The MMO genre is fixing to have an interesting spring, thanks to the arrival of Dune Awakening, which is finally rolling out on May 20th. In the meantime, though, we’ve got the big server migration for Lord of the Rings Online prepped for early March, plus both BNS Neo and the Lost Ark Wild Soul launching next week. And of course, we’re expecting Stars Reach to launch Kickstarter this week in what will be very likely be the biggest core MMORPG Kickstarter we’ve seen in quite a few years now.
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
Dune Awakening opens character creator tool today with launch now set for May 20 – We’ll leave up to you whether you think May 20th constitutes “early 2025,” given that it’ll be nearly summer by that point and well into the middle third of the…
Stars Reach: ‘We’re not gonna break the economy for the sake of the Kickstarter’ – If for some reason were home on a Saturday watching a stream instead of playing a game, then you likely just got an eyeful from Stars Reach, whose developers held…
Stars Reach reschedules its Kickstarter launch for February 25 – Not February 10th, and not this week, but next week: Stars Reach has a new-new Kickstarter launch date. It’s rolling out on February 25th. The Raph Koster-founded Playable Worlds MMORPG…
Dungeons and Dragons Online’s 2025 roadmap heralds a 64-bit server migration and Lamordia expansion – We’re finally getting a look at Dungeons and Dragons Online’s 2025 outlook as of this afternoon, as Standing Stone Games producer Amanda “Tolero” Grow has posted the official – and…
Wisdom of Nym: So, how has dropping Hard dungeons worked out for Final Fantasy XIV? – In the run-up to Shadowbringers, we learned that Final Fantasy XIV was not going to be doing Hard dungeons any longer. The reason given was pretty straightforward and reasonable in that…
Hands-on with MMO dungeon-like co-op title Fellowship and its improved open beta build – The last time I got to try out Fellowship, Arc Games’ and Chief Rebel’s upcoming co-op title that basically offers up a trinity-based MMORPG dungeon-running experience as its core gameplay…
The reboot of Kickstarted MMO Shards Online, Legends of Aria Classic, is officially sunsetting – I’m sorry to report this morning that Legends of Aria Classic is closing its doors – again. The news comes via the game’s Patreon and (we assume) lead dev Derek…
Pre-release character creation for Blade & Soul NEO is now live – For many MMO fans, character creation can eat up a lot of time as they fuss over race, class, and cosmetic choices in order to make things just right. Luckily,…
Lord of the Rings Online targets March 3 to 5 for its new 64-bit servers and mass migration – “The date is set, the pieces are moving. We come to it at last, the great server migration of our time.” Those memorable words from Gandalf spoke to yesterday’s announcement…
LOTRO Legendarium: Six ways to prepare for the 64-bit server migration – The time is drawing nigh to one of the biggest events in Lord of the Rings Online’s server history. And whether the thought of migrating to the new 64-bit servers…
Project Gorgon’s latest update is here with a new region and the Vampirism skill – When Project Gorgon’s Sandra Powers passed away last month, her husband and co-developer, Erim Heimburg, told fans it would take a little bit longer to get the game’s next patch…
RIFT runs a new Carnival of the Ascended to celebrate the game’s 14 years of operation – It is perhaps a touch bittersweet to celebrate the 14th anniversary of RIFT when the past few years have not exactly been the most active parts of the game’s history.…
Fight or Kite: Vaultbreakers has the makings of a strong team extraction RPG – Here’s one I’ve had on my radar for a little bit: Project F4E. Well, apparently it’s been officially named as Vaultbreakers, but I didn’t hate the name Project F4E. I…
Among Us VR is coming to PC as Among Us 3D – and the demo is playable next week through Steam Next Fest – It’s still wild to me that one of the most maliciously cute murder simulators around has the most wholesome dev team ever, so I’m never sorry to be reminded that…
Nightingale’s first birthday patch has arrived with dye and customization for wearables – Believe it or not, it’s actually been a full year since survival sandbox Nightingale hit early access, which means Inflexion Games is back heralding the game’s anniversary update, now live…
Warframe of Mind: How do you find the Warframe you want to play? – I’ve been circling around writing this column for a while because it is absolutely the most important possible thing for anyone to decide in Warframe, and I genuinely believe that finding…
Sea of Thieves Season 15 launches with new monster sharks and expansion of the Hunter’s Call faction – You would be forgiven for believing that you’ve got a big enough boat to hunt any ol’ shark in Sea of Thieves, but then the new megalodons arriving in today’s…
Lost Ark deep-dives next week’s Wildsoul class, claws back extra relic books from players – We have an unfortunate piece of information to share with our readers today: There are too many animals, and Lost Ark’s Wildsoul is thus limited to shapechanging into only two…
Massively Overthinking: The things we wish we didn’t know about the MMO industry – A few weeks ago, the MOP writers were sitting around in Discord avoiding work when the subject of a certain industry website’s known pay-for-play proclivities came up. Don’t worry, it’s…
Skull & Bones teases ‘ambitious plans’ and changes to its ‘seasonal formula’ for its Year 2 content – Every time we post about Ubisoft’s Skull & Bones, we get a rash of comments dooming about the game, but that still seems premature, as the studio has a letter…
