Earlier this month we learned a bit more about survival MMO Dune: Awakening’s base-building system—namely, that to claim a piece of Arrakis for yourself, you have to pay the emperor for it. Yep, even 20,000 years in the future on an alien planet, you’ve still gotta pay taxes. Last week at the Game Developers Conference […]
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Why Funcom didn’t give Dune: Awakening an ‘endowment slider’ like Conan Exiles
Back before survival MMO Dune: Awakening was a glint in Funcom’s eye, the Norwegian studio was working on another multiplayer open world survival game: Conan Exiles. The gritty survival sandbox had a lot going for it, like a base building system, bloody combat, and a punishing survival experience, but there was one feature in particular […]
Read MoreDune: Awakening’s survival systems might do the impossible: make smashing boulders and collecting water fun
I like survival, but there are a few activities in survival games that almost instantly become mindless chores. I’m talking about smashing open rocks and boulders for ore, and that endless task we also practice in real life every day: keeping ourselves hydrated. Breaking boulders and drinking water. It’s not that I dread these activities, […]
Read MoreRuneScape creators’ new MMO has an unorthodox solution for the inevitable waves of bots: Giving you a ‘legitimate way’ to bot the game yourself
23 years after creating RuneScape, Andrew and Paul Gower are back with a new MMO. Brighter Shores, which has been in development for 10 years at the Gowers’ studio Fen Research, looks like an attempt to reimagine RuneScape for the year of our Lord 2024, and in a way that avoids some of the flaws […]
Read MoreDeveloper of survival MMO Last Oasis explains why they’re launching a new early access survival game before they finish their last one: ‘It was either that or shutting down’
Survival MMO Last Oasis has had a bumpy ride in early access. Launched in 2020, the nomadic MMO where players construct massive walking bases to travel across a dying planet instantly became a Steam top seller—but it had so many server problems its developer, Donkey Crew, had to take it offline for a week. That […]
Read MoreI’ve been waiting 5 years for the MMO by Journey’s developers to launch on PC, and it’s finally happening in April
The delightfully friendly MMO from Journey’s developers, Sky: Children of the Light, finally has a proper PC launch date. It’s been in open beta since 2019, first on mobile phones and then on consoles, but never on PC—the Steam page has promised a release date of “To be announced” for the past year. Like Thatgamecompany’s […]
Read MorePalia welcomes new players with a startlingly large stuffed frog for its Steam launch
Farming and community sim MMO Palia has been in open beta since August 2023 and today it’s sprouting on Steam where it will continue to be free-to-play in early access. Now that the scheduled patch downtime is over, you can download Palia on Steam to either hop in for the first time or sign into […]
Read MoreCozy MMO Palia welcomes new players with a startlingly large stuffed frog for its Steam launch
Farming and community sim MMO Palia has been in open beta since August 2023 and today it’s sprouting on Steam where it will continue to be free-to-play in early access. Now that the scheduled patch downtime is over, you can download Palia on Steam to either hop in for the first time or sign into […]
Read MoreFF14 Dawntrail will release in July, with early access a few days earlier
Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail will release on Tuesday, July 2, 2024 with early access a few days earlier on Friday, June 28. Director and producer Naoki Yoshida announced the dates while speaking at PAX East 2024, via a translator. He also announced the pre-order bonuses and collector’s edition bonuses to come with the expansion’s release. […]
Read MoreAgainst all odds, World of Warcraft’s subscription price hasn’t changed in 20 years: ‘I’d rather have a big, healthy, happy audience’ than risk driving players away with a price hike, Warcraft boss says
World of Warcraft’s subscription price hasn’t budged in most parts of the world for 20 years. Long before our collective nostalgia birthed WoW Classic, you had to pay Blizzard $15 a month to spend hours auto-attacking wolves in Elwynn Forest. The only difference now is that the wolves are in high-definition. John Hight, Warcraft’s senior […]
Read More‘We’re still evolving’: World of Warcraft’s new battle royale is part of Blizzard’s plan for ‘re-envisioning what Warcraft means’
