobile/PC revision of Blue Protocol, readies another beta test in China for April 24
Stars Reach has wiped its pre-alpha and revamped for a (hopefully) less messy testing experience
Corepunk finally opens Prison Island, adds a new class spec, and rolls back the servers
We consider an MMO to be in open testing if it features free, public signups and will server wipe prior to launch. An MMO is marked in closed testing if it’s running a private test phase that cannot freely be accessed by the general public; it’s often under NDA as well. Early access and crowdfunded MMOs whose tests we deem legitimate will be included. So-called “open beta” soft-launch MMOs with cash shops, no sign of launch in the west, or limited interest for our readers will not be listed, nor will games that are NFT/blockchain scams; we also do not list expansions, with occasional exceptions. Finally, we’ll mark games “malingering” if they’ve been in a certain tier of development for a long time with no clear path to launch.
Open testing
Closed testing
Paid access
Legit MMORPG
Multiplayer
Malingering33 Immortals: Early access
Abyss: Early access
The Adventurer’s Domain Online: Early access
Aero Tales Online: Early access
Aloft: Early access
Ammo and Oxygen: Early access starts November 7th
Anvil Empires: Intermittent alpha
Apogea: Open testing
Arcane Waters: Early access
Arc Raiders: Tech test planned on April 30th, launch planned for 2025
Arcfall: Pre-alpha
Adrullan Online Adventures: Weekend-long open test starts April 19th, renamed from Evercraft Online
ARK 2: Paid early access
Arkheron: Closed beta
Ascendant: Open testing in August
Ashes of Creation: Alpha two
Ashfall: Closed beta
ASKA: Early access
Battlebit: Early access
Bellatores: Closed testing
Bellwright: Early access, developers of abandoned Last Oasis
Bitcraft: Third alpha starts the week of November 11th
Book of Travels: Early access
Brighter Shores: Early access
Camelot Unchained: Closed beta, planning to launch in late 2025
Chronicles of Elyria: Pre-alpha, again
Chrono Odyssey: Closed testing, launch planned for Q4 2025
Cinderstone Online: Closed beta
City of Titans: Alpha
Coreborn: Nations of the Ultracore: Early access
Corepunk: Early access
Craftopia: Early access
The Crew Motorfest: Closed testing
Crosswind: Future testing events planned on Steam
Dark and Darker: Paid early access, legal troubles.
Dark and Light: Early access (abandoned?)
Darkbind: Closed beta (probably abandoned?)
Dawn of Defiance: Early access
Destiny Rising: Closed alpha starts November 1st
Dragonwilds: Early access
Dreamworld: Pre-alpha, open playtest until March 16th
Dune Awakening: Closed testing, launch on May 20th June 10th, and this time we mean it!
Dungeonborne>: Early access
ECO: Early access, full launch planned in 2024
Eleven: Closed alpha
Enshrouded: Early access
Eternal Tombs: Pre-alpha resumes October 11th
EVE Vanguard: Early access planned post-November
Evercore Heroes: Paid testing, updates stopping with a focus on a redesign
Final Stand: Ragnarok: Early access (officially, really)
Fellowship: Closed testing on August 15th
FragPunk: Closed alpha, launch planned for March 6th
Frozen Flame: Early access
Havenhold: Closed beta
Homestead: Open alpha
IfSunSets: Early access
Ilysia: Early access
Inferna: Early access
King of Meat: Alpha test December 4th through the 14th
Kurtzpel: Closed beta
Legend of Ares: Open testing ahead of relaunch
Legendarium Online: Paid alpha access
Life is Feudal Arden: Open beta
Loftia: Alpha planned for April
Lost Skies: Early access
Magic to Master: Somehow, Palpatine returned in early access
Mecha Break: Open beta concluded, launching 2025
Midnight Murder Club: Closed testing this weekend
Monsters & Memories: Intermittent pre-alpha
Mortal Exodus: Closed testing
Necesse: Early access
Nightingale: Early access
Odd Giants: Alpha
Osiris: New Dawn: Back from the dead, not on Steam any longer
Outlaws of the Old West: Early access
Palia: Paid “open” beta, planning for launch in Q2
Palworld: Early access
Pantheon: Early access
Past Fate: Closed testing
Path of Exile 2: Early access December 6th
Pax Dei: Early access
Perfect New World: Closed beta
Pow Vista: Open beta (mobile)
Project Crawl: Closed testing
Project Friendship: Beta signups open now
Project Genom: Closed alpha (servers offline, abandoned?)
Project Gorgon: Early access beta
Project Loki: Closed beta
Project ST: Closed testing, open event ended
Prosperous Universe: Early access
Quinfall: Early access
Return Alive: Closed beta
Reign of Guilds: Early access
Rodent Rumble: Launching next year, playtest on October 11th
SamuTale: “Paid closed alpha early access” according to the developer, which is just early access, come on dude
Sand: Early access April 3rd
Scars of Honor: Next test October 26th
Seed: In pre-release, test run starts October 24th
Seekers of Skyveil: Early access
Ship of Heroes: Beta testing, plans for launch in 2025
Ships at Sea: Early access
Sky: Children of Light: Open early access
Skygard Arena: Early access
Smite 2: Open beta
Soulframe: Open pre-alpha planned for 2025
Spacecraft: Alpha in the first half of 2025, might not be an MMORPG but it’s vague
The Spell Brigade: Early access
Spellfarers: Early access
Steel Hunters: Early access
Supervive: Open testing November 20th
Star Citizen: Backer alpha
Star Resonance: Closed beta in China, rebrand of Blue Protocol Mobile following main title’s shutdown
Starbase: Early access open alpha
Stars Reach: Pre-alpha started
Synduality: Echo of Ada: Early access
Temtem Swarm: Early access
Tombstone: Closed testing, release planned for this year
Tower of Aghasba: Early access planned for November 19th
Tribes 3: Rivals: Early access, development slowing/stopping
Trimurti Online: Stress testing, open beta February 13th
Valheim: Early access
Valiance Online: Closed beta
Vaultbreakers: Closed testing, formerly known as Project F4E
Vindictus: Defying Fate: Test with multiplayer in June
WalkScape: Closed beta until June 15th
Warborne Above Ashes: Alpha test April 24th
Waven Early access
ZeroSpace: Public beta through November 24th
We welcome additions and corrections to this list; send your info our way via tips!
Yes, MMO gamers, you too can perform the unpaid quality-control work otherwise known as game testing! Check out Massively Overpowered’s Betawatch every week for a run-down of MMOs that are still on the road to launch, even if they appear to have set up a permanent residence in a shed called early access.