GTA Online PC will get previously console-specific content and quality-of-life additions March 4 – For a long while, those who wanted the most recent and upgraded version of Grand Theft Auto Online had to play the multiplayer sandbox on the PlayStation 5 or Xbox…
Path of Exile ‘s Legacy of Phrecia event land today, Path of Exile 2 preps a race event March 2 – It’s all about events for both flavors of Path of Exile, as the original OARPG is kicking off its much referenced Legacy of Phrecia this afternoon and queuing up an…
Vague Patch Notes: How long should you wait before opining on major changes in MMORPGs? – Earlier this week, I had a column about a major change in Final Fantasy XIV’s content delivery schedule that had some pretty big effects. And if you’re wondering why you…
MMO Hype Train: Ship of Heroes’ greatest challenge is its spiritual predecessor – So Ship of Heroes is expected to launch this year, perhaps around summertime? That should be good news — even great news — for fans of the anemic superhero MMORPG…
Little Orbit’s Matt Scott: ‘There is not a chance in hell that I am letting APB Reloaded shut down’ – For almost three weeks now, we’ve been covering the unexpected downtime over at indie MMO studio Little Orbit, as Fallen Earth and APB Reloaded have been offline this entire time.…
As NetEase confirms 40M Marvel Rivals players and billions in revenue, analysts suggest a Chinese exodus from the west – There has been a lot of understandable hand-wringing in relation to NetEase’s firing of American developers who helped support its mega-hit hero shooter Marvel Rivals and what it might signal…
Evercore Heroes is back as Evercore Heroes Ascension with a free Steam Next Fest demo – Don’t call it a comeback – or maybe do! Evercore Heroes: Ascension will enable all gamers to download and play the new demo of the game running right now through…
Niantic is apparently in talks to sell Pokemon Go and its games div to Savvy Games’ Scopely – If you haven’t been following Niantic closely for the last few years, this story will probably come as a big surprise to you: Niantic is apparently considering selling off its…
Team Fortress 2 updates its SDK to effectively make the shooter highly moddable and customizable – Who here had “big news coming out of Team Fortress 2 in 2025” on their bingo card? Yeah, neither did we, but big news has indeed come from the seminal…
Overwatch 2’s game-changing Season 15 is here – here are the patch notes – It’s a pretty important week for Overwatch 2 this week as Blizzard has put forth its overhaul-rich Season 15 update, bringing with it all of the previously promised adjustments and…
Perfect Ten: MMOs with the very best soundtracks – I’ve long had an affection for video game music and feel content to live in an age where I can actually obtain it and listen to it without having to…
Riot Games’ Marc Merrill says the Riot MMO is the project he personally spends the most time on – Generally, we’d advise you to take anything Riot’s Marc Merrill says about the Riot MMO with a grain of salt, as Merrill has a bit of a reputation for tweaking…
As player numbers soar, NetEase lays off the American Marvel Rivals team – Marvel Rivals has been the darling of team shooters this season, so of course that means NetEase is laying off the western team? The news came directly from NetEase game…
World of Warcraft Classic goes into its final Cataclysm phase today with Hour of Twilight – Whether you love it or hate it, WoW Cataclysm Classic is on the way out the door. But before it trades places with a colorful Panda land, World of Warcraft’s…
Elder Scrolls Online showcases the ‘cosmetic facelift’ for starting zones coming in update 45 – Yes, we know that the Fallen Banners DLC and update 45 have been on the Elder Scrolls Online servers for over a month already, and there they will stay… until…
Choose My Adventure: Aion Classic is nothing like I remember – I mentioned in last week’s Choose My Adventure column that OG Aion created no deep memories for me, even as I was around during some of its initial launch. I…
What happens to Grand Theft Auto Online when GTA6 arrives this fall? – In January, my furnace died, and when the furnace dude arrived, he took one look at our gaming setup and launched into how excited he was about Grand Theft Auto…
Tarisland raises character and inscribed stone levels and adds more dungeon content February 24 – Tarisland started its first official season this past October, but apparently we’re only going to be crossing the halfway point for this set of major updates on February 24th, which…
MapleStory is getting its own real-world themepark attraction in South Korea early next year – Thanks to financial reports, we already knew that MapleStory is a big deal in its native South Korea, but even we were pretty surprised to learn that the game is…
Project Gorgon’s Sandra Powers is memorialized in World of Warcraft – twice – Did you guys know that the late Sandra Powers, MMORPG developer and one-half of the Project Gorgon team, was once a leading figure over in the World of Warcraft community…
Rumor: NetEase is looking to sell more of its overseas studios, including MMO developer Jackalyptic Games – Earlier this week we broke down fiscal reports and expert analysis surrounding NetEase in light of the corporation axing a Seattle-based studio that was supporting Marvel Rivals; in summary, there…
THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS
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.