In case you haven’t been keeping up to date with the latest World of Warcraft news, Plunderstorm is a battle royale mode that has arrived in Blizzard’s MMO, except that technically, it’s not part of the MMO at all. It’s a separate mode, with separate characters, though you’ll need a WoW subscription to play it. […]
Read MoreRiot hits the development reset button for its League of Legends MMO: ‘The initial vision just wasn’t different enough from what you can play today’
Riot has “reset” the development of its League of Legends MMO, according to cofounder and CPO Marc Merrill. Posting on Twitter, Merrill confirmed that “yes, we’re still working on the game,” but that the project has been set back to its early stages to pursue a new design direction. The decision was made “some time […]
Read MoreWoW’s new pirate battle royale ignites a baffling flame war between PvP and PvE players, meanwhile Blizzard’s ramping up the rewards to make the grind a touch kinder
World of Warcraft’s funky, limited-time event, Plunderstorm, is just fine by my making. I’ve played a handful of rounds, and experienced a slightly-clunky romp where you kill some enemies and messily try to land some skillshots Guild Wars 2 style in an MMO not really built for it. But hey, you can get some mounts […]
Read MoreBlizzard secretly made a battle royale game inside World of Warcraft to ‘break the rules’ its had for 20 years
Today’s announcement of Warcraft’s next patch event, 10.2.6’s pirate-themed “Plunderstorm,” marks a number of firsts for the venerable massively multiplayer RPG. It will launch today with no player testing, and includes a wild 60-player battle royale mode. Not only is this the first time this mode will appear in Warcraft, it’s not on standard servers […]
Read MoreWorld of Warcraft’s battle royale mode won’t force you to PvP so everyone can ‘have an awesome pirate party with your friends and collect plunder’
World of Warcraft releases a wild battle royale mode today as part of its Plunderstorm 10.2.6 patch, but you won’t have to battle other players to fully enjoy it, Blizzard developers said. “Even if you’re not the one to directly attack other players, you can go around killing monsters, opening chests and still collect Plunder […]
Read MoreBlizzard’s World of Warcraft patch schedule suggests The War Within expansion will launch in August
Today marks the launch of World of Warcraft patch 10.2.6 and Plunderstorm, Blizzard’s new battle royale PvP experiment. Based on my interviews with Blizzard representatives and WoW’s past update cycles, I’ve figured out when the MMO’s next expansion will probably release. More precisely, it puts the The War Within expansion launch as sometime in August, […]
Read MoreChris Roberts says Star Citizen is finally pushing for the 1.0 ‘finish line’
Crowdfunded space sim Star Citizen achieved a new milestone recently—the first player to seamlessly jump between two star systems on different servers—and now the guy in charge, Cloud Imperium Games CEO Chris Roberts, is indicating that the 1.0 release might finally be in sight. It’s been over a decade since Roberts first showed me a […]
Read MoreFinal Fantasy 14 will soon let players raid with their friends across the pond… well, as long as they’re in Oceania
Long gone are the days where you couldn’t leave your designated server in Final Fantasy 14. A patch in 2019 introduced the ability to hop between servers within your data center, before an update in 2022 went one step further and let folk hop between data centers within their region. Players hoped that it would […]
Read MoreRuneScape creator unveils new MMO after 10 years of development: ‘At times it has felt like an insurmountably ambitious task’
Game designer Andrew Gower, who created the legendary, still-active RuneScape MMO with his brother Paul in the early 2000s, has just unveiled a new MMO, and it’s releasing this year. Brighter Shores has been in development for 10 years, according to Gower’s studio, Fen Research. It aims to provide “a relaxing respite from daily life,” […]
Read MoreFinal Fantasy 14 won’t let you blast past its story for free anytime soon because Yoshi-P worried ‘the value of the game itself will be diminished’
Final Fantasy 14 is getting to be a mighty long game. With one base game, four expansions and a fifth one on the way, I don’t think it’s too out there to reckon that you’d be spending a good 300 – 400 hours ploughing through the story alone. That can be a big roadblock for […]
Read MoreYoshi-P really wants Final Fantasy 14 to have more crossover content with Final Fantasy 7, but he’s waiting for the remakes to wrap up first
Final Fantasy 14 has a lot of neat nods and callbacks to the rest of the series. From the Final Fantasy 3-inspired Crystal Tower raid series to crossover events with entries like Final Fantasy 13 and 15, the MMO serves as a great homage to Square Enix’s library of RPG classics. Upcoming expansion Dawntrail is […]
