editorial
From castles to conservation to content, I had a ball at Black Desert’s Heidel Ball 2024
It may have been a bit since the end of Pearl Abyss' Heidel Ball 2024, celebrating 10 years of Black Desert Online, but it's...
The Soapbox: Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail, mortality, remembrance, and last chances
Earlier this week, at least at the time of this op ed's writing, I completed the main story for Final Fantasy XIV Dawntrail, and...
Vague Patch Notes: The stuff that has me excited about Stars Reach
Raph Koster is a smart guy. Not just an experienced one (he's that, too), but a smart one. The man knows his stuff front...
Four Winds: Wuthering Waves, Genshin Impact, and the burgeoning gacha gaming industry
In the early days of the pandemic, I spent a lot of time covering the then newly released Genshin Impact. The first piece was...
Massively on the Go: Pokemon Go’s July spread is basically just marking time until Go Fest
It's not particularly surprising that, once again, Pokemon Go isn't really sharing a lot of details about what's in store for the month of...
Raph Koster’s new MMORPG is called Stars Reach, and yes, it’s basically Star Wars Galaxies 2
It's June 26th, Star Wars Galaxies' 21st birthday, and I'm sitting on Google Meet talking to none other than MMORPG founding father (and SWG...
Vague Patch Notes: Many kinds of challenge and many kinds of fun in MMOs
Earlier this week, MOP's Bree and I were discussing my plans in Final Fantasy XIV as part of the Dawntrail early access launch. Now,...
First impressions of ASKA, Sand Sailor’s brand-new colony-building survival sandbox
Thanks to the press preview hosted by Thunderful and Sand Sailor, I recently had the opportunity to play around with survival sandbox ASKA a...
SGF 2024: Hands-on with The First Descendant, plus a chat with the Nexon devs
You thought our Summer Game Fest coverage was over, didn't you? Well, in all fairness, Nexon not only brought The First Descendant to SGF but provided...
First Impressions: Tarisland’s interesting gameplay isn’t enough to surmount shoddy temport quality
When we issued our 2024 predictions for the MMORPG genre during our annual year-end articles, I said that Tarisland would be a sleeper hit,...
SGF 2024: Previewing Funcom’s Dune Awakening, from PvP philosophy to the survival MMO label
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,...
Vague Patch Notes: Have a seat for your MMO
I could play Final Fantasy XIV on my PlayStation 5, but I don't want to. And as weird as it might sound, the reason...
SGF 2024: Hands-on with NCsoft’s long-awaited Throne and Liberty, launching September 17
Most of the games I played at Summer Game Fest were more enjoyable than I expected - including Throne and Liberty, which was probably...
Second Wind: Final thoughts on returning to World of Warcraft in 2024, from community to dragonriding
At long last, we've reached the fourth and final part of my series detailing my experiences returing to World of Warcraft after six years...
Massively on the Go: Splatoon 3’s Big Big Run highlights the big problem with its PvE
As I shamelessly teased in the WRUP last week, I managed to make some time for Splatoon 3's new Salmon Run event, the Big...
Vague Patch Notes: Housing is really back in MMORPGs
I haven't really had anything to say about Guild Wars 2's upcoming Janthir Wilds expansion thus far because... well, I'm not our GW2 columnist,...
SGF 2024: Hands-on with PvE-centric sci-fi horror survival shooter MMO Once Human
For those who saw Once Human and thought, "Gee, that kind of looks like a mix of H1Z1 and The Secret World," you're not wrong based on...
SGF 2024: Hands-on with New World’s controversial Aeternum reboot, which is still an MMORPG
How's everyone recovering from all this New World Aeternum news coming out of Summer Games Fest? It's been kind of a confusing time for me, as...
SGF 2024: Amazon discusses New World Aeternum on console, swimming, solo content, and archetypes
In case there's anyone out there still confused: New World Aeternum is not a single player or co-op game. I know the Summer Game Fest announcement of...
Hands-on with V Rising: PC vs. PS5, multiplayer, and progression impressions
You might think given the last few pieces I've written that I might have a thing for vampires. I vehemently deny this. It is...