The week before Christmas is often a dumping ground for news studios need to offload before they go on break, and this week was no different, in good ways and bad: We got a huge dumpster fire out of Gamigo and its now-dead stewardship of Fractured Online, but we also got big announcements from World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy XIV.
And to keep you entertained through the holidays, we’ve continued our rollout of our formal awards, as well as kicked off the Golden Yachties and our recaps of the entire year for MMOs.
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
Final Fantasy XIV launches Gods Revel, Lands Tremble on January 10 - Today was the latest Final Fantasy XIV live letter, and that means that fans now have a release date and trailer for patch 6.3, titled Gods Revel, Lands Tremble. It…
Gamigo transfers publishing of Aura Kingdom, Grand Fantasia, Shaiya, and Last Chaos amid layoffs and Aeria portal closure - It just wouldn't seem right to end the year without watching Gamigo light itself on fire, now would it? Fortunately, the company has indulged us yet again in the form…
Fractured Online returns to closed development over ‘platform troubles’ - Over the course of this week, we've been covering the ongoing Gamigo clownshow: The company suffered layoffs it didn't disclose, which took out the last remaining RIFT community manager; it…
World of Warcraft posts a roadmap and breakdown of its plans for 2023 - It's impossible. Inconceivable. Unlikely. But it has actually happened. World of Warcraft has actually posted... a roadmap. Granted, said roadmap isn't filled with actual hard dates, but it lays out…
Vague Patch Notes: A wake for the MMOs that were - 2022 is nearly over, and for me, at least, it's been an incredibly challenging year full of some really dark points. This is the first time that my holidays have…
WoW Factor: Chris Metzen’s uphill road with World of Warcraft - So, last week there was a bit of unusual timing. I had finished my column about World of Warcraft's Trading Post, and on the same day we got the announcement…
Heavensturn returns to Final Fantasy XIV on December 31 – without a hat this year - Over the years of playing Final Fantasy XIV, players have grown very accustomed to the way that Heavensturn events work. The new year is coming, and there is a representative…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Best MMO Housing - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Best MMO Housing, which was awarded to The Elder Scrolls Online last year. MMORPGs eligible for this…
One Shots: The best player-submitted MMO screenshots of 2022 - For our very last One Shots column of 2022, we're going to take a break from the routine to hand out awards to our most excellent readers for their contributions…
Jukebox Heroes: Looting plenty of MMO holiday music to cheer your soul - Merry Christmas and happy holidays from us here at Jukebox Heroes! Well, it's me and the pizza delivery guy that I trapped in the hopes of brainwashing him to be…
The Game Archaeologist’s ultimate MMO archives v6.0 - And that's a wrap on this year in history! While everyone says farewell to 2022, here at TGA we're always looking way back at the past to see where we…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Not-So-Massively Game of the Year - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Not-So-Massively Game of the Year, which was awarded to Valheim last year. The games eligible for this…
Battle Bards Episode 220: Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons - Whether or not you like dragons, you have to admit that Guild Wars 2 certainly ended them in style! Join Syl and Syp as they rewind to last winter’s End…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: MMO with the Stormiest Future - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the MMO with the Stormiest Future, which was awarded to Blizzard and World of Warcraft last year. Years…
Massively Overthinking: Our favorite MMO stories of 2022 - It's tradition for us to pick out one big story or narrative arc that defined the year and slap it with an award label, but we actually write around 6000…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Golden Yachties: Leakiest MMO studio - MassivelyOP's not-so-serious end-of-the-year awards continue today with our pick for leakiest MMO studio. (We call these silly awards the Golden Yachties in honor of that dank meme about how games…
Pantheon Rise of the Fallen celebrates a ‘milestone month’ thanks to monthly pre-alphas and influencer livestream - The producer of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is looking back at December with fondness in the game's latest newsletter, which he calls a "milestone month" because of two major…
Desert Oasis: Black Desert’s Jaehee Kim and Jesse Joo on accessibility, community, and playing their own game - Attending the first Calpheon Ball in the US was an awesome experience. Getting to see fellow Black Desert fans, watching the joy in peoples' faces when meeting their guildies in person…
TitanReach resurfaces with a 2024 launch promise, but it might have been stolen from the original studio - Last weekend we recounted some of 2022's largest MMO crowdfunding stories, and unsurprisingly one of the biggies was the saga of TitanReach, which ceased development for a second time this…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: MMO Studio of the Year - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the MMO Studio of the Year, which was awarded to Guild Wars 2 studio ArenaNet last year. We…
Lost Ark’s early 2023 roadmap includes the Witcher crossover and Artist class - 'Tis the season for a whole lot of MMORPGs to release their previews for the new year, and Lost Ark is no different. Smilegate and Amazon's popular fantasy title pushed…
Corepunk has suffered yet another delay but says beta is finally ‘close’ - Despite previous promises that it would have a closed beta test running by the end of 2022, Corepunk and its team announced that it's pushing this phase into the new…