Read MoreWoW’s latest Hearthstone event crushed to death by a tide of roleplayers, as selectively-applied server sharding causes utter chaos
World of Warcraft’s latest Hearthstone event is receiving some mixed feedback. Mostly because it’s a little confusing, but also because of its chaotic world bosses. In case you’re unfamiliar, here’s the rundown: In three major cities (Stormwind, Orgrimmar, and Valdrakken) there are hotspots with Hearthstone tables in ’em. Well. Table singular, unless you go to […]
Read MoreNexon’s MapleStory Universe Web3 MMO will use Avalanche blockchain
Are you looking to showcase your brand in front of the gaming industry’s top leaders? Learn more about GamesBeat Summit sponsorship opportunities here. The legendary online game MapleStory is coming to the Avalanche blockchain in the form of a Web3-enhanced extension of the franchise. MapleStory, a core intellectual property of Nexon Group, is a massively […]
Read MoreThousands of players gather online in Final Fantasy 14, Dragon Quest 10 and more to mourn legendary artist Akira Toriyama
After the surprise death of Dragon Ball creator Akira Toriyama at age 68, players across online communities have gathered together to pay tribute to Toriyama’s decades of beloved and influential work across manga, anime and videogames. Alongside Dragon Ball Z, Toriyama is well-known for his iconic designs for the Dragon Quest series—including the cover art […]
Read MoreThe best MMOs on PC
It can be hard to find the best MMOs when there are so many of them, and so many different focuses, business models and settings. Do you want to traipse across a fantastical land as an acrobatic cat-person? Maybe you’d prefer to flit off into space, blowing up pirates and making deals as part of […]
Read MoreThe best MMOs in 2024
It can be hard to find the best MMOs when there are so many of them, and so many different focuses, business models and settings. Do you want to traipse across a fantastical land as an acrobatic cat-person? Maybe you’d prefer to flit off into space, blowing up pirates and making deals as part of […]
Read MoreThe kids’ MMO that got plagued by messages reading ‘The next world is my boss’s a**hole’ is now on European Steam
Wizard101, an MMO for kids that’s older than most of its playerbase, is coming to Steam. Well, kind of. Wizard101 has already been on Steam for US players since 2018, but as of yesterday the venerable and family-friendly massively-multiplayer online RPG (FFMMORPG) is also available on Steam in Europe, where it had previously been absent. […]
Read MoreWhile players are the main motive, Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail’s visual makeover is also meant help devs ‘advance their careers’, says director Yoshi-P
Final Fantasy 14’s due a new coat of paint, and if you’ve been following the ramp-up to Dawntrail, you know it’s getting one. Better lighting, shinier models, and an overall tune-up to a game that’s past its 10th anniversary by now. In a recent interview with Play magazine (thanks, GamesRadar) Naoki Yoshida—also known as Yoshi-P—let […]
Read MoreWhile players are the main motive, Final Fantasy 14: Dawntrail’s visual makeover is also meant to help devs ‘advance their careers’, says director Yoshi-P
Final Fantasy 14’s due a new coat of paint, and if you’ve been following the ramp-up to Dawntrail, you know it’s getting one. Better lighting, shinier models, and an overall tune-up to a game that’s past its 10th anniversary by now. In a recent interview with Play magazine (thanks, GamesRadar) Naoki Yoshida—also known as Yoshi-P—let […]
Read MoreWoW Classic Hardcore player decides the terrifying climb to 60 wasn’t hard enough, commits to using two DDR mats just to feel something
World of Warcraft Classic isn’t necessarily hard, it’s just punishing—requiring, as many old MMORPGs did, a huge amount of patience on behalf of the player. It’s easy to accidentally pull too many mobs or wipe on an ill-fated dungeon run, forcing you to make a long jog back to your corpse. Adding permadeath to that […]
Read MoreWhy survival MMO Dune: Awakening won’t have sandwalking: ‘It looked ridiculous and it made you walk really slowly’
Walking around on the planet Arrakis, also known as Dune, is a dicey proposition. Gargantuan sandworms are attracted by the rhythmic tremors caused by footsteps and quickly arrive to gulp down whoever is stomping around on the sandy dunes. That’s where the sandwalk comes in, a method of dune traveling practiced by Arrakis natives known […]
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