World of Warcraft was released in 2004 and generated incredible hype over the years. Many MMORPGs that came after WoW were considered WoW-killers. Sometimes they made the fans believe this, and sometimes even the developers themselves. We present to you 5 titles that were regarded as “WoW-killers” but ultimately failed.
What kind of games are these? Many MMORPGs in the last 15 years have been labeled as “WoW-killers”. They were supposed to either “steal” enough players from the successful game to be equally successful, or even push it off its throne completely.
So far, no game has managed to do this in the West. Gordon Walton, developer of games like SWTOR and Crowfall, even stated in an interview with MeinMMO that “WoW-killers have almost killed the MMO business”.
We present to you 5 MMORPGs that have failed and have either been shut down or receive very few new updates.
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes
Setting: Fantasy | Developer: Sigil Games Online / Sony| Release Date: January 30, 2007 | Shut Down: July 31, 2014 | Payment Model: Pay2Play and Free2Play from 2012
What was this MMORPG like? Vanguard: Saga of Heroes aimed to mix theme park and sandbox styles to create an MMORPG that would appeal to an even larger number of fans than WoW. In some respects, it succeeded.
The game focused on:
- Diverse races and 15 different classes
- A good crafting system with crafting classes that split off later, as well as quests for NPCs
- Housing for 5,000 accounts per server
Moreover, the MMORPG introduced difficult challenges in the form of dungeons. Some bosses could only be defeated if a specific class was present, which aimed to keep all classes relevant.
Why was it considered a WoW-killer? In fact, Vanguard was not directly seen as a “WoW-killer” by its developers. Developer Brad McQuaid, who passed away in 2019, even purportedly spoke poorly of WoW within the team. Thus, they explicitly did not want to create a game like WoW.
However, due to the mix of theme park and sandbox elements and the difficult dungeons, many fans hoped that it could be more successful than WoW.
What “killed” the MMORPG? Vanguard faced several problems at the beginning:
- There were numerous bugs, exploits, and performance issues. Players who were fans of WoW were not accustomed to such an extent of problems.
- Additionally, there was little content beyond level 35. Players became bored quickly.
However, an important factor in its failure was also WoW itself. The first expansion, “The Burning Crusade,” released on January 16, 2007, garnered a lot of attention. Players camped outside shops (via YouTube), and commercials circulated.
Vanguard, on the other hand, simply got lost with its release on January 30, 2007. In 2014, the game was shut down. Many fans now wish for the return of the old MMORPG, especially before it was simplified with new updates in 2008.
