Week in Review: Gamescom 2015 (August 9, 2015)

August 9, 2015 8:00 PM

Were you too busy gaming this week to pay attention to MMO news? Get caught up every Sunday evening with Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!

Blizzard stole Gamescom handily with its possibly rushed but certainly jam-packed reveal of World of Warcraft’s next expansion, called simply Legion. It almost took away the sting of losing Bashiok to NCsoft and dropping to 5.6 million subscribers. But will it be enough to stem the tide?

Read on for the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions as well as a roundup of all of our Gamescom coverage so far.

GAMESCOM 2015

Is Blizzard’s mystery Gamescom conference about WoW? - Blizzard being at Gamescom is in and of itself neither unusual nor unique. Gamescom is just one of those conventions that the company attends, after all. But hosting a separate press conference at the show would…

World of Warcraft to reveal newest expansion next week - What will World of Warcraft's next expansion be? Forget speculation -- you'll be finding out for real in a little over a week. Blizzard announced today that it will reveal the follow-up to Warlords of Draenor…

WoW Factor: Speculating on WoW’s next expansion - On August 6th, we now know, we'll be hearing the name and some details on the next World of Warcraft expansion. What we don't know is what that expansion will actually contain. The space after this…

Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns’ first public beta weekend begins August 7th - How about some Guild Wars 2 news to justify the fact that you're awake at the crack of dawn for this Gamescom embargo lift? Yeah! ArenaNet has just announced that the first public beta weekend event for its…

Gamescom 2015: SWTOR expansion news and trailer - [AL:TOR]In Cologne, Germany, EA began its press conference for Gamescom 2015 with the typical action sequence montage from single-player games, but what MMO fans were looking forward to was Star Wars: The Old Republic and its…

Gamescom 2015: Hearthstone debuts cards, Jousting, and rank bonuses - [AL:Hearth]What would a grand tournament be without jousting? The new Jousting mechanic from the upcoming Hearthstone expansion The Grand Tournament pits players against one another in a contest of mana. Jousting minions randomly draw a minion…

Gamescom 2015: Elite Dangerous: Horizons is kicking off with planetary landing - The Elite: Dangerous gameplay is expanding downward. To the extent that "down" is a relevant direction in space, anyhow; the important part is that you'll be able to go from space to huge planetary sandboxes in…

Gamescom 2015: Blizzard shows off new heroes and maps for Overwatch and Heroes of the Storm - Heroes of the Storm players are going to have quite a bit to look forward to in the near future. The game's newest map, Infernal Shrines, continues the Diablo theme of recent months with three lanes…

Gamescom 2015: Guild Wars 2 Heart of Thorns gallery - Guild Wars 2 heard you liked screenshots, so it made sure to bring a ton to Gamescom, all flavored with Heart of Thorns goodness. [gallery columns="6" ids="20039,20038,20037,20036,20035,20030,20031,20032,20033,20034,20029,20028"] Massively OP's own Tina Lauro meets with the ArenaNet team…

Gamescom 2015: SWTOR’s Knights of the Fallen Empire gallery - [AL:TOR]Did you miss the big Star Wars: The Old Republic news from Gamescom at the crack of (US) dawn this morning? Massively OP's Larry Everett was on hand to deliver the new trailer and tidbits from…

Gamescom 2015: ARK gets a brief new trailer - ARK: Survival Evolved got a new trailer at this week's Gamescom. It's super short, but it also manages to capture just about all that's awesome in Studio Wildcard's dino-themed survival sandbox. The clip shows off everything from…

Gamescom 2015: The Crew offers up a Wild Run trailer - Are you extreme enough to take part in The Crew's next big expansion? Wild Run sends players to The Summit, where apparently extreme racing rules. None of this namby-pamby normal racing on city streets with multi-ton…

Gamescom 2015: Sword Coast Legends delayed to September 29th - Fans of Sword Coast Legends are going to have to swallow a little bad news, as Wizards of the Coast announced at Gamescom today that the fantasy title will be delayed from its original September 8th…

Gamescom 2015: Guild Wars 2 confirms 2015 expansion launch - If you were worried that perhaps Guild Wars 2 was being a little too pokey with its Heart of Thorns testing and reveals, then let ArenaNet put any fears of the expansion slipping into 2016 to…

Gamescom 2015: Star Citizen’s Chris Roberts dismisses Derek Smart - Line of Defense's Derek Smart has made it quite clear what he thinks about Star Citizen and its creator, Chris Roberts, by calling for Roberts' resignation and an audit of the crowdfunded title. But what does…

World of Warcraft announces Legion expansion with Demon Hunter class, Broken Isles continent; beta this year - The liveblog is after the cut. Here are the highlights! Blizzard has just announced World of Warcraft's next expansion: Legion. Blizzard's Tom Chilton says that the initial video is "connecting tissue" between Warlords of Draenor and…

Gamescom 2015: RIFT brings the Primalist on board as game’s fifth calling - RIFT's most poorly kept secret is now official: The Primalist will join the game's roster as the fifth calling (and the first new one since launch). The Primalist's key mechanic is the focus bar, which moves…