ROSE Online’s early access launch is waylaid by a user data leak that forces the game offline for recoding - Veterans of our genre know that MMORPG launches are never smooth, but some launches can go far worse than others. That sadly appears to be the case for the early…
BlizzCon 2023 and Blizzard’s unnamed survival game are both still happening - The World of Warcraft roadmap wasn't the only thing Blizzard dropped yesterday just before the holidays: Blizzard president Mike Ybarra also penned an address to the broader playerbase in what…
Fractured vanishes from Gamigo’s site, Fawkes Games opens a weird website - Yesterday, we covered the distressing news that Gamigo had suffered layoffs - including the loss of RIFT's last remaining community manager, which is already exacerbating the weakened comms issue with…
ZeniMax breaks down its ‘core values and vision’ for Elder Scrolls Online’s combat - Why does combat in The Elder Scrolls Online feel the way it does? What drives the design decisions of ZeniMax Online Studios? What are the end goals for combat design?…
End-of-Year Eleven: The best MMO expansions and updates of 2022 - One of the underrated aspects of being an MMO player is that our games get more updates and expansions than almost any other type of video game. So the longer…
Gamers file lawsuit to stop Microsoft’s buyout of Activision-Blizzard over monopoly concerns - The multi-billion dollar purchase of Activision-Blizzard by Microsoft has run into another stern legal challenge, but this time it isn't coming from the Federal Trade Commission; it's coming from a…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: MMO Story of the Year - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the MMO Story of the Year, which was awarded to the Activision-Blizzard scandal last year. This isn’t an…
World of Warcraft is granting subscribers limited-time access to Dragonflight’s first chapter - If the whiff of desperation in World of Warcraft's earlier offer of subscription time for gifting Dragonflight hit your nose, that conclusion is probably not going to get much better…
SWTOR celebrates 11 years, teases cadence changes, and tests 64-bit client - BioWare's Keith Kanneg posted a dev blog for Star Wars The Old Republic players last night to celebrate the game's 11th birthday. He recaps the Legacy of the Sith expansion…
US Senator calls out Steam’s lax moderation of neo-Nazis and hate - The fact that Steam is extremely hands-off in regard to moderation isn't really news. Readers will recall it was referenced in a video report last month, which called Valve's approach…
Choose My Adventure: All the MMOs you made us play in 2022 - This has been a pretty challenging year for a lot of reasons, and my 2022 in Choose My Adventure certainly didn't feel any different in that regard. We had a…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Best Classic MMO - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Best Classic MMO, which was awarded to Lord of the Rings Online last year. This was a…
Camelot Unchained’s December dev blog touts $15M investment as a ‘level up’ for City State Entertainment - Last month's $15M investment round is high on the mind of Camelot Unchained's Mark Jacobs, as he opens up the game's December development report with a lot of exaltation at…
Mad World is done but slips to 2023 anyway, without Netmarble publishing - Here's a classic case of good news/bad news for any Mad World fans out there. In a recent AMA, Jandisoft said that while development on the grimdark MMO is complete,…
Riot Games struggles to get out of deal with failing crypto company - Riot Games is the latest entity that's learning the hard way that crypto isn't a fast track to wealth and success. Last year, the League of Legends studio inked a…
Wisdom of Nym: The Final Fantasy XIV narrative moments that lack real conclusions - When I was in college, I met a girl who was absolutely amazing. I was dating someone at the time (not my future wife, for the record), but this girl…
Activision-Blizzard’s president/COO leaves in March – for the Bored Apes Yacht Club crypto outfit - It appears that one of Activision-Blizzard's top brass will end his tenure by next year. According to a filing with the SEC, Activision-Blizzard president and CEO Daniel Alegre will step…
Vitae Aeternum: The uncomfortable truth of New World’s lax monetization - I have a pretty laid back approach to monetization in online games. Bar mandatory subscriptions and a few egregious outliers, I am generally fine with any mainstream monetization systems in…
MassivelyOP’s 2022 Awards: Biggest MMO Surprise - Welcome back to Massively Overpowered's formal end-of-the-year awards! Today's award is for the Biggest MMO Surprise, which was awarded to the revival of Fallen Earth last year. This category is…
FTC orders Epic Games to pay $520M for privacy violations and deceptive ‘dark patterns’ in Fortnite - Epic Games has just received a walloping from the US Federal Trade Commission in the form of two massive payout settlements for violating the privacy of its users and employing…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
Massively OP Podcast Episode 401: The holly jollies
Battle Bards Episode 220: Guild Wars 2 End of Dragons
The Stream Team: Seeking to forge a silver sword for the holidays in Dauntless
The Stream Team: Slinging snowballs and looking for Wookiees in SWTOR’s Life Day
The Stream Team: Delivering presents to all the children in Elite Dangerous
The Stream Team: Who will win the Wintersday race in Guild Wars 2?
The Stream Team: Polar plunges, mud balls, and more in Elder Scrolls Online’s New Life festival
The Stream Team: Battling packs of beholders in Dungeons & Dragons Online
The Stream Team: Exploring AdventureQuest 3D’s new Frostval town, Winter’s Grasp
The Stream Team: Astroneer is full of Christmas Project C.H.E.E.R.
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.
