Final Fantasy XIV's composer reveals he was battling cancer last year while working on the game
Final Fantasy XIV's digital fan festival has been full of moments; plenty of game reveals, some brilliant developer dancing, and a moment where composer Masayoshi Soken took the stage to deliver a rendition of the track Civilizations complete with Otamatones. It also was the place where it was revealed that Soken had been fighting against […]
Dauntless adds new radiant monster, opens a new location, and celebrates its 'Slayerversary' on May 20
If you've been following along with the Twitter account of Dauntless, you know that the previews and teasers have been churning out quite a bit recently. That's because the game's next update is looming on the horizon, bringing with it the promise of a new radiant Behemoth, new radiant gear, and a new Hunting Grounds […]
The MOP Up: Valorant fights against the smurf invasion
What is Valorant doing to fix its matchmaking? The studio explains its system in a community Q&A session, in particular addressing the problem of "smurfs" in the game. "Combating smurfing is not only about punishment, it's also about making Valorant more accessible so those without bad intentions no longer feel the need to smurf. Once […]
Destiny 2 brings back Future War Cult weapons, dates the next Iron Banner, and plans to sell baby Fallen plushies
The weekly Bungie newsletter is very often a stew of various things, but this week certainly seems more mixed than most as it outlines a variety of Destiny 2 tidbits from various points of interest for fans of the shooter. As players know by now, the Season of the Splicer has kicked off, bringing an […]
ZOS director says The Elder Scrolls Online will keep releasing content for as long as players stick around
What's the life expectancy of any MMORPG? Certainly there are games that have been around for decades, but those are edge cases at best. ZeniMax Online Studios director Matt Firor certainly seems surprised by The Elder Scrolls Online's lifespan of seven years, and he doesn't foresee the game ending its update cadence until players decide […]
Epic v Apple: Fortnite at 'full penetration' on console, more industry profit details, and text descriptions of trailers
It's the stupid gift that keeps on stupid giving. It's the lawsuit that might have industry-wide shockwaves. It's a trial that has seen whether a banana not wearing clothes is inappropriate was discussed in a court of law. It's the Epic vs. Apple trial, and once more there are a variety of news pieces to […]
One Shots: Flowers love the sun more than you do
Mental note: If I ever want the legions of readers to flood our One Shots comments with submissions, I merely need to ask for sunrise and sunset pictures. You guys went nuts (in the best of ways). We'll kick off today's submission tour with this stunning pic from IronSalamander8. "What better way to appreciate the […]
The Daily Grind: Would you rather be in a guild of strangers or alone in an MMO?
Back in my day when I started playing MMOs, I took it as pretty well understood that you were going to want to join a guild of some sort. The guild mechanics in Final Fantasy XI weren't very robust at all, coming down to just a chat channel, but the important point was that you were […]
Book of Travels delays early access again, this time to late summer
Have you been dying to crack open Book of Travels and see what stories lie within? You'll have to be patient, dear child, for Might and Delight announced that it's delaying the mini-MMO from its original June early access release window to sometime later this summer. "We can tell you Book of Travels really is […]
Diablo Immortal and World of Warcraft lead artist Glenn Rane leaves Blizzard
Blizzard suffered another high-profile defection this past week, as art lead Glenn Rane departed the studio. Rane joined several of his former Blizzard colleagues (along with some ex-Epic Game Studio ones) at Lightforge Games to be a co-founder and art director. Lightforge has yet to announce any of its projects, as it's currently prototyping roleplaying […]
Guild Wars 2 kicks off a week-long WvW bonus event and releases the full Icebrood Saga soundtrack
Whether you like smashing face in the zerg of WvW PvP or listening to pretty tunes, there's a little something for most fans of Guild Wars 2. Or at least something for fans of the game that like to do those two specific activities. Which I assume is a lot of those fans. Yesterday saw […]
The Stream Team: Wandering Conan Exiles aimlessly and living to tell the tale… maybe
There's still plenty more land to roam in Conan Exiles' big Isle of Siptah update, and Massively OP's MJ plans to explore every inch or die trying! Well, there is actually a good chance she will die trying, but that is part of the allure of survival games, right? Join us live at 2:00 p.m. […]
The Game Archaeologist: Dragon Empires, Codemasters' abandoned MMO
The name "Codemasters" is far more familiar to European players than North American ones, as the British developer and publisher was active on the continent since 1986. It got its fingers in the MMO genre early as it acquired ownership of The Realm, a 2-D game, in 1999. Personally, I'm most familiar with its operation […]
Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis has kicked off its closed beta test on PC
As promised when the global closed beta was first announced back in April, testing of Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis has begun in earnest, kicking off on PC yesterday at 9:00 p.m. EDT via everyone's favorite games distribution platform, the Windows Store. Of course, this being a beta, there are a number of known […]
WRUP: How to let's face it you're not paying attention to this anyway edition
Oh, whatever. Yes, I get it, this is where you're supposed to find everything being deliciously random and then everyone laughs because non-sequitur, and I'm so tired of it all. I'm already tired and I haven't even written this week's What Are You Playing, which none of you are even going to pay attention to […]
The Daily Grind: How long do you need to wait to 'recharge' your MMO enthusiasm?
