Activision-Blizzard stole the week of news when our little ol’ post about how Blizzard itself has now dropped almost 29% of its active playerbase in three years went viral on Reddit, though of course as longtime readers know, Blizzard has been dropping for a long time and it’s entirely clear which titles are responsible for all the bleed and where all the players went – though I bet you have a few guesses.
Meanwhile, we got our greedy hands on Elyon, recapped Guild Wars 2’s Icebrood Saga, flew to SWG Legends’ Bespin expansion for Star Wars Day, and pegged June 1st as WoW Classic’s Burning Crusade launch date.
Read on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES
Activision-Blizzard Q1 2021: Blizzard lost almost 29% of its overall active playerbase in three years - Welcome back, my friends: It's time for another Activision-Blizzard investor report, and we're expecting this one to be a ride. Readers will recall that it's been a wild couple of…
World of Warcraft: Classic launches The Burning Crusade on June 1 - So it was rumored and so it turned out to be; WoW Classic is going to Outland on June 1st. It's now been officially announced that the game's first major expansion, The…
First impressions of Elyon’s western closed beta: Day one and a dungeon run - I can't believe I'm actually playing Elyon on local servers. People have been excited for this game since it was called Ascent: Infinite Realm, and just from the first couple of hours…
Flameseeker Chronicles: Recapping the entire Guild Wars 2 The Icebrood Saga - When looking back on Guild Wars 2's The Icebrood Saga, I think the most noticeable feature was its many ups and downs. If I’m really honest with myself, those ups…
Ubisoft announces Division movie, novel, mobile title, Division Heartland F2P game, and Division 2 update - Ubisoft dropped a big nugget of news for The Division fans today: It's working on a new game in the franchise called Tom Clancy’s The Division Heartland. "Tom Clancy’s The…
Chinese Overwatch teams are boycotting a South Korean player who called out Chinese policies - Another year, another furor involving Blizzard, boycotts, China, and livestream remarks. Sounds familiar, eh? Well, the situation is a little bit different this time around, as it's some of the…
The Chinese Overwatch League Saebyeolbe boycott is apparently over thanks to OWL intervention - Yesterday, we covered a brewing mess over in the Overwatch fandom, as a South Korean pro esports player, Jong-ryeol "Saebyeolbe" Park, commented on his Twitch livestream that he was feeling…
Jukebox Heroes: Guild Wars 2’s Icebrood Saga soundtrack - It's been far, far too long since I've dipped into Guild Wars 2's soundtrack. I feel deeply shamed for this neglect, especially considering how much work's been done for the…
The Game Archaeologist: Jumpgate and Jumpgate Evolution - Historically, space-bound MMORPGs have not had as easy of a go as their fantasy counterparts. For one thing, there are proportionally fewer of them that even existed. For another thing,…
Blade and Soul’s next major update, Winds of Rage, launches May 12 - There's an angry wind blowing in Blade & Soul with its next major update, Winds of Rage. What does the angry wind bring with it? Probably a bit of cursing and…
Here’s the breakdown of WoW Classic: Burning Crusade’s purchase options - Ever since yesterday's big announcement that WoW Classic is going to release the pre-patch on May 18th and launch The Burning Crusade expansion on June 1st, we have seen some…
Massively Overthinking: Is there an MMO you’d never be caught dead playing? - So today's Massively Overthinking question is entirely the fault of fanny packs. I don't care how hard retailers and fashion gurus push fanny packs as "hands-free belted satchels for the…
Elyon’s western closed beta is off to a bumpy beginning, but here’s the trailer while you wait - It's been a rocky start to the western Elyon beta. MOP's own Carlo joked that it began promptly at 7 a.m. his time... and crashed exactly one minute later. According…
Storyboard: The back-and-forth of roleplaying - The other night (Tuesday), I had a pretty terrible roleplaying experience. I don't want to go into too much detail, only note that it happened in a game with a…
Elder Scrolls Online drops a new companions trailer ahead of next month’s Blackwood launch - We're less than a month away from the PC launch of Elder Scrolls Online's Blackwood chapter, and you know what that means: hype time. Today, ZeniMax Online Studios has followed…
