Guild Wars 2 formally announced its next expansion this week: Launching October 28th, Visions of Eternity, with new content in a beachy setting. Of course, all anyone is chattering about is those dang elite specs, which will start their official unveiling this week!

Meanwhile, we’re keeping an eye on TennoCon, worrying over New World, returning to Black Desert, welcoming an EverQuest pserver to the lands of legitimacy, and ordering some extra popcorn for the Subnautica 2 lawsuit.

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

Guild Wars 2’s next expansion is called Visions of Eternity, and it’s coming October 28 - As promised, ArenaNet has fully unveiled Guild Wars 2's next expansion as of this afternoon - and longtime players are very likely to be pleased with what the studio is… TennoCon 2025: The highlights from tonight’s Warframe TennoLive reveals - TennoCon grows and grows each year. But even with a two-day event that encompasses two games, the TennoLive broadcast that caps off the con with all the big Warframe reveals… TennoCon 2025: Soulframe prelude test access is open to everyone who signs up this weekend - There are three kinds of players who have signed up for the Soulframe Preludes: those who are currently playing (by far the smallest group), those who are eager to play… Vague Patch Notes: The real problem with generative AI in gaming is intent - I do not like DC Universe Online. I made a joke out of this in yesterday's Perfect Ten, but it was all true statements. Nearly every single element of that game… Casually Classic: Classic Plus can course-correct WoW Classic’s greatest mistake - Last night in WoW Classic, our guild got into a huge, rambling discussion about the expected path for the 20th Anniversary Servers and our desires for the future of the… One of the EverQuest emulators is back with an official agreement with Daybreak – but it’s pretty restrictive - MMORPG fans will remember that back in June, we learned that Daybreak was pursuing one of the many EverQuest emulators in court. In brief: Daybreak has authorized at least one… Vitae Aeternum: New World’s season 10 looks promising, but the future remains uncertain - The next season for New World is looking to be yet another with little to nothing on offer for PvE players, but there is finally some hope on the horizon… Choose My Adventure: Pantheon Rise of the Fallen’s old school design choices rear their head - I have attempted to clear the same single quest five times. I appreciate that on the face of it that statement sounds alarmist or like I'm trying to hide some… Not So Massively: Diablo Immortal’s druid dunks on Diablo IV’s - After bouncing off it on the initial release, I didn't really expect to see myself back in Diablo: Immortal, but Andy's preview of the new Druid class made it sound… Star Trek Online’s new team talks radio silence, dev learning curve, and future content stories - Earlier this week we reported that the devs at DECA Games would finally be hosting an informational livestream that the studio promised many months ago. That stream did indeed come… Desert Oasis: Black Desert just hits different these days - I've been playing Black Desert Online for about 7 years now. It's been on and off the last few years. I started way back in 2018, when the Dark Knight… Faced with a breach of contract lawsuit from fired execs, Krafton is appeasing remaining Subnautica 2 devs - Update: We've summarized the main allegations of the now-unsealed complaint at the end of this post. The original article remains. Subnautica 2 has become the unlikeliest of headline news over… Perfect Ten: MMOs that transitioned their business models successfully - It was 2009 when Dungeons and Dragons Online transitioned to a free-to-play model, and everything changed. That was our "Fire Nation attacked" moment. I'm serious. If you don't realize how big… Star Citizen kicks off a new event, adds a new ship, and applies flight model tweaks in alpha 4.2.1 - This weekend sees yet another injection of content to Star Citizen, as alpha 4.2.1 officially arrived this week with a headlining new event, a new ship and weapon, and a… Blue Protocol Star Resonance confirms July 24 closed beta signups in new gameplay trailer - For the longest time we've been forced to sit our our hands, chew our desks, and stare somewhat jealously at A Plus Japan and Bokura's slow rolling return of Blue… Dungeons and Dragons Online’s 64-bit realms went live, but the server queues are backed up - It's DDO-Day +1 for Dungeons and Dragons Online's mass server migration, as a flood of players exit the soon-to-be-extinguished 32-bit realms for one of the four 64-bit worlds. Transfers to… MMORPG Loftia hasn’t even launched and its devs already have a theoretical end-of-life preservation plan - If you haven't been paying any attention to in-development solarpunk MMORPG Loftia, you may want to revise that decision. This week, the Kickstarted game issued a statement about game preservation… Massively Overthinking: If you were rich, would you buy an MMORPG you loved? - So here's a fun one. Over the weekend I was surfing YouTube trying to put together a Trove playlist because I think the Trove music is super fun and nostalgic… Ubisoft’s new spun-off franchise division is being led by… the son of one of Ubisoft’s founders - Oh, Ubisoft, when we think of quality, we think of you, if by "quality" we mean "your former executives were convicted of crimes" and "doin' the layoff dance" and various… Massively on the Go: Pokemon GO’s buddy system is doing all the lifting - We've talked about Pokemon Go's over reliance on throwing everything but the kitchen sink at features and/or events to make them seem worthwhile, and in some ways, that's been toned… RIFT’s Unicornalia returns with hooves, horns, and hopes for more content - We were recently talking in the Massively OP office about how there really aren't any good holidays for the late summer stretch. Well, apparently we plumb forgot about Unicornalia because that's… Old School RuneScape seeks input on hosting live events in the US as it preps for July 23’s The Final Dawn - Would you like to see more in-person events for Old School RuneScape come to the US in 2026? Then you will very likely want to fill out a survey to… EVE Online makes tweaks to ghost sites and exploration zones to help jumpstart in-game industry - There are certainly a lot of gears that lock together to make EVE Online tick, but a couple of those in-game activity connections are getting a little bit deeper thanks… Mobile MMO Ragnarok M Classic announces its global release, promises single game currency monetization - When we were looking over this game announcement and its excitement over "Zeny buys it all," we were immediately suspicious that this was yet another blockchain morass in the making.