Yesterday, Enad Global 7 held their Capital Markets Day. During this event, current figures were discussed, as well as plans for the future. The company purchased the MMO company Daybreak in 2020, which also owns the rights to EverQuest. It has now been revealed that a new EverQuest MMORPG is set to be developed in the future.
What kind of game will it be? Currently, there are not many details. It is intended to be a new MMORPG in the EverQuest universe and not a remaster. EverQuest is described as an important milestone in the genre and still has active fans who wish for a continuation, as stated in the presentation.
However, the new game is not expected to be more accessible to the general public but rather have a hardcore approach and pay homage to the old titles.
A budget of at least 30 million dollars has been set, with the presentation mentioning that costs are difficult to estimate. By comparison: The Asia MMORPG Astellia has a similar budget, over 75 million dollars have already been spent on Throne and Liberty by 2021.
The development is not expected to really pick up speed until 2025; currently, they are still in the idea phase. Nevertheless, a release is already planned for 2028.
EverQuest still has over 100,000 active players per month
Is this worthwhile for the company? Yes, because EverQuest is still a popular MMORPG, even though it is extremely outdated. According to statistics from the presentation, the first part has about 100,000 different active players per month, while part 2 has around 30,000.
Wasn’t there already a new EverQuest? Yes. The title was called EverQuest Next and was developed in the early 2010s. The MMORPG was very ambitious:
- The classes were supposed to offer a lot of freedom, and you could mix abilities from different frameworks, although you could only carry a certain number of them at the same time. It was reminiscent of Guild Wars 1 and the secondary class system.
- You were supposed to be able to change the world and build your own structures.
- The NPCs were intended to react dynamically to the player.
- The movements were very fluid, allowing sliding, climbing, and using a double jump.
- The graphics made a good impression.
- Players were supposed to design cities, areas, and quests through the decoupled EverQuest Landmark, which the developers could theoretically have integrated into the game. This way, players were to be involved in the further development.
In the end, however, the project failed because it was too ambitious. Dave Georgeson, the former head of the project, was convinced that EverQuest Next could have been possible under Sony, but they sold the studio during development to Daybreak Games.
It was officially discontinued on March 11, 2016.
However, the new game that Daybreak and EG7 are planning sounds more like a traditional MMORPG and less like one that aims to revolutionize the genre.
What do you think about a possible EverQuest 3? And what should the game look like in your opinion? Feel free to write it in the comments.
If you want to read more about EverQuest Next and other failed MMORPGs, check out this article: 5 promising MMORPGs that died before their release.
