During a live stream, Zenimax’s Creative Director Rich Lambert stated that future MMORPGs will focus on a specific target audience and will also be smaller in scale.
It is clear that in recent years no major triple-A MMORPGs have been announced by well-known studios or publishers. The reasons for this are manifold. Zenimax Online’s Rich Lambert, who works as Creative Director on the MMORPG The Elder Scrolls Online, spoke during a live stream about the future of the genre.
MMORPGs will change
The Elder Scrolls Online is doing quite well. While Zenimax does not release official numbers, just looking at Steamcharts shows that several thousand players are always online at the same time. Many use Steam or play on Xbox One or PlayStation 4. Nevertheless, Rich Lambert sees the future of the genre in a slightly different direction. He believes that future online role-playing games will focus more on a specific target audience, but will also be significantly smaller.
In this way, for example, one could have a PvP-heavy MMORPG that only appeals to PvP fans, without offering a huge open game world with a lot of content, but rather a small world where player versus player battles take place. Another MMO could appeal to housing fans, and a third focuses on telling an exciting story. Online games that offer innovations in social areas could thrive.
From Large to Small
Developing very large open game worlds is associated with a high financial risk for many studios. Then hoping to reach many players when they are already focused on “their” MMO and luring players away from other MMOs is very risky. There are simply too many MMOs on the market; one needs to find their niche and serve the target audience. Trying to do too much can be counterproductive.
Perhaps in the future we will have to say goodbye to Massively Multiplayer Online role-playing games as we have known them. Then there will not be hundreds of thousands or millions of players exploring the vast game world with you, but rather smaller games with smaller worlds, where only a few hundred or thousand players roam. However, these will be tailored specifically for the game. Can you imagine that?
The Elder Scrolls Online: Royal murder in the Imperial City or returning dragons in Skyrim – the last decade has impressively demonstrated that there is no shor...