Whenever I leave an MMO — usually because I'm approaching boredom or burnout — I recognize that there's a good chance that I'll be back. I usually am. I've left and come back to LOTRO so many times that they don't take my picture off the wall above the cash register. But I also know […]
Everything we learned from the Final Fantasy XIV Digital Fan Festival 2021
Update: We've now summarized the event after the intro; the liveblog itself can still be found in the comments. The original intro follows. It's time, folks! Time to learn about the second new job coming with Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker, along with new areas, most likely the release date and alliance raid, and more! It's all […]
The Stream Team: Finishing Warframe's final anniversary alerts
It's the final week of Warframe's anniversary mission alerts and Massively OP's MJ wants that Excalibur Dex noggle! Decorating her landing craft with fun knickknacks is top priority, of course. After she finishes the alerts, there's plenty more she needs to do, from resources to gather to planetary nodes to unlock. Tune in live at […]
Betawatch: New World plans tests, previews dungeons, and assuages cash shop fears
It's been a busy week for New World, so much so that it could probably get bullet points of its very own along the way. For one thing, we got a look at the first expedition in the game (that's "dungeon" for those of us who don't want to bother learning game-specific terminology). For another, we […]
Retro-themed MMORPG Ravendawn talks up equipment and mounts
If you find yourself pining for ye olden days of isometric 2-D MMORPGs but want a new land to explore, the makers of Ravendawn would love to invite you into their domain. This Tibia-like title is working on a release for later this year, talking up different core systems as a way to get players […]
Bless Unleashed offers a compensation package for its final PC test event
The final PC testing period for Bless Unleashed offered some technical issues. This is not in and of itself a bad thing; the whole reason for a technical test would be identifying and fixing these technical issues, after all. Still, the team recognizes the issues caused by the sheer number of people logging in at once, […]
Star Citizen talks about upcoming capacitor changes and missile operator mode gameplay
It's time once more to round up Star Citizen's latest weekly development video, which talks about ship-based gameplay updates that are in the pipeline for the internet spaceship sandbox. First, the devs discuss changes to capacitors that will allow players to divert a set pool of extra energy to improve thrusters, shields, or weapons. The […]
The Stream Team: A heaping helping of healer hunting AdventureQuest 3D
Massively OP's MJ is quite happy to have her favorite class now in AQ3D. Now that she finally gets to play the class, she needs to level it up. And since she needs a bunch more voidshards from the Sandsea, why not conquer both goals with one grind? Join us live at 3:00 p.m. for […]
City of Titans shares travel power mechanics and video previews
You will believe a man can fly. At super high speeds. Holy crap, watch out for those trees, my dude. That's some of the impressions I got when checking out City of Titans' travel power preview, which showcased some of the work being done on superheroic locomotion and how the system will generally work. All […]
SoulWorker has officially made its self-published global debut on Steam
Don't call it a comeback, just call it coming back from obsolescence. Which is sort of the same thing? The point is that Korean developer Lion Games has officially taken over publishing duties for SoulWorker, bringing the free-to-play MMO back to Steam after Gameforge elected to shutter the game in the west, just as the […]
Fallout 76 starts testing July content update, runs double SCORE event
Fallout 76's test server is humming with activity and promise today, as the shard starts putting the July update through its paces. This content update is going to add the Steel Reign quest series, legendary crafting, legendary power armor, and updates to (you guessed it) legendary attributes. However, Bethesda also has a smaller patch coming […]
DC Universe Online is abuzz with a new seasonal event for spring
