When we talk about MMORPGs in 2023, we mostly talk about World of Warcraft, The Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, or Final Fantasy XIV. 4 different games, each brilliant in its own way – all over 9 years old. Why have so few new MMORPGs been released since 2014? Our author Schuhmann examines the situation.
What was it like in the past? Until 2014, new, major MMORPGs were regularly released. When you played WoW, you noticed it because every 6 months, half the guild was gone to try a new game:
- Lord of the Rings Online aimed to take MMORPG fans to Tolkien’s fantasy world back in 2007
- Age of Conan wanted to be an “MMORPG” for adults in 2008
- In 2009, Runes of Magic was released, an MMORPG you could play without asking mom for pocket money for the expensive subscription
- In 2010, “Star Trek Online” made the dream of finally being on the bridge of the Enterprise come true
- In 2011, EA tried its luck with Star Wars
MMORPG fans always felt that if the new MMORPG didn’t suit them because the inventory wasn’t exactly how they wanted it or if somehow the aesthetics didn’t resonate with them, then the game just wasn’t for them. But it didn’t take long for the next title to come along that was even better suited for them.
There was always something to look forward to.
This is a current hope of MMORPG fans:
This is how it is today: Every MMORPG player knows that releases are much rarer now. For years, there has been almost nothing new, except for Black Desert.
With Lost Ark and New World, only 2 high-quality MMORPGs have been released in recent years that were not everyone’s cup of tea. The era of the wide selection from the past is long gone.
This is due to two developments that occurred simultaneously but actually have nothing to do with each other.
The failure of WildStar and The Elder Scrolls Online ends the MMORPG hype
What changed in the West? In the West, this streak of new MMORPGs broke off in 2014:
- The Elder Scrolls Online was released, an MMORPG based on one of the biggest brands in gaming.
- With WildStar, a game was launched, which was clearly planned as a successor to WoW.
Both games failed upon release due to numerous issues:
- ESO had bugs, lags, and a stupid idea for the endgame.
- WildStar apparently bit off more than it could chew with the content plan, the timeline for the MMORPG and the team fell apart in real-time.
The essential point was: None of these games was WoW. None was as polished, as stable, or had as much content to offer. That was the same problem that all other MMORPGs before them suffered from: Many came for a short vacation in the new world but did not stay, instead returning to WoW when a new update or expansion lured them back.
ESO later managed to recover from its terrible launch; WildStar did not.
Just like ESO and WildStar, many games had suffered before, but this time it was different: Because the failure of ESO and WildStar – alongside the success of Destiny and GTA Online – triggered a reevaluation in the industry: MMORPGs were out and suddenly considered money pits. And in rapid succession, the hopeful titles we were supposed to play after 2016, such as Titan and Everquest Next, were killed off.
Gaming studios in the West have not touched the topic of “AAA MMORPG” since 2014, except for Amazon with New World, which took a strong turn towards survival:
- Games that looked “like a real, new MMORPG from the West” turned out to be a scam.
- Attempts to shift MMORPG development to the indie sector and finance through crowdfunding have so far failed and still do not produce any real results 9 years later.
Ashes of Creation is currently the biggest MMORPG hope in the West
In China and South Korea, the smartphone replaces the PC
What has happened in Asia? In China and South Korea, parallel to our MMORPG crisis, there was another development: In both countries, the smartphone replaced the PC as the dominant gaming platform:
In China, the game “Honor of Kings” was released in 2015, a sort of mobile variant of LoL that was closely linked to the dominant social networks there.
Because Riot Games refused to implement their hugely successful League of Legends in China for mobile, Tencent simply did it themselves and landed a huge hit in China.
The advantage: While LoL basically only appealed to young men who met in PC cafés to play, Honor of Kings became a game for everyone via social media. The female share is said to be huge.
Meanwhile, in South Korea, the venerable company NCSoft faced the threat of being replaced by the young company Netmarble, which was fully focused on mobile, reinterpreting the big brand “Lineage” as a mobile game: they called it Lineage Revolution.
But NCSoft didn’t want to let that happen and simply re-released their old PC MMORPGs on mobile – earning billions and turning their fortunes around overnight.
That was in 2016; the year marked a turning point in South Korea:
- Previously, NCSoft regularly developed new PC MMORPGs like Aion or Blade & Soul. They even tried to gain a foothold in the West with Guild Wars 2 and WildStar.
- But since then, in the last 7 years, no new PC MMORPG has been brought to market by NCSOFT. Their then-planned new PC MMORPG “Lineage Eternal” is still waiting for its release in 2023. As Throne and Liberty, it is now one of the biggest hopes:
While MMORPGs continue to appear in China and South Korea, they are no longer purely PC MMORPGs, as online role-playing games are desired here but “cross-platform titles” that can be played on the go on smartphones and at home on PCs. For western MMORPG purists, such games are not an option.
We see that these two parallel developments, which have nothing to do with each other, are now causing games to be missing for several years.
The hope-bearers that still exist are shown here:
