Can’t say this was a great week for the games industry or the MMORPG genre: This week, Microsoft decided to toss another 9100 games workers overboard in order to feed its unraveling AI monster, and that included everyone working on the ZeniMax Online Studios MMORPG, Project Blackbird – as well as the game itself.

Meanwhile, John Smedley finally revealed his new MMOFPS Reaper Actual, The Cube is going hard into MMORPG territory, and Guild Wars 2 is teasing what sounds like new specs. But we’re just staring mournfully at Blackbird right now.

Become a PatronRead on to catch up with the very best of this week’s MMO news and opinions today as every Sunday (since 2010!) in Massively Overpowered’s Week in Review!

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Microsoft just laid off 9000 more workers and canceled ZeniMax Online Studios’ in-dev MMORPG - We were expecting Microsoft layoffs today, but that doesn't make them any more pleasant or justified, and as you're about to find out, they very likely impact some of the… ZeniMax Online Studios president Matt Firor is ‘stepping away’ in the middle of Microsoft’s layoff binge - If you read this morning's Microsoft layoff news - that Microsoft is laying off more than 9000 more workers in addition to the 6000 it shed a few months ago,… John Smedley’s new MMOFPS is called Reaper Actual, and yeah, it’s pretty much PlanetSide 3 - Remember back in March, when John Smedley resurfaced teasing a new game headed up by PlanetSide 2 devs Matt Higby and Tramell Isaace? Well, today, we're finally getting a bit… City of Heroes spiritual successor Ship of Heroes is finally launching in August - It's been a long time coming, but Ship of Heroes finally has a proper release date: August 18th, 2025. Longtime MMO fans will recall that we've all been watching Ship… Guild Wars 2 is teasing something (new elite specs? a bard?) with a countdown for two weeks from now - Guild Wars 2, what are you cooking up for us next expansion? The MMORPG's social media posted some artwork on Monday of a lute, with the cryptic caption "15 days… MMO Hype Train: Dipping into Monsters & Memories’ public alpha - As one of my personal anticipated upcoming MMOs, I've been holding a weird, polygonal torch for the "throwback" styled MMO project, Monsters & Memories. As I said back in March,… Massively Overthinking: Is vertical progression still sustainable for MMOs? - Back in May, Project Ghost's Greg Street got MMO players buzzing over the state of MMOs in the West vs. the East. That isn't what we're going to talk about… Warframe of Mind: Spiderframe Oraxia creeps along the waterspout into my heart - I have an odd relationship with spiders. I personally think they're incredibly neat, but I also find them really disturbing. So I do not want them around me, like, at all, but I… EverQuest teases a 2025 expansion ‘to die for,’ EverQuest II sets GU129 Fear of Eternity for August - Daybreak was busy Daybreaking this week - the good kind of Daybreaking, mind you - and there's so much that we're gonna round it all up! First, EverQuest's producer's letter… BitCraft Online takes the stance of ‘moderate don’t mediate’ in griefing situations - Now a couple weeks into its early access launch, sandbox MMO BitCraft Online is catching its breath and looking forward to the next steps of its evolving gameplay. Clockwork Labs… Elder Scrolls Online teases Feast of Shadows’ dungeons and U47, launching August 18 - While ZeniMax Online Studios is currently reeling from the Microsoft-inflicted chaos of layoffs and the loss of a whole MMORPG those staffers have been working on for seven years as… Blue Protocol: Star Resonance interview highlights the devs’ genuine MMORPG ambitions - The resurrection of Blue Protocol as Blue Protocol: Star Resonance might seem like a strange arc for any MMORPG, but now MMO players are getting more info thanks to an IGN-published Q&A… Black Desert’s 30th class, Wukong, is live this week as the basegame is free to play through July 10 - Pearl Abyss spent last weekend's Heidel Ball dishing on what's en route for Black Desert in the near future, and now some of that content is already coming to pass… Why I Play: The Secret World’s Joelzilla Incident is why I play MMOs - Thirteen years ago today, The Secret World launched. Twelve years ago today, it began its first anniversary event, and I got to experience one of the most unique and memorable… NetEase’s Wuxia MMO Where Winds Meet confirms its final pre-launch test for July 24 - A couple of months ago, western gamers were introduced to Where Winds Meet, a multiplayer open world wuxia RPG developed by Everstone Studio and published by NetEase. Information on the game… ‘Adventure’ OARPG Vaultbreakers, now backed by Square-Enix investment, opens a week-long playtest - We've been covering BetaDwarf's multiplayer game Vaultbreakers for so long that it's had two other names along the way - Project Haven and Project F4E - and while it's long… Dune Awakening players find a fresh dupe exploit immediately after another was patched out - Life in Dune: Awakening continues to be challenging, and not because of any intended design. A patch that was put out just yesterday to address a material duping exploit may… Blizzard is putting Warcraft Rumble into maintenance mode following the Microsoft gaming purge - The Microsoft purge of 9100 people and a growing list of games live and in-development games continues to widen this evening. We'd thought maybe Blizzard would escape unscathed, but no:… We’re so back: Red Dead Online surprise-launches four ‘strange tales’ of the Old West - Are you ready for "the odd, twisted, and downright supernatural" in your Old West setting? Then saddle up, pard'ner, for a trip through Red Dead Online's quartet of Strange Tales… Team vs team mecha battler Mecha BREAK officially releases free-to-play on PC and Xbox X|S - The time has come for mecha PvPing fans to get into their big fancy robot suits and blow one another up for funsies. Mecha BREAK, the team vs team sci-fi… Sandbox MMORPG Bellatores talks up its open