Combatless MMORPG A Tale in the Desert reboots later this month - A Tale in the Desert, which MUD creator Richard Bartle called the "most innovative MMO from the last decade," is starting all over. Yet again. Don't worry, this is intentional!…
Humble Bundle apologizes for infuriating charity changes, reverts everything - Humble Bundle caused quite a stink at the end of April by completing upending its entire charity model. The company had announced that it would be hard-capping the amount of…
Desert Oasis: The best Black Desert quality-of-life changes - I wasn't there at launch, but I've played Black Desert long enough to see some major changes in the game. And since the game just celebrated its fifth birthday in the…
Vague Patch Notes: Checking your bias when it comes to MMOs - What are your biases when it comes to MMOs? It's all right, you can be honest about them here. Maybe you're biased against games that have mandatory open PvP and…
Kakao Q1 2021 financials: ArcheAge 2 won’t be ready until at least 2024 - As MOP's own Carlo has written at length, Kakao is a massive company with its fingers in many pies - most recently the delicious pie known as Black Desert, though…
Epic v Apple: Emails are forever, leaks are inevitable - As we noted yesterday, the Epic v. Apple trial got underway this week and has already been offering up some choice nuggets, though less in the form of the typical…
Stadia’s vice president and head of product quietly leaves Google - It would seem that things over in the world of Google Stadia are continuing to look grim. In the wake of Stadia game studios being closed, some insider reports of…
Blizzard and Fox are headed for a trademark fight over the Diablo name - I have to sometimes wonder if trademark lawyers claw their faces when they see certain case files cross their desks. Take, for example, an apparently brewing trademark legal feud between…
Choose My Adventure: MapleStory insists on getting in the way of fun - I am mightily surprised I'm having such a bad time with MapleStory - especially considering how much I enjoyed the sequel, which you'll recall was sunsetted last year. That's doubly confounding…
Happy Star Wars Day! SWG Legends has launched the Bespin expansion, SWG Restoration 3 will launch May 28 - If you're on social media, it's impossible to miss right now that May the Fourth is happening for Star Wars fans everywhere - and that includes in Star Wars MMOs.…
The Epic v. Apple trial is already offering a look behind the scenes of Fortnite, the Epic Games Store, and Sony - MOP's Lawful Neutral columnist Andy burst into the office yesterday, gleefully rubbing his hands together and asking whether we were ready for the trial of the century. I might be…
The Daily Grind: Can we please nuke the term ‘filthy casual’ into the sun - A while back, MOP reader Aldristavan tweeted a joke about being a "filthy casual" that leaped out at me so hard I had to write about it. https://twitter.com/aldristavan/status/1383457053734105098 I know…
Fight or Kite: Foxhole is the ideal sandbox military war simulator for MMO gamers - I have played a ton of games that attempted to capture the effort and feeling of playing in a virtual war, but none of them has hit as many of…
Wisdom of Nym: What we actually know (vs. what we assume) about Final Fantasy XIV Endwalker - So what's going to happen to Nocturnal Sect? We don't know yet. I put that front and center because it is one of the current bugbears that the Final Fantasy…
Corepunk is finally considering PvE servers, plans multiple closed betas - We were taken a bit aback in early April when the Corepunk team seemed to assert that all of its servers would contain world PvP, despite acknowledging that many players…
Massively Uplifting: Gaming charity endeavors support vets, autism, and AbleGamers - While still sneaking some spring snow in (bad weather!), April also showered us with some uplifting moments and goodness. Warm fuzzies are far better than white fluffies in the springtime.…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 320: Guild Wars 2 shakes and stirs
Battle Bards Episode 192: Mabinogi
The Stream Team: Into the Underdark in Neverwinter
The Stream Team: City festivals and assorted EverQuest II adventures
The Stream Team: One final flight in the Elite Dangerous Odyssey alpha
The Stream Team: Being bolder in Path of Exile’s Ultimatums
The Stream Team: See the spider god and save slaves on Conan Exiles Isle of Siptah
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.
