Alphas & Betas

MMOs in various stages of testing and crowdfunding, playable and… not. Don’t forget to follow our Betawatch and Make My MMO columns for a weekly rundown. [Follow this category’s RSS feed]

Multiplayer Viking-themed survival settlement manager ASKA begins its early access

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Surviving in a wilderness is never best done alone if at all possible, but there's one survivalbox that has you managing not just your...

Raph Koster’s nine Playable Worlds teasers (so far) hint at the MMORPG sandbox you always wanted

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As we covered earlier in the week, Raph Koster's studio Playable Worlds has been tweeting what appeared to be a countdown accompanied by a...

Funcom’s Joel Bylos explains why Dune Awakening is an actual, factual MMO

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In an era where game studios are either backpedaling on calling their MMOs "MMOs," it's refreshing to see one studio come outright and take ownership...

MMO sandbox Fractured bumps launch to later in the summer than anticipated

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Last night on Discord, Dynamight Studios' Jacopo Gallelli apologized to Fractured fans, telling them that among the eight-person staff, he was the person who...
This is not Permea.

Guild Wars 2 previews Janthir Wilds’ land spears for Elementalists, Mesmers, and Revenants

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Here we go: ArenaNet has finally dropped a dev blog on the final third of Guild Wars 2's classes destined for spear usage come...

SGF 2024: Previewing Funcom’s Dune Awakening, from PvP philosophy to the survival MMO label

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I must admit I went into Summer Game Fest with pretty low expectations. I was MOP's "E3 guy" back when E3 was a concern,...

Wayfinder’s new AMA covers monetization, 1.0 content, and reception to Echoes

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Now that Wayfinder's Echoes update is live with its new optional offline mode, the folks at Airship Syndicate have sat themselves down to talk...

The Stream Team: Peeking into Pax Dei and giving away two keys for the MMO

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Today has brought another game into the wilds of early access: It's Pax Dei release week, and MOP's Chris is going to take a...

Valheim unveils plans for a board game, with a crowdfunding campaign opening in September

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If you're a big enough fan of the Viking survival sandbox Valheim that you'd be willing to crowdfund a tabletop board game version, you're...
I asked Bree if we could have Night Elves and she said we have Night Elves at home.

Predownloading for Tencent’s Tarisland begins tonight for North and South American players

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If you're looking forward to the launch of Tarisland as we - and some of our readers - are, then heads-up because Tarisland is...

Pax Dei runs into server-related bugs and mixed reviews in its first day of early access

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We are once again taking the time to look at the first day of an MMORPG's launch. As readers well know by now, Pax...

Raph Koster’s Playable Worlds is counting down to… something

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An aura of mystery and intrigue's been swirling around Raph Koster's studio Playable Worlds and the multiverse sandbox MMORPG that it's been working on...

Ship of Heroes has revamped all of its NPC voices and added new ones

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Heroic Games is continuing its efforts to bring modern features to indie superhero MMORPG Ship of Heroes, as its latest dev blog explains -...

SGF 2024: Hands-on with NCsoft’s long-awaited Throne and Liberty, launching September 17

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Most of the games I played at Summer Game Fest were more enjoyable than I expected - including Throne and Liberty, which was probably...

Choose My Adventure: Flying, dogfighting, and struggling with hardware in Star Citizen

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Well, talk about a massive disappointment. After a bunch of attempts, tweaks, and some general stubbornness, I'm pretty much going to have to concede...

Crowdfunded superhero MMORPG City of Titans improves its Mac OS version

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Here's some uplifting news for City of Titans fans and Kickstarter backers who've been using Mac OS: The dev team improved that version of...

Sandbox MMO Pax Dei has officially entered early access for at least the next year

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If you're a Pax Dei founder pack owner, you're about to have a fun Tuesday, as Mainframe Industries has officially launched the survival-tinged sandbox...

Solarpunk life sim Loftia talks about its sun, moon, and stars

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In a game that describes itself as "solarpunk," you'd rightly expect that Loftia is giving serious attention to making sure that its skybox is...

Dark and Darker Mobile will enter into closed beta testing in August

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Now that the world can play Dark and Darker on Steam early access after a lengthy legal kerfuffle between Nexon and developer Ironmace, it's...

Camelot Unchained side game Final Stand Ragnarok adds a beta version of a new map in its latest update

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Do you remember Final Stand: Ragnarok? It's been a bit since we got news from the game: Readers will remember this as the spinoff/prequel...