Blink and you just missed what was probably the biggest week for MMORPGs of the year: Dune Awakening hit headstart, Guild Wars 2 released Absolution, Elder Scrolls Online kicked off Seasons of the Worm Cult, New World opened its new hardcore season server, No Man’s Sky planted a Beacon, Chrono Odyssey picked dates for its big global test, B&S NEO made it to Steam, and hey, some little device called the Switch 2 launched, and we all gathered ’round a vat of popcorn to watch the Summer Game Fest keynote.
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
Flameseeker Chronicles: Previewing Guild Wars 2 Absolution’s Bava Nisos map and Kinfall fractal - It still seems strange that we are already coming to the end of another Guild Wars 2 expansion cycle, and yet here we are. It's like I always say, time…
Dune Awakening’s $70+ headstart has officially begun – are you playing? - If you shelled out for either of the two largest Dune Awakening preorder packs, your time has come! No, literally, your time to play Dune Awakening has come. That's because…
MMO Hype Train: Palia’s been given a chance to flourish — and it has - Sometimes it takes more than one run at an MMORPG or online game for it to click with you. There are titles that have taken multiple approaches before they improved…
New World’s new hardcore season server is live today with its soft-permadeath leveling scenario - New World fans, today is your day to finally jump into the hardcore seasonal server that Amazon has been teasing since even before the game's eighth season officially rolled out…
Interview: Kakao on Chrono Odyssey’s global parity, opt-out PvP, and embracing MMORPGs - Kakao's Chrono Odyssey is promising to be one of the highlights of the summer here in the MMORPG genre, owing to its June closed beta - the first public playtest…
Previewing Elder Scrolls Online’s Seasons of the Worm Cult, live on PC and Mac today - As promised, today marks the launch of the The Elder Scrolls Online's Seasons of the Worm Cult, with its new lore-rich island, new adventures that continue the story from the…
The Nintendo Switch 2 console has officially hit store shelves – are you grabbing one? - Most of the time a games console going on sale is a big deal to the large but still semi-insular gaming circles, but Nintendo is different - and big enough…
Massively Overthinking: Is Dune Awakening an MMO, MMORPG, survivalbox, or something else? - In this week's Massively Overthinking, we have a very simple question on deck in honor of Dune Awakening's headstart: What the heck is it? Funcom called it an MMO for…
EVE Fanfest 2025: EVE Vanguard is leaning into full MMOFPS gameplay - EVE Online developer CCP Games has had a long and colourful history of trying to break into the first-person shooter genre. Since the launch of PS3 exclusive MMOFPS DUST 514…
Gachapwned: How gacha MMOs attract players with the secret of volume - There is a strange phenomenon that is true for perhaps not every human being, but the vast majority I've met and dealt with over the course of my life. I…
The Soapbox: World of Warcraft’s biggest remaining flaw is its class design - I've been pretty vocal about the fact that I think World of Warcraft is in a very good state right now, possibly the best it's ever been. For most of…
Casually Classic: What is Blizzard baking for WoW Classic Plus? - Even before WoW Classic launched in 2019, everyone saw the big problem that this legacy version of the MMO would be facing: What kind of future could it have? The…
A mercenary league and new endgame story await in Path of Exile’s Secrets of the Atlas next week - No, your eyes do not deceive you: A new Path of Exile expansion is on the horizon. Secrets of the Atlas will launch at 4:00 p.m. EDT on June 13th,…
Massively on the Go: The good, the bad, and the ugly of Pokemon GO’s transition to Scopely - As I mentioned in the June event round-up, Pokemon GO's been sold off to Scopely, and it's a done deal now. In the lead up, as predicted, we've been seeing some…
Pax Dei’s major Verse 3 update and wipe will get underway after lengthy downtime June 11 - We've finally got a hard date for Pax Dei's next big update: It's coming on June 11th, right in the thick of all the other launches this month. "Verse 3…
WoW Classic Pandaria says ‘no’ to raid finder but adds Celestial dungeon difficulty - When WoW Classic progresses into Mists of Pandaria Classic next month, not everything from the original expansion will make the transition. Blizzard revealed this week that it has decided not…
Star Citizen outlines alpha 4.2’s upcoming new persistent sandbox activity: Storm Breaker - Apparently CIG's calling alpha 4.2 of Star Citizen Storm Breaker isn't just because it's full of inclement weather patterns; it's also the name of the sci-fi sandbox's latest persistent sandbox…
Tarisland preps its first birthday celebrations – but no, it’s not content or a real event - Tencent's MMORPG Tarisland has apparently awakened from its intermittent slumber to plot some minor festivities for its anniversary. Yes, time flies: Tarisland officially launched a year ago back on June…
NetEase’s new multiplayer RPG Sea of Remnants is gorgeously weird and punk (and probably a gacha game) - NetEase is still cranking out new multiplayer games for the western market: Last night at the PlayStation State of Play event, it announced that it's publishing Joker Studio's upcoming "free-to-play…
Warframe of Mind: Is Yareli Prime just plain terrible? - One of the dearest people in my life is a huge fan of Yareli in Warframe, so you know that the first thing I was doing when the game added Yareli…
Albion Online preps Abyssal Depths for June 30 even as it sunsets 10v10 Hellgates - We've been keeping tabs on Albion Online's planned Abyssal Depths update for a while now as the launch date has formed up. On June 20th, the patch arrives in all…
Perfect Ten: 10 alternate travel options offered by MMORPGs - By default, in basically every MMORPG, your character is an eager co-worker in your objectives. You press W to go forward, and your character begins doing a steady half-jog half-run…
World of Warcraft posts an open letter to modders about ‘leveling the playing field’ of the addon scene - Major changes are in the works for World of Warcraft's expansive modding scene, as Blizzard previously announced that it's incorporating -- and possibly limiting -- several features from popular addons…
No Man’s Sky announces Switch 2 edition and releases city settlement-centric Beacon update - If you've been watching Hello Games' Sean Murray tweet bacon emoji like it's 2010 all week, then you probably had a pretty good clue that something was coming for No…
Dungeons and Dragons titles its summer expansion: The Chill of Ravenloft - This summer's gothic Dungeons and Dragons Online expansion now has an official name: The Chill of Ravenloft. This follow-up to 2017's Mists of Ravenloft includes the undead Dhampir race, the…
Jagex confirms ‘non-game dev’ layoffs, pauses work on Old School RuneScape custom server feature - It's time for a couple of bits of bad news for fans of Old School RuneScape and RuneScape this week, as developer Jagex has confirmed that layoffs have hit the…
Krafton’s Mimesis is a co-op psychological horror game where players have to find an AI-powered imposter - Most real flesh-and-blood humans are pretty good at identifying AI-generated crap, but what if there's a game that tests those skills while waging what's called "psychological warfare" on players? That's…
Multiplayer cozy game Farm Together 2 officially launched out of early access last weekend - A year ago, I broke one of my rules for games: I bought one in early access. That game was the cozy co-op Farm Together 2, the sequel to indie…
Lord of the Rings Online devs weigh in on the fate of the MMO’s old 32-bit servers - Now that the bulk of Lord of the Rings Online's community has likely made the journey from the old servers to the new 64-bit worlds, the question of what to…
Star Trek Online outlines updates coming to its endeavor system today, including a rank raise - If you're a high-level Star Trek Online player, you're probably very familiar with the endeavor system: It's the system that grants various daily tasks in order to earn endeavor XP,…
Maintenance-moded Heroes of the Storm celebrates its tenth anniversary with an all-new skin - Heroes of the Storm is currently celebrating ten years of operation, and despite spending most of the last three of those years in maintenance mode, Blizzard is treating loyal players…
World of Warcraft Retail is two weeks out from its next content unlock, Legacy of Arathor - Just in case your June wasn't already jam-packed with MMO releases and new content, World of Warcraft is throwing its hat into the ring with a content unlock on the…
Blade & Soul NEO has a Steam launch date, and hey it’s tomorrow - Back at the top of May, NCsoft told Blade and Soul NEO fans that the game was destined for Steam, but all we could do was wishlist it because we…
Hands-on with Siege Camp’s sandbox MMORPG Anvil Empires ahead of its Steam Next Fest demo - Everyone stop whatever you’re doing and prepare yourselves because next week, demo servers are opening up for Anvil Empires, the latest MMO from the developers at Siege Camp. Have you…
Dune Awakening will have rentable private servers ahead of the full launch after all - Remember back when Funcom told players that it wasn't going to hook Dune Awakening players up with private servers until quite a ways past the launch? Well, scratch all that…
Wisdom of Nym: First impressions of Final Fantasy XIV’s Occult Crescent - So after a week of Final Fantasy XIV's latest field exploration area, I have to say that I'm... not really sure if this is, in fact, it, chief. Not because I think…
‘Lots of leadership is gone’: Stewart Chisam and other Hi-Rez leadership have been ousted by the board - The brutal turnover at SMITE 2 developer Hi-Rez this year saw one of its highest-profile departures as studio president Stewart Chisam is on his way out at the company. "Lots…
SGF 2025: Blade & Soul Heroes is a ‘collectible action MMORPG’ arriving in September - Among the trailers coming out of NCsoft during this year's Summer Game Fest opening presentation was what appears to be a new gacha title, though the studio is calling it…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 520: Get in gamers, we’re going on a road trip!
The Stream Team: Split souls in Dungeons & Dragons Online are for Members Only
The Stream Team: Taking a first peek inside of the current test of BitCraft Online
The Stream Team: From cats to kite run in Split Fiction
The Stream Team: Checking out the multiplayer ‘sci-fi space adventure’ of Jump Ship’s demo
The Stream Team: Chopping off The Head of the Snake in Guild Wars 2
The Stream Team: Investigating Elder Scrolls Online’s instabilities in reality
The Stream Team: Party Animals in a pinch
The Stream Team: A headstart to becoming worm chow in Dune Awakening
The Stream Team: Continuing to climb the Arcadion cruiserweight ranks in Final Fantasy XIV
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.