Spring has sprung into DC Universe Online, and it brings with it bees. Yes, the bees! It's the Bee Game up in here as players take on a plot by Poison Ivy to to wreak havoc and ultimately collect some sweet, sweet honey. That is, the players will collect the honey because they'll be dressed up as bees. […]
Swords of Legends Online maps out its May and June western betas
Swords of Legends Online showed up in the West virtually out of nowhere this spring, the western version of Gu Jian Qi Tan Online being published here by Gameforge. The company has been pushing out trailers left and right to hype up the launch, a date for which we still don't have, apart from a […]
Massively on the Go: Why Pokemon Go's COVID changes should stay, not roll back
Pokemon Go's already tried rolling back some of its COVID features, and between the original announcement of its June disappearance and the announcement of Gible Community Day – a pokemon that's popular, rare, and useful – players should probably assume Niantic will try to revert the game a bit to its pre-COVID form. From a […]
Stadia's developer marketing lead insists that the platform is doing fine
Hey, folks, did you hear that Google Stadia is doing fine? You probably didn't. Actually, you probably thought the opposite, what with the the platform having lost its first-party development outfit altogether and the biggest new feature added being a search bar (and when your product is made by Google, a search feature would seem likely to […]
Final Fantasy XIV's digital fan festival kicks off tonight at 9:00 p.m. EDT
Eager for more information about Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker? You'll get some tonight as the game's digital fan festival kicks off tonight at 9:00 p.m. EDT, with two days of livestreamed events free for everyone. Players can also acquire digital commemorative items if they feel like dropping a little cash on it, including the game's first […]
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen discusses Alpha One test features and overall alpha philosophy
As Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen nears closer to its still-undated Alpha One test, producer Ben Dean and creative director Chris Perkins decided to take a moment to discuss some of the previously announced features that will be in the test build and why they chose those features in a recent livestream. A lot of […]
City of Heroes Homecoming is finally allowing videos and streaming again
In March of 2020, City of Heroes rogue server Homecoming, the largest of the server groups, put a moratorium on videos and streams created on its servers "whilst [the group was] still working on legitimizing the server." The rule applied to both players and journalists, though the group would not comment on the penalty for […]
New World confirms cash shop items will be cosmetic-only at launch after alpha test storefront worries arise
New World very nearly doused its own flame before even leaving alpha. With the game's last major alpha update, the devs elected to test a number of things including the in-game cash shop, which according to some in-game notes (that were shared despite being under NDA) would include cosmetics and "quality-of-life items or boosts that […]
WoW Classic backs down on cloning prices, connects soon-to-be-desolated servers
You see, it wasn't just us complaining about the obscenely high price point of WoW Classic's upcoming cloning service. The $35 option received so much intense backlash from every quarter that Blizzard uncharacteristically has backed down and made this macrotransaction a microtransaction. "Over the last week or so, we've gotten a very large amount of […]
The Daily Grind: Are there MMOs you watch but don't play?
I've seen a few folks in our comments and Reddit lately mention that they like MMOs – but that they're more interested in watching MMOs than playing them. I genuinely understand this when it comes to some non-MMO titles, or when the streamer is more entertaining than the game. But for the most part, I […]
The Stream Team: The first rule of DDO's underground fight club…
Forget that! When Massively OP's MJ learns about a secret underground fight club in DDO, she doesn't care whether or not she can talk about it — she's going to show it! She'll be sharing the entire "Tharashk Arena" adventure. After that, she'll move on to help a mage imprisoned in her own mind. Ever […]
Massively Overthinking: Should PvP MMOs offer PvE servers?