Gamescom 2015: Trion talks upcoming ‘significant’ ArcheAge updates - Trion just took an info dump at Gamescom, with "major" updates scheduled for all of the firm's MMOs. ArcheAge is getting something called Heroes Awaken, which will "feature significant updates and add fresh content to the…

Gamescom 2015: Trove’s fall Shadow Tower update offers endgame content, new class - Trion did something this year that a lot of MMO studios don't bother to do: brought existing MMOs to Gamescom. The studio unleashed information on all four of its existing MMOs, including Trove, which is due for…

Gamescom 2015: Defiance is getting new baddies, supreme weapons - The fourth and final Trion blurb from today's Gamescom press release involves Defiance, the sci-fi shooter with Syfy transmedia synergy. An upcoming patch will introduce a new race of enemies, Trion says. These baddies inhabit Silicon…

Gamescom 2015: More details on World of Warcraft: Legion - It's only been a day since the announcement of World of Warcraft: Legion, but fans are already eager to learn more about the expansion. Fan site Icy Veins was able to get a quick interview with…

Gamescom 2015: Star Citizen gets a monthly report and a big Gamescom presentation - It's a big day for fans of Star Citizen, as Cloud Imperium has put out a typically massive monthly report. Oh, and there's that little multicrew-themed presentation at Gamescom, too. It's going on right now, in…

Gamescom 2015: Gigantic announces August CBT start - Go go Gigantic beta! At Gamescom this week, the cell-shaded Gigantic announced that it will be ending its alpha test and transitioning into closed beta by the end of August. Gigantic will be inviting "hundreds of…

Gamescom 2015: Hearthstone adds five new cards to The Grand Tournament - [AL:Hearth]You might have noticed a smidgen of news coming out of this year's Gamescom, and Hearthstone has got a bit more to add to its previous jousting announcement. Five new cards are joining The Grand Tournament…

EVE Evolved: CCP can’t just focus on EVE Online any more - The recent announcement of arcade shooter EVE: Gunjack for the Samsung Gear VR has prompted some pretty interesting negative responses from gamers this week. There's obviously still a lot of ill will in the air over the…

Gamescom 2015: Guild Wars 2’s new mastery system details revealed - On the opening day of Gamescom 2015, I crept away from the buzzing hum and dazzling lights of the show floor to sit down with Guild Wars 2 Lead Designer Crystin Cox to discuss Heart of Thorns and the…

Gamescom 2015: Blizzard answers more World of Warcraft: Legion questions - Everyone who cares about World of Warcraft wants to know more about Legion, even though the details are likely to remain vague for the next few months. Another interview took place on the Gamescom floor centering…

Not So Massively: NSM at Gamescom 2015; Splatoon’s Octoling hack - It's been a fantastic week for online gaming with dozens of MOBAs and competitive shooters on the show floor at Gamescom 2015. Hi-Rez Studios was showing off the first playable build of its new shooter Paladins…

Gamescom 2015: WildStar F2P beta is now live! - The announcement that WildStar developers Carbine Studios plan to make the MMO the latest addition to our ever-growing free-to-play piles happened a while ago now, and superfans have been waiting patiently since then to see how…

Massively OP Podcast Episode 25: Project Gorgon interview - Justin and Eliot interview Project Gorgon's Eric Heimburg and hit the highlights of Gamescom 2015, including the WoW: Legion reveal.

World of Warcraft: Legion’s world invasion will be terrifying - World of Warcraft fans are vacuuming up any and all news regarding the recently announced Legion expansion, so we imagine that they'll be interested in a new Gamescom interview in which the devs address some of…

Gamescom 2015: First hands-on look at Hi-Rez Studios’ Paladins - Hi-Rez Studios pulled quite the ace out of its sleeve during Gamescom with its freshly announced new addition to the shooter market, Paladins. The earliest playable build of the game was quite a crowd pleaser and…

Here are both versions of Star Citizen’s multicrew and social module reveals - If you missed last week's Star Citizen event at Gamescom, Cloud Imperium has recapped it for you on the game's official website. Included are textual summaries of the social module, Star Marine, and the multicrew demo,…

Blade & Soul founder packs are now available for planned Q1 2016 launch - I was very excited to sit down during Gamescom with Nicolas Coutant, producer at NCSOFT West, about the upcoming US and Europe release of Blade & Soul, a quirky Asian fantasy MMO developed by Team Bloodlust.…

Star Citizen starts testing social module - Getting chummy with your fellow Star Citizen space pilots has taken one step closer to becoming an in-game reality today, as RSI announced that it has commenced testing of the upcoming social module. The social module…

World of Warcraft’s Legion testing is taking a holiday break, too - We hope you weren't planning on playing any of the World of Warcraft: Legion alpha during your own holiday break (assuming you have one). Blizzard has announced today that the alpha test will be going on…

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

WildStar starts testing free-to-play patch - WildStar's free-to-play transition is just around the corner, as testing commenced today on the fall patch. The public test realm update includes the new business model, cash shop, and other Drop 6 changes and features. That…

