MassivelyOP’s 2024 Awards: MMO with the Stormiest Future

December 21, 2024 11:00 AM

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 Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen last year. Years ago, we called this award “Most Likely to Fail” and “Most Likely to Flop,” but we’ve since changed the name and expanded it beyond just individual games to studios and ideas as well as fringe and unlaunched games. It represents something we’re worried about for one reason or another: Maybe we think the game or studios will sunset or struggle or simply fail live up to insane hype. And no, we don’t actually want anything to have a stormy future! Don’t forget to cast your own vote in the just-for-fun reader poll at the very end.

And the MassivelyOP staff pick for the MMO with the Stormiest Future is…

THE CRYPTIC MMORPGS: STAR TREK ONLINE, NEVERWINTER, AND CHAMPIONS ONLINE

Andrew Ross: Chronicles of Elyria

Andy McAdams: Ashes of Creation

Brianna Royce: Neverwinter, Star Trek Online, Champions Online, New World, Pantheon. I am having to discount a lot of games that I already consider beyond hope here and am focusing just on a handful of games I want to do well but am very nervous about. I’m deeply concerned about the Cryptic MMOs, though. These have been core MMORPGs for years and years, absolute rocks in our genre. The de facto dissolution of Cryptic (RIP) and then Embracer’s porting of its games over to a European studio that had to hire a bunch of new people to manage such large GAAS titles is… well, first of all, I’m sad about Cryptic, but second, I have no idea whether the new studio is going to be able to keep up the standards players expect, and the person who told everyone this year that the new team could do it left a few months later. I don’t like admitting that I’m afraid for these titles, especially Champions.

Carlo Lacsina: New World. To an outsider looking in, the message it sent was “hey kids play us cuz we’re no longer an MMORPG!” I know that wasn’t the case, but if that was my takeaway, I can imagine folks even more disconnected from the niche will probably interpret the messaging in that way.

Chris Neal: All the Cryptic MMOs. I never would have guessed that the Dungeons & Dragons and Star Trek IPs wouldn’t be strong enough to brace against the winds of worry, but here we are. After Embracer’s billion-dollar bet fell through, we’re left with a bunch of fun MMOs on wobbly legs Thanks a bunch, Lars. Brilliant leadership, bub.

Eliot Lefebvre: New World, but also the Cryptic games. Cryptic is, as I mentioned back a while ago in our work chat, has been functionally the MMO equivalent of THQ, a solid second-tier player that makes good games. And now… who knows? Oh, sure, Amazon will be fine even if their bad handling of New World tanks that game. But Cryptic… that’s been something special.

Justin Olivetti: All of Cryptic’s MMOs. The demise of Cryptic sent shock waves through Neverwinter and Star Trek Online communities, raising the specter of these titles being grossly mistreated or sunsetted in the coming year. Even if they stick around and get some development, there’s not a lot of optimism for excellence.

MJ Guthrie: Sorry, I am still not willing to doomsay! Though if we go by history, any game that I say I really like will suddenly shut down development… so actually, I am totally staying quiet to save any good games!

Sam Kash: Skull and Bones

Tyler Edwards: It feels like there are finally some cracks starting to form in Star Citizen’s endless crowdfunding model. I will also begrudgingly admit New World might qualify. Not because I think its future is definitely bad, but just because it’s very uncertain right now. The console launch won a lot of new fans, but its handling burned a lot of longtime fans, and it remains to be seen if the gamble will pay off in the long run.

The Cryptic MMOs took our award for MMO with the Stormiest Future. What’s your pick?

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How does MassivelyOP choose the winner?

Our team gathers together to nominate and discuss candidates and hopefully settle on a consensus winner. We don’t have a hard vote, but we do include commentary from writers so that you can see our thought process. 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. Reader poll options include all MMOs nominated plus a few others we thought should be included.