… Lost Ark’s July update welcomes you to Paradise next week - Lost Ark is going full speed ahead on its July update, which is launching on July 23rd, and the latest Eye on Arkesia video is all about previews of that… MapleStory’s Dave the Diver collab content is live alongside Stargazer part 2 - Stargazer part 2 has arrived to MapleStory as of the wee hours of this morning - and yes, this is the one that includes the collab with hugely popular indie… After a few delays, Dungeons and Dragons Online will open its new 64-bit servers this afternoon - While neither July 9th nor July 15th turned into the Grand New Server Opening Day that Dungeons and Dragons Online fans have been expecting, it's looking a lot more promising… Sea of Thieves talks about the impact of layoffs at Rare as Season 16’s third episode kicks off today - Normally the developer update videos that come out of Sea of Thieves are focused solely on the things coming to the horizon of the piratical sandbox, without mentioning anything from… Mortal Online 2’s Reckoning update is live with territory control and combat ability overhauls - Mortal Online 2's Reckoning expansion is live this afternoon, but the only thing we're reckoning with is the hideous freaking bug thing that capstones the expansion trailer. OK, I kid,… Not even 500 people completed all of the season journey tasks on New World’s last season server - Whether you loved or hated New World's seasonal servers, they're still going away, or so Amazon intimated last week. However, they're still offering up some lessons about how people play… BitCraft lays out its roadmap for 2025, including player housing next week - BitCraft is creeping up on the one-month mark since it originally launched into early access this summer. So how is the MMORPG sandbox doing? Not too shabbily for a lil… Skull and Bones brings the frigate, megaforts, and a faction fight in the Oaths of War update - This week has brought some big things to Skull and Bones, and not only because there's a bunch of new content to play with the Oaths of War update that's… Destiny 2’s Edge of Fate, live today, marks the start of Bungie’s new content cadence - After much teasing, The Edge of Fate is finally live in Destiny 2 this afternoon, delivering the first chunk of content to the Year of Prophecy that marks Bungie's new… The Borderlands MMO resurrection team has finally revived a functioning build for the game - So let's recap. The Borderlands series had an MMO, briefly, that was only released in China. It shut down in 2015. Modder and dataminer EpicNNG was determined to not let this… World of Warcraft Midnight promises housing, zone, and mechanic previews at Gamescom August 19 - Sure, the timing of this announcement this morning was definitely suspect considering what another big five MMORPG was about to and now has revealed, but let's all try our best… Blade and Soul Heroes launches globally September 2 following demos at KCON and Gamescom - NCsoft stunned players when it first announced Blade and Soul Heroes during Summer Game Fest in June, and when the studio called it a "collectible action MMORPG," we assumed that… Zenimax Online Studios union reaffirms support for Blackbird devs as workers roast Xbox execs over AI slop - The splash damage from Microsoft's decision to gut its games division, especially the developers behind Zenimax Online Studios' formerly in-development MMO Project Blackbird, is still being felt across the industry.… Nightingale is pivoting from official online servers to private dedicated servers - Back in June, we started getting pretty worried about Nightingale, whose developers hadn't really surfaced over the course of the couple of months since the game's big April patch. When… New Riot MMO job listing refers to ‘an innovative game concept in the early stages of development’ - When an upcoming MMORPG project is being kept tightly under wraps, what can the average fan do to tease out some information? One strategy is to thumb through the studio's… Wisdom of Nym: Final Fantasy XIV’s Moogle tomestone hunts are getting old - When Creative Studio III first announced that Final Fantasy XIV would be moving its patches from hitting after three and a half months to four months, my reaction was fairly… Longtime MMO dev Bill Roper laments the current gaming landscape: ‘Our industry feels broken’ - It's been a hot minute since we last checked in with Bill Roper, a well-known industry veteran with titles such as Warcraft, Hellgate London, and Champions Online under his belt.… Albion Online celebrates its eighth anniversary with more giant statue smashing and digital cake - Hey, lookit that, Albion Online is eight years old this week, and it clearly has a very specific type of party it likes to throw to mark the annual milestone,…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 526: A whip, six katanas, and Black Desert love The Stream Team: Kicking off the weekend with a friend in Tower Unite The Stream Team: Touring Towerborne’s early access The Stream Team: Enjoying some lazy laser mining together in Elite Dangerous The Stream Team: Must Work Hard for Now in Guild Wars 2 The Stream Team: Starting some Elder Scrolls Online scribing The Stream Team: Sandbox Saturday sets sail into the Lost Skies The Stream Team: Seeking riches by any means necessary in R.E.P.O. 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.