Here’s what’s in WildStar’s massive fall patch - Yesterday we reported that WildStar began stress testing its fall free-to-play patch, and since then players have been reporting in with pictures and details of this massive update. While Carbine hasn't posted a list of patch…

EverQuesting: (Almost) everything we know about EverQuest Next - In a perfect world, we'd have the mana of EverQuest Next news raining down from the sky, enough to satiate our hunger for information about the game we've long looked forward to. Instead, to many of…

Nexus Telegraph: Four things that have me excited about WildStar’s F2P patch - Hot dog! This past week's stress test of the new fall patch for WildStar (it doesn't have a name yet, and Carbine is getting away from the "drop" moniker) got me all worked up over the…

Neverwinter introduces scaling subscription VIP program - Free-to-play Neverwinter has decided to dip its toes in the neighboring pool of subscriptions, as Cryptic announced that it's now offering a VIP membership to players who want to pay on a monthly basis. VIP packs…

Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns starts first public beta weekend - You won't need to head all the way out to Gamescom this week to see the latest and greatest in Guild Wars 2: Heart of Thorns. ArenaNet is actually hosting the expansion's first public beta weekend...…

Shards Online: Proposing the ‘persistent online world’ game - Last week, our comments erupted over some game studios' haphazard use of the term "MMO" -- and how that overuse and misuse has possibly tainted the genre, leading other studios to avoid its use altogether. One of the…

Perfect Ten: Clever features that should be in more MMOs - MMOs are built on the backs of many interlocking systems, some more crucial to the experience than others. While I have great appreciation for the core systems that make up these games, such as combat, crafting,…

Camelot Unchained launches community modding effort - The team behind Camelot Unchained wants the game to have a solid, modifiable interface. That's a commendable goal, but it's also something that's hard to do without a modding community. So as explained in a recent…

Heimburg: Project Gorgon is ‘the most ambitious thing I’ve ever attempted’ - It seems like half the Massively staff has been playing Project Gorgon here lately, so we figured it was time to seek out the devs at Elder Game and ask them a few burning questions. Lead…

Tree of Savior starts limited English closed beta testing - Many gamers are trying to get a handle on what Tree of Savior will offer, an issue that's slightly compounded by the fact that the beta has only just arrived in the West on Steam. And…

Reddit revolt erupts over Elite: Dangerous expansion price - Not everyone was thrilled at today's news that Elite: Dangerous would be expanding to allow for planetary touchdowns with its upcoming Horizons expansion. One monster thread has erupted on the Elite: Dangerous subreddit complaining that the…

Dota 2’s International interrupted by DDoS attacks - If you managed to catch any of Dota 2's $18 million International 2015 yesterday, you may have seen players sitting around scratching their heads instead of killing each other's avatars. Valve's big e-sport event was interrupted by…

Destiny shows off a new Taken King trailer, Bungie is hiring PC tester - 10If you're still excited for Destiny's next expansion, The Taken King, you'll be happy to know that there is a new trailer available now. While it's not big on showing off gameplay details, it does have…

Elder Scrolls Online’s Imperial City is kinda like Oblivion’s - Elder Scrolls Online's Imperial City DLC is a few weeks away, but you can whet your appetite via a new dev diary that looks at the creation of the Arboretum district. Parts of it will feel…

ARK: Survival Evolved is coming to Xbox One early access this winter - If you want to play ARK on a console for whatever reason, you've only got to wait a few more months. We've known for a while that the dino survival sandbox currently trampling its Steam competition was also scheduled…

EverQuest II plans server ‘consolidation’ in August - It's all well and good to prefer lower-population servers, but you can also reach a point when the population is so low that you can no longer find players to actually share the game with. This is…

Hi-Rez is making Paladins, a team FPS with deckbuilding - Hi-Rez has been hinting at its new project in recent weeks, and while we were expecting to get an eye full of it at Gamescom, the firm has gone ahead and spilled the beans to IGN.…

An exclusive talk with RIFT’s Chris Junior on the Nightmare Saga and more - RIFT is starting to make more noise as 2015 marches on, particularly with its recent Patch 3.3. This newest update added a major saga to the game and other neat features, and so to catch up…

CCP announces Gunjack, a VR title for mobile - Move over, EVE Valkyrie. Gunjack is CCP's newest virtual reality pet project. Gunjack is in development for the Samsung Gear VR platform, and yes, that makes it a mobile game. Players take on the role of…

LOTRO announces its 10 surviving servers - Lord of the Rings Online has begun the process of closing down some of its servers and encouraging players to migrate to one of 10 remaining worlds in order to boost population density. Today Turbine announced…

Ex-WoW lead Rob Pardo says industry devs are avoiding the ‘MMO’ label - MMOs aren't going anywhere, but the label may be on the way out. This comes from former World of Warcraft lead Rob Pardo, who said in an interview that developers are avoiding the term "MMO" like…

RIFT community manager: ‘RIFT is in zero danger’ - The health of a game is always important to the players; no one wants to make a home that's going to be shut down in a few weeks. Players on the RIFT forums were asking about…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS