Massively OP’s 2018 Awards: Best MMO Update or Expansion of 2018

December 26, 2018 10:00 AM

Massively Overpowered’s end-of-the-year 2018 awards continue today with our award for Best MMO Update or Expansion of 2018, which was awarded to Guild Wars 2’s Path of Fire last year. Every update and expansion to an MMORPG was eligible, as long as it launched in this calendar year. Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end!

The Massively OP staff pick for the Best MMO Update or Expansion of 2018 is…

Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset

Brendan Drain (@nyphur): EVE Online: Into the Abyss & Onslaught. The Into the Abyss expansion for EVE Online was definitely the MMO update I got most excited about this year. It added the first ever enforced solo PvE content to EVE with Abyssal Deadspace, a new type of effectively instanced PvE dungeon that players can launch into from anywhere in the game. Each dungeon consists of three pockets of Abyssal Deadspace populated by a randomised assortment of deadly enemies, and players have only 20 minutes to complete all three pockets before the pocket collapses and their ship implodes. I had some initial reservations about instanced gameplay in EVE, but the fact that Abyssal Deadspace is limited to tech 1, 2 and faction cruisers made it a really interesting challenge and the expansion had some incredible visuals. I dived right in and figured out some optimal ship setup and strategies that worked for all difficulty tiers of the new content, which seriously scratched my theorycrafting itch. The winter Onslaught expansion was more of an update to Into the Abyss than a full expansion, adding three-player co-op Abyssal Deadspace runs in frigates and a new optional 1v1 PvP arena inside the standard cruiser-sized Abyssal Deadspace pockets, both ideas I’d previously suggested would be cool. The pair of expansions have been the most fun I’ve had in EVE since living in wormholes many years ago, and the new Triglavian ships have been amazing for small gang and kiting PvP styles.

Brianna Royce (@nbrianna, blog): Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset. Unlike 2017, 2018 didn’t have a ton of options to choose from, and Battle for Azeroth has way too many problems. Summerset checks all the boxes for a traditional MMORPG expansion, and it’s freaking gorgeous to boot. Brendan has convinced me to switch my runner-up to EVE Online now too: He’s right, CCP really answered a lot of player prayers this year.

Chris Neal (@wolfyseyes, blog): Summerset. Admittedly, I’m offering second-hand accounts here, but folks in my MMO gaming friend circle seem to be delighted to bits with The Elder Scrolls Online’s newest campaign. Any game that makes people I follow or consider friends happy gets a vote of confidence from me.

Eliot Lefebvre (@Eliot_Lefebvre, blog): The Elder Scrolls Online didn’t have the same sort of banner year as it did last year, but gosh, Summerset really was gorgeous and a really great breath of fresh air for the game. I’ve been really impressed by the game as a whole over the past year, and this just rammed it home.

Justin Olivetti (@Sypster, blog): EverQuest II: Chaos Descending. It has received near-universal acclaim from my friends who played it, and so I’m going to give the nod to this one.

Matt Daniel (@Matt_DanielMVOP): Destiny 2: Forsaken. Sure, it was far from perfect, but it brought some desperately needed shake-ups to the game, introduced some great new content, and managed to rekindle my interest in a game that I thought I was pretty much done with. Runner-up: ESO Summerset.

MJ Guthrie (@MJ_Guthrie, blog): I know some folks are going to argue about the MMO-ness of it, but I can’t help it: I give this award to Warframe’s Fortuna. This is an update/expansion that came after an already very ambitious expansion that opened the Warframe world by leaps and bounds — and leapt and bounded even further! Fortuna was bigger and added even more than Plains of Eidolon, which was itself a stunning achievement in 2017 and gave Warframe an even more massive open world area to adventure in and explore. Adventuring was improved here, new movement mechanics implemented, and whole new gameplay features introduced. This does better than many MMORPG expansions!

How does Massively OP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together over the course of a few days to discuss candidates and ideally settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include written commentary from every writer who submitted it on time so that you can see where some of us differed, what our secondary picks were, and why we personally nominated what we did (or didn’t). The site’s award goes to the staff selection, but we’ll include both it and the community’s top nomination in our debrief in January.

Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset won our award for Best MMO Update or Expansion of 2018. What’s your pick?

Reader poll: What was the best MMO Update or Expansion of 2018?