Last week, we covered the revelation that Corepunk is considering adding PvE servers to roster, and I have to say I didn't see it coming. Usually, adding a completely different mode midway through development demands. But in this case, Corepunk's a bit of an old-school open world combat setting, and the game as originally planned […]
Path of Exile promises more aggressive VRAM engine changes to make for a better game experience
Who wants to learn how VRAM works today? See, Path of Exile is making some changes to how it utilizes VRAM in terms of resource management, and it wants to make absolutely sure that everyone reading about the update understands precisely what that means. So there's a whole lot of discussion about how VRAM works, how […]
Black Desert esports players will determine the best class in the Arena of Arsha Championship this weekend
Now to be clear, you shouldn't feel compelled to follow any game's meta if you don't want to, especially one that takes its cues from esports. What Black Desert is determining is the best class as it applies to the Arena of Arsha Best-in-Class Championship esports event. Try not to read too much into the […]
Old School RuneScape announces A Kingdom Divided quest line for June
The kingdom of Great Kourend is on the brink of discord and possibly worse as implied by an announcement post for the new quest line A Kingdom Divided, which is coming to Old School RuneScape in June. "Since the death of the last king, Great Kourend has been ruled by the Kourend Council. Under the […]
The Elder Scrolls Online doubles up on rewards with the Explorer's Celebration
There's about two weeks left until the next major content drop (Blackwood, naturally) arrives for The Elder Scrolls Online, so maybe you think you've done just about all there is to do in the game for the moment. But perhaps you could be enticed back with… doubles? Specifically, a whole lot of doubled rewards during the […]
Grab a stack of currency and premium account time for Gaijin's WW2 shooter Enlisted
Darkflow Software's multiplayer shooter Enlisted burst onto the scene this past spring as one of Gaijin's inCubator games, built on Gaijin's own engine and largely funded by players themselves. The game hit open beta on PC and all the consoles back in April, and this week it's rolled out a patch, adding more content in […]
World of Warships spearheads 17-hour international virtual museum hop next week
If the suggestive World of Warships transmedia synergy we joked about earlier this week didn't grab you, maybe this much more serious and wholesome one will: Wargaming announced today that it's spearheading an enormous campaign to bolster real-world museums and historic sites in conjunction with the already-existing Long Night of Museums tradition. The company is […]
Survival shooter Generation Zero introduces base defense gameplay and new craftable items in the Resistance update
The co-op survival FPS Generation Zerio has introduced some potentially intriguing features to its gameplay loop, not the least of which is a shift from simple survival to resistance against the game's robotic threat. That's mostly what's implied by the fact that this is called the Resistance update, anyway. Of course it's not just a […]
Osiris New Dawn's Discovery update adds new biomes, flora investigation, and space station building
Most of the time in games, a discovery system usually involves aiming a scanner at something and hitting a button. In the Discovery update for sci-fi survival title Osiris: New Dawn, discovery involves players hitting multiple buttons — as well as actually finding out more about the plant they're testing. The discovery system in question […]
Gear and house deco await Oblivion portal plunderers in Elder Scrolls Online's Blackwood
Elder Scrolls Online players might be buzzing about Blackwood's companion system and the chance to drag an NPC all over Tamriel to keep them alive, but the chapter is a lot more than that. To wit: ZeniMax Online Studios has dropped another dev blog today, this one focused on the actual Oblivion portals that gave […]
WoW Factor: What would it take for big changes in World of Warcraft?
The last time I wrote an installment of this column, it was in specific response to an interview that contained no small number of tone-deaf and kind of community-enraging statements, the sort of thing that doesn't really seem like a good idea. Today, as I'm writing, we're just on the edge of another interview, containing […]
Bless Unleashed's final PC beta has begun, and yes you can play right now
If you've got a Steam account and played an older version of Bless (ahem), you might have noticed that your account has been flagged for PC Bless Unleashed beta access on the platform. Go on and check because that final beta begins today and runs the whole weekend, open to everyone with a Steam account […]
Four Winds: Final thoughts on Elyon's first closed beta test
Elyon's closed beta test came and went, and boy am I happy with what I played. It was unfortunate that the test fell on Mother's day weekend, since I couldn't play as much as I wanted. But in the time I did get to play, I was thoroughly impressed. In my initial impressions, I argued […]