world, progression system, and combat ahead of Korean CBT - Do you remember Bellatores? Admittedly it's been some time since there's been anything new since it first crossed our notice in 2022, and that was back when the game talked… Perfect Ten: Ranking the Scions of the Seventh Dawn in Final Fantasy XIV - If all of the Scions from Final Fantasy XIV got into a fight, who would win? The answer, quite obviously, is that they'd wind up teaming up again because they love being… Corepunk outlines its path to launch with new storyline content, seasonal challenges, and a wipe - Corepunk has become one of those early access MMORPGs that keeps falling off the radar owing to a range of factors - not being on Steam, not keeping up consistent… Casually Classic: The eight WoW Classic Plus ideas I love from Blizzard’s survey - I'm about a month late to this particular World of Warcraft discussion, but I've had time to chew on the survey that Blizzard sent to select players (not me) about… WoW Classic’s Mists of Pandaria pre-patch is now live with a special mount to earn - Do you miss the days when World of Warcraft was dealing with the aftermath of a dragon blowing up the world? No, probably not. How about pandas? WoW Classic wants you to… Lost Ark’s summer roadmap promises a solo-friendly progression system for the global game - The western Lost Ark team has big news for fans today: It's dropped the roadmap for the rest of the summer into the fall (and actually a little bit beyond… Trion MMORPG Trove turns 10 years old with Sunfest events as Gamigo says no to roadmaps - Trion's voxelbox MMORPG Trove will forever hold a special place in our hearts, even if its birthday is making us feel as if our bones are crumbling to dust. The… Choose My Adventure: Defending our backyard in Elite Dangerous for powerplay profits - This past weekend was another brief but extremely worthwhile run through Elite: Dangerous as my best friend Britarnya and I took up the chosen task of engaging in the powerplay… Elder Scrolls Online has begun another Vengeance test of Cyrodiil alliance PvP - If you're an Elder Scrolls Online PvPer past or present, you are surely aware that ZeniMax Online Studios has been plugging away at shoring up the PvP scene in the… ‘No risk, no story’: Hypixel Studios’ original founder wants to revive and release Hytale in early access - It looks like the final chapter for the voxel-y MMORPG Hytale is yet to be written, even as the game and its developer Hypixel Studios were both shut down (an… Mundfish is unambiguously calling The Cube an ‘MMORPG shooter’ with dungeons and proper updates - Back during Summer Game Fest, Mundfish announced a new "MMORPG shooter" called The Cube, and now we're getting some more info courtesy of a new interview on Wccftech. As we noted… ARK 2 is still likely years away thanks to complex features and a focus on supporting Ark Survival Ascended - The existence of ARK 2 has floated around like the whispers of a mythical beast, particularly since Studio Wildcard has been really cagey about the game in recent months. Now,… Dune Awakening’s ornithopters are being used as griefing tools again, this time against PvE players - Apparently there's a stupid arms race beginning between Dune: Awakening's developers and some of its worst players. Now that "goomba stomping" has been patched out of the survival MMO, a… Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV has said farewell to the older world, it seems - There was a thread I noticed through Final Fantasy XIV: Endwalker that stuck in my mind with the general trajectory of the stories in that expansion. They felt like goodbyes. Not in… Albion Online’s Abyssal Depths update is here with a ‘hellish’ small-group PvP dungeon - June 2025 isn't going to escape without an Albion Online content update if Sandbox Interactive has anything to say about it. Which it does, because it's the developer. C'mon, you… Black Desert unveils new classes, new region, QoL, and gear and PvP updates at Heidel Ball - The Heidel Ball event for Black Desert has yet again offered another wide swath of previews for updates coming down the pike, but just in case you weren't awake before… Star Wars The Old Republic executive producer promises ‘concrete details’ on the long-delayed story… soon - A Jedi may have deep reservoirs of patience, but the wait for new Star Wars The Old Republic content can drive even a master insane. Fortunately, SWTOR fans were given… BioWare’s Anthem is shutting down altogether in 2026 - Alas, poor Anthem; we knew it, Horatio. The game never really got over with players, and while it launched to two million units sold, it only ever hit about five million… Skull and Bones’ Oaths of War comes out on July 15th with the new frigate - Ubisoft's naval sim Skull and Bones isn't going small with its second season this year. Rather, Year Two Season Two is about to unleash the biggest ship captains have seen… Insiders detail gameplay for Blackbird, the ‘f’ing incredible’ Zenimax MMO that Microsoft killed off - The 9,000 workers shed from Microsoft's games division saw not only massive losses in terms of workers, the end of content updates for other live titles, and the stepping down…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 524: RIFT’s A New Hope moment The Stream Team: Under the light of the moon of Split Fiction The Stream Team: Anything goes in Elite Dangerous The Stream Team: Guild Wars 2 Salvation’s Cost The Stream Team: Returning to the Harborage and Elder Scrolls Online’s main story The Stream Team: A trip to The Sane Asylum in Dungeons & Dragons Online The Stream Team: Into the Imperial Testing Station in Dune Awakening The Stream Team: Feeding the alt classes some XP in Final Fantasy XIV Every week, get caught up on the MMO genre’s latest news and Massively OP’s best content in our MMO Week in Review! Want more roundups of content? Try Friday’s Betawatch for MMO testing highlights, Saturday’s Make My MMO for MMO crowdfunding updates, and Sunday’s The MOP Up, which mops up all the bits of news we didn’t cover anywhere else.