Tag: Massively multiplayer online role-playing games

Throne And Liberty Is Steam’s Latest Massive Free Hit: Here’s What You Need To Know
After multiple delays and name changes, Throne and Liberty has finally been released, offering us a new MMO in a time of drought. The genre has waned in popularity, and can often seem overshadowed by more standard live service titles, but Throne and Liberty aims to shake things up with creative class design, gorgeous visuals, and an engrossing progression experience. Here’s what you need to know about this new MMO on the block.

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What is Throne and Liberty?

Throne and Liberty is a Korean MMO developed by NCSOFT and published by Amazon Games. Set in the open world of Solisium, what was once intended to be a sequel to Lineage has now become a unique property, although maintains the fantasy setting.

It provides PVE fans with a sweeping tale that sees you leveling up, taking on dungeons, and working through a series of intense quests as you seek to face off against a potentially world-ending threat.

If the PVE adventure isn’t enough for you, however, Throne and Liberty is also a very guild-focused MMO with a heavy emphasis on PVP. So if you want to see everything the game has to offer, you’ll be able to join a guild and work together to take on contracts and defeat other players in both massive and small-scale battles.

Throne and Liberty offers a tab-targeting combat system and abides by the holy trinity of design: tank, healer, and DPS—roles that are required to overcome its most challenging dungeons and encounters. Despite sticking closely to that familiar formula, Throne and Liberty shakes things up a bit by offering a shocking amount of freedom in how you can approach classes.

How does Throne and Liberty handle classes?

Screenshot: NCSoft

Unlike the average MMO, this game allows you to mix and match two main weapons to create any combination of your choosing. Do you want to wield a greatsword and a staff to become a badass battlemage? Cool! Go nuts slamming foes with your sword between casting fire and ice spells. Do you want to be a ranged DPS that can also heal? Combine the wand and tome with a longbow and unleash a flurry of arrows between casting restorative spells on you and your teammates.

While there are certainly meta combinations that allow for the very best stats for high-end PVE and PVP content, you never have to feel as if your off-meta pick will leave you out of the best parts of the game, as every combination can be a powerhouse in the right hands. Just choose what is most fun to you and go wild.

Is Throne and Liberty free-to-play?

Like many modern MMOs, Throne and Liberty has adopted a free-to-play (F2P) model. This means you can download the game for free on your chosen platform and play it forever without paying any type of subscription.

However, the game’s F2P design means that NCSOFT has implemented battle passes that can be purchased with real money, as well as an in-game shop where players can buy cosmetics, like outfits and transformations, and leveling passes that drastically improve the leveling experience that would otherwise require you to grind.

With this in mind, some may consider the game pay-to-win (P2W), but it’s not quite as egregious as similar titles. All of the gear and items can be obtained in the game simply by playing, but players who wish to speed up gear acquisition can do so. It’s still possible to move through the process at a reasonable speed without feeling like the game is punishing you too severely for not breaking out a credit card.

What platforms is Throne and Liberty on?

Throne and Liberty is available on PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X, and PC. Due to the fairly high system requirements of the game, it’s unlikely we’ll ever see it make an appearance on the Nintendo Switch.

Does Throne and Liberty have cross-play?

Screenshot: NCSoft

Yes, Throne and Liberty offers cross-play. This means you can absolutely play with friends across various platforms. For instance, if you’re on PS5 and have friends on PC, you’ll be able to link up with them in-game with no hiccups.

That being said, you’ll need to be on the same server to play together, so you’ll still want to sync up with your pals before you drop in to be certain you don’t end up having to payreal money on a server transfer.

Will my PC run Throne and Liberty?

Throne and Liberty is a gorgeous game that is no doubt graphically a step above the average MMO. If you’re on PC, you may be wondering if the game will run properly with your current configuration.

Here are the minimum PC specs:
- Intel Core I5-6500
- NVIDIA GeForce GTX 960 4GB
- 8GB RAM
- Windows 10
- DirectX 12
Here are the recommended specs according to Can You Run It:
- Intel Core i5-11600k
- NVIDIA Geforce GTX 1660
- 16GB RAM
- Windows 10 (64-bit)
- DirectX 12
Here’s to hoping your rig is up to the job!

For more on what’s happening in the world of MMOs, check out how ridiculous the price a pet hippo has become in Final Fantasy XIV.

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Billy Givens

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October 4, 2024
Dawntrail Players Should Read The Damn Dialogue, Cloud Gaming Is Good Actually, And More Opinions For The Week

A screenshot I took while Remote Playing the Elden Ring expansion this weekend.
Screenshot: From Software / Bandai Namco / Kotaku

I used to consider myself a certifiable cloud hater. I’ve never enjoyed my experiences trying to engage with cloud gaming, which allows players to stream their console games to PCs, smartphones, and dedicated handhelds, as well as adjacent remote play technology. In my limited experience, it was always too laggy, made the games look ugly as shit, and needed far too potent a signal to work even passably well. However, I went away this past weekend and didn’t want to lug around either of my consoles, so I gave it an earnest shot again and I must say, I’m pleasantly surprised with how far cloud and remote gaming’s come. – Moises Taveras Read More

Kotaku Staff

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July 6, 2024
Blizzard Dev Uses Company Perk To Get A Decade Of WoW Time Before Being Laid Off

Last week, Microsoft laid off 1900 video game workers across its various studios. This included cuts at recently acquired Activision Blizzard. And one employee, before being laid off, used a Blizzard company perk to walk away with nearly 10 years of World of Warcraft subscription codes.

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The video game industry’s terrible 2023, which saw thousands of people laid off across multiple companies, has continued into 2024. As of January 29, according to Kotaku’s layoff tracker, nearly 6,000 cuts have been made at places like Unity, Riot, Bethesda, Twitch, Discord, and Activision Blizzard. One developer at Blizzard realized what was happening and took advantage of a company perk before losing access.

As spotted by PC Gamer, on January 25, the same day the layoffs at Blizzard happened, former product lead Adam Holisky tweeted that once he “realized what was happening” and that he was one of the nearly 2,000 people losing their jobs that day, he made sure to “jump into Keyring and use all the 1-year [pre-paid World of Warcraft] subscription codes” he had yet to activate.

He then shared a screenshot that shows that he doesn’t have to pay for his World of Warcraft subscription until October 14, 2033. That’s one hell of a parting gift and beats a watch or pizza party, that’s for sure.

“Free game time is a well-known employee benefit,” Holisky added on Twitter. “I just never used all the codes I got over the years. It’s nothing sketchy or immoral.”

I reached out to Holisky and he explained to me that Keyring is an internal system at Blizzard where employees can access digital game codes that they “earned for whatever reason.”

He clarified that he had stockpiled these one-year codes while working at Blizzard for nearly five years. Another employee who was laid off at the company tried a similar tactic, but it seems so many others were trying to get their codes before getting laid off that they all crashed the Keyring service.

So Holisky was like Indiana Jones sliding under the door and grabbing his hat at the last second, except the stone door is horrible layoffs causing 1,900 people to be out of work and the hat is a decade of key codes. And while a decade of WoW subscription time is a nice prize, I assume most folks would rather have a job instead.

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Zack Zwiezen

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January 29, 2024
Fan-Revived MMO Given Official License To Continue

City of Heroes was a beloved MMORPG that launched in April 2004 and lasted just over eight years. In that time it won a dedicated community of players who, even after the game died, kept playing the MMO via private servers that existed in a weird legal gray area. But now, the developers behind City of Heroes have given one private server the official thumbs-up to keep on keeping on.

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In 2012, the superhero MMO City of Heroes was officially shut down. A lot of people were upset and sad about it. But not everyone stopped playing. In 2019, it became public that a secret, unofficial private server running the game had existed in the years since the game’s death. Following a meltdown of the game’s community, the folks running that server eventually released the game’s code online and some other private servers popped up. But there was always a fear—hence the first private server being kept secret for so long—that developer NCSoft would one day show up and put a stop to all this since the company owned the original code and IP.

But on January 4, the devs behind the unofficial fan-run project Homecoming announced that NCSoft had no plans to kill the most popular City of Heroes private server. Instead, the company did something surprising and provided the devs with an official license to maintain a City of Heroes server.

In a post published today on the Homecoming forums, the folks behind the private server thanked fans for waiting patiently over the last few years after teasing in 2019 that it was in talks with NCSoft about the project.

“Homecoming has been granted a license to operate a City of Heroes server and further develop the game – subject to conditions and limitations under the contract – but, as between us and NCSoft, NCSoft still owns the City of Heroes intellectual property and its derivatives,” the devs behind the project explained.

A video showing someone playing Homecoming

The devs confirmed that accounts and characters are “safe” and won’t be deleted. They also announced that new content will continue to be created for Homecoming, that access will remain free, and that the project will continue to be funded entirely through fan donations.

As part of this new deal, it seems other private servers might not stick around. The team hopes players will come to Homecoming and they can centralize the community more. The Homecoming team confirmed that part of the deal requires a single “in-house installation and patching solution” and this was why the team spent time developing its own launcher.

While there are still plenty of questions and details to work out, the overall reaction has been mostly positive. This is a surprising turn of events and a very rare example of fans being allowed to officially keep a game alive. It also shows that there are ways to preserve and keep MMOs going after they officially shut down, assuming there is fan interest and support for the dead game.

MMOs have always been a tricky thing for game preservationists to deal with and this City of Heroes deal shows that there are other solutions available if companies can play nice with fans and modders.

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Zack Zwiezen

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January 4, 2024
World Of Warcraft’s Next Three Expansions Announced At BlizzCon

Screenshot: Blizzard Entertainment / Kotaku

At BlizzCon 2023, Blizzard announced it’s preparing to enter what it’s calling World of Warcraft’s “Worldsoul Saga,” a multi-expansion story arc in the MMORPG that it plans to roll out over the course of the next three expansions.

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During the convention’s opening ceremony, Warcraft Executive Creative Director Chris Metzen explained that the Worldsoul Saga will bridge the gap between the first 20 years of World of Warcraft and whatever Blizzard has planned next for the long-running MMORPG. The tenth expansion, titled The War Within, will kick things off and will be followed by the eleventh and twelfth expansions, called Midnight and The Last Titan, respectively. The next three expansions form a trilogy that will usher in the next era of World of Warcraft storytelling.

After Metzen outlined the next three expansions, Blizzard showed a cinematic trailer for The War Within, which featured long-time World of Warcraft figures Anduin and Thrall getting into a heated discussion before the camera panned to the Sword of Sargeras, a giant sword that was stabbed into the surface of Azeroth during the events of the Legion expansion.

Blizzard Entertainment

Following this, Blizzard showed a trailer running down new features, including new zones to travel around in Azj-Kahet, Isle of Dorn, The Ringing Deeps, and Hallowfall. Players will also be able to take part in cooperative PvE instances called Delves, transfer progression between multiple characters through Warbands, and take advantage of expanded Hero Talents. Check out the trailer below:

Blizzard Entertainment

The War Within will launch in fall 2024. While past World of Warcraft expansions have launched around two years apart for years, Metzen says Blizzard is looking to release Midnight and The Last Titan with less downtime between. However, he didn’t give a specific timeline. It’s possible World of Warcraft’s next three expansions could launch annually, and that the next era of the MMO could be a reality in the next few years. Before that, however, World of Warcraft now have three more expansions to look forward to.

Kenneth Shepard

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November 3, 2023
Final Fantasy XIV Is Adding Fall Guys-Inspired Mini-Games

In the words of Paula Abdul and MC Skat Kat, opposites attract. Perhaps that kernel of wisdom can explain the recent announcement that Final Fantasy XIV—an epic, fantasy MMORPG—is crossing over with Fall Guys—a colorful, small-scale battle royale—in a future update.

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Final Fantasy XIV was a giant disaster when it first launched in 2010. However, following a complete shutdown of the original version in 2012, FFXIV was reworked into a better game known as Realm Reborn in August 2013, which was received much better by fans and critics. Since then, the game has received numerous updates and expansions, becoming one of the most popular MMOs in the world. And in the near future, the world of FFXIV will include Fall Guys content, for some odd reason.

The odd news was announced in Las Vegas by FFXIV producer and director Naoki Yoshida—known online as Yoshi P—during the first day of Square Enix’s Final Fantasy XIV Fan Fest 2023 on July 28. While the team didn’t release any videos or trailers of the Fall Guys content coming to the game, some screenshots were shared that show obstacle courses familiar to anyone who has played Epic’s popular game show-like battle royale.

Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku

“These warriors of light are having a bit of a different time than usual,” joked Yoshida on stage during the keynote.

According to the producer and director, the new content will support up to 24 players at once and is currently in development. This new Fall Guys-inspired content won’t be added randomly to missions or in the open world, but will instead be added to the preexisting Golden Saucer, an in-game amusement park that contains mini-games for players to enjoy.

Yoshida further added that since it was given this opportunity the developer really tried its best to make the most of it. That’s evident in the screenshots, which contain obstacles and platforms that look very accurate to what you would see in Fall Guys. Even HUD elements from the battle royale seem to be included in FFXIV’s version.

Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku

As for when you’ll be able to play this, Yoshida promised the new mini-games would be included as part of the 6.5 updates sometime in September.

But if you really can’t wait for that and you need some Fall Guys X Final Fantasy content in your life sooner than later, I’ve got some good news for your weirdly specific desire. On August 23, a Final Fantasy-themed battle pass will launch in Fall Guys and will run for six weeks. The update will include costumes based on iconic Final Fantasy characters and creatures, like Chocobos.

Now, somebody just needs to add MC Skat Kat to one of these popular online video games. Please. Oh, and in other news, FFXIV is coming to Xbox Series X/S consoles later this year.

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Zack Zwiezen

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July 28, 2023
Hit MMO Final Fantasy XIV Is Finally Coming To Xbox

At long last, Xbox owners will soon get to enjoy the MMORPG PlayStation players have enjoyed for nearly a decade. Final Fantasy XIV is headed to Xbox Series X/S in spring 2024 after being a PlayStation console exclusive since 2014.

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Producer and director Naoki Yoshida made the announcement on stage at the game’s 2023 fanfest in Las Vegas, NV alongside Microsoft Gaming CEO Phil Spencer. The Xbox Series X/S version will offer 4K graphics and faster load times, like its PlayStation 5 counterpart. While the full release is still almost a year away, an open beta will be available for players to try much sooner when patch 6.5x arrives in the months ahead.

For those who have been living under an adamantoise shell, Final Fantasy XIV has you complete fetch quests, dungeons, and raids across the dazzling world of Hydaelyn, full of political intrigue and mythical wonder. The game was one of the first live-service disasters when it first launched in 2013, and was even entirely shutdown for a time before re-releasing as A Realm Reborn.

Screenshot: Square Enix / Kotaku

It’s recieved increasingly excellent expansions ever since, each introducing new characters, classes, and conflicts. And while it’s an MMO, a Duty Support system lets you play solo with AI-controlled NPCs. By the time Final Fantasy XIV comes to Xbox Series X/S, Square Enix says the feature will enable players to complete everything from the start of the game up through its most recent Endwalker expansion without ever needing to interact with another human being.

Why did it take so long to get FFXIV on Xbox?

The story of how we got here, however, is a long one. Yoshida was asked as early as 2013 why the game wasn’t on Xbox One. His answer at the time was that Microsoft’s stance on crossplay was too restrictive. “The main reason from our side is that I don’t want the community to be divided; to be split into two or more. For example, one player might be on the PC version, another might be on the PS4 version, and I’m playing the Xbox version – but we’re not able to join the same game servers,” he told RPGSite at the time. “That is just… I just don’t like the idea. I disagree with it.”

That was back when Microsoft was the company seemingly standing in the way of crossplay between the two consoles. Years later, roles were reversed, with Sony pushing back against crossplay for games like Fortnite. Yoshida repeated his requirement for crossplay in a 2017 interview with Kotaku, and things seemed to be progressing in that direction not long after.

Spencer publicly promised to bring the game to Xbox at the X019 fanfest event in London. “We have a great relationship with Yoshida-san and we’re working through what it means to bring a cross-platform MMO, that they’ve run for years,” he told VGC at the time. “It will be one of the games that’s coming and it’s something that I know our Xbox fans will be incredibly excited to see.”

No deal immeidately materialized, however. Yoshida was asked again what the problem was during a 2021 interview around the time Final Fantasy XIV came to PS5. “So I feel bad for saying the same thing every time,” he told Easy Allies. “But we are still in discussions with Microsoft and I feel like our conversations are going in a positive tone.”

The positive tone of those conversations seemingly wasn’t enough to finally get Sony to agree to crossplay though, until now. The two companies also recently reached a 10-year agreement for Call of Duty to keep coming to PlayStation after Microsoft’s acqusition of Activision Blizzard is finalized. Purely a coincidence, I’m sure. Sony, Microsoft, and Square Enix did not immediately respond to requets for comment.

Ethan Gach

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July 28, 2023
MMO Introduces New Loot Boxes, Pulls Them Immediately After Fans Revolt

Image: Everquest II

Late last month the developers of venerable MMO Everquest II introduced a new kind of loot box to the game that was, basically, a pay-to-win situation. It did not go down well with the long-running community!

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As MMOBomb explain, the loot boxes, called Libant Evernight Heritage Crates, “bypassed lockouts and provided the chance to buy more opportunities at raid gear through the cash shop”. Fans quickly called them “pay-to-raid” items, and took to the game’s forums—which look as old as the game itself—to complain.

Their pleas were loud and numerous enough for developers Daybreak to almost instantly backtrack on the decision, posting late last week:

After listening to your feedback and having lots of discussions, we have decided to pull the Libant Evernight Heritage Crate from the in-game Marketplace store. The crate and most of its current contents will no longer be for sale.

We heard you and understand that there were particular elements of the Libant Heritage Crate that run counter to our shared values. We will no longer be making any of these types of items available.

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As a result of the uproar, Daybreak have decided that “in the spirit of community feedback” they’ll now be opening a dedicated forum where players can weigh in on stuff like balance changes before they go live, not after:

I’d also like to announce that in the spirit of community feedback, we will be opening new Class Balance Forums for Everquest 2, look for these to arrive in the very near future. We want you, the community, the people who play these classes to help us decide what balance changes and bug fixes to prioritize with major updates. These forums will improve our communication with you and allow you to help us scope what changes happen. These forums will have a section for each class, and you will be able to propose changes, communicate with us, and vote on the fixes and balance changes you feel are necessary for your class. The goal here is to communicate with you the time and effort that these proposed changes will require, and openly discuss feasibility. We will make changes open for discussion as long as they remain within reason.

Sucks to be posting about it under these circumstances, but man, an EverQuest II story! In 2023!

Luke Plunkett

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April 3, 2023
Final Fantasy XIV Expansion Now Free To Download

Image: Square Enix

Because Final Fantasy XIV has somehow evolved into one of the biggest video games on the planet, Square Enix has decided to grab some of its older content out of the back of the fridge, reheat it in the microwave for a bit and serve it up to a whole new audience of players who probably weren’t around when it was first released.

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I’m talking specifically here about the game’s second major expansion, Stormblood, which was released six years ago as a premium piece of downloadable content, but which for the next few weeks will be made available for free (provided you’ve already got a paid subscription, they’re not just giving it away to free/trial players).

As the game’s site points out (thanks, Eurogamer), the free offer runs until May 28. Importantly it’s not free-to-play, it’s free-to-download, so provided you grab it before that deadline you’ll be able to play it whenever you want.

It’s good for both the console and PC versions of the game, though as this official FAQ points out, you need to make double sure on PC that you’re downloading the correct edition, as only the Steam download will work if you bought the game on Steam, etc.

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We reviewed the game back in 2017, and said:

Final Fantasy XIV is one of the best massively multiplayer online role-playing games going, one of the few able to maintain a monthly subscription model in a day when even an Elder Scrolls MMO has to go free-to-play. Stormblood’s epic narrative, gorgeous new locales, spectacular battles and some fresh gameplay mechanics make a great game even better.

I am never going to finish it and no one can make me.

Luke Plunkett

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April 2, 2023
Two More Online Shooters Are Winding Up, But In The Best Ways Possible

Image: Natural Selection 2

So many online games have shut down so far in 2023 that we’ve already had to do a roundup, and it’s only February. Which means loads more are going to meet similar fates over the next 10 months, and the next two to meet their demise are Natural Selection 2 and Spellbreak.

The developers of Natural Selection 2, which has been running for 10 years, announced earlier today they would be ceasing “active development” on the game, but not fully shutting down. Instead, while they move onto other projects they’ll be leaving the lights on (emphasis mine):

10 years since its official release and over 117 updates later, active development of Natural Selection 2 has ended.

Our team and this community have provided many years of passion and support for this game. Over the years we had the opportunity to meet and collaborate with so many of you whether at an expo, live tournament, Discord or playing on a server. We thank you for your support and commitment to NS2 and know that this game would not have been the same without you. Now it’s time to look to the future and continue on to other projects within the company.

While we won’t be actively working on NS2, we will still continue to host matched play servers so that community members will be able to play games on-demand with other players or bots.

Although this isn’t goodbye, we still would like to say a very heartfelt thank you to you, our community and to all of those that worked with us on Natural Selection 2 over the years.

Much love and appreciation,

The UWE NS2 Team

While it’s always sad for fans when a game winds up like this, a lot of them just want to be able to still play the thing, so it’s nice to see developers Unknown Worlds leaving some servers up for people to enjoy.

As for Spellbreak, we knew its end had been coming as far back as June 2022, but it finally came today, with the game being delisted on Steam. That’s the bad news, though; the good news is that the game will live on, as the developers have “created a standalone version where players can host their own servers, play with their friends, and explore the game-space at their own pace.”

That’s great! That’s even better than leaving some servers up, because as John Carmack said last week, it’s the absolute best case scenario for when official support for an online game winds up. By releasing the game into the winds, and freeing it from the constraints of shopfronts and online platforms, fans can keep playing it for as long as there are fans, and even when there aren’t anymore, the game can still be preserved for future generations.

Luke Plunkett

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February 15, 2023
Yet Another Online Game Is Shutting Down, Devs Promise ‘Private Server’ PC Version

Screenshot: Knockout City

What a week. It was only Tuesday that we wrote about Rumbleverse, a battle royale game that was shutting down less than six months after launch. Now, on Thursday, we’ve got another, only this time it’s Knockout City.

Game director Jeremy Russo shared the news in a blog post published earlier today, saying the game’s servers will be shut down on June 6, and that after that Knockout City “will no longer be playable”. Or, at least it won’t be in its current form (emphasis mine).

Today we are announcing that Season 9 will be Knockout City’s final season. Then, on the morning of June 6, 2023, over two years after our initial launch, all servers around the world will be shut down and the game will no longer be playable. This was an extremely difficult decision for us, but a necessary and important one for our studio. Before that happens, there are a ton of new updates in store. We’ve got a jam-packed Season 9 full of all the amazing new content you’ve come to expect, an epic send-off both in and out of the game, and even a private server version on PC so Knockout City can live on forever.

While an online game shutting down is always a shame for the community left still playing it at the time, it’s also a reality of this business, even for a game that launched with five million players. When that time inevitably comes, it’s a cruel and disappointing twist that the game usually disappears forever, leaving nothing in its wake except screenshots and memories, and no way for future generations to see what it was all about it.

So the news that Knockout City will be getting a “private server” version on the PC is great, both for fans of the game as well as anyone interested in game preservation (which should be all of you). Russo says this will be “a standalone player-hosted version of the game”, which will be released shortly after the existing version’s shutdown in June.

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If you’re a player, the team will be running all kinds of updates between now and June, which you can read about in more detail here.

Luke Plunkett

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February 2, 2023
Guerrilla Confirms A Horizon Multiplayer Game Starring New Characters

Image: Guerrilla Games / Sony

While a Horizon multiplayer game felt all but inevitable, Guerrilla Games finally made the news official on Friday by way of a new job advertisement. The Sony studio behind the open world RPG series wants to take the post-apocalyptic robot combat online with an upcoming project featuring new characters and a different art-style.

“A new internal team is developing a separate Online Project set in Horizon’s universe,” Guerrilla Games wrote on Twitter. “Featuring a new cast of characters and unique stylized look, friends will be able to explore the majestic wilds of Horizon together.” So don’t expect to teaming up with Aloy and her other friends this time around.

Job listings for the new game include character, quest, and combat designers, as well as “stylized” world artists and character animators. From the descriptions, it sounds like what you’d expect from the creators of Horizon Zero Dawn and Forbidden West, but with a multiplayer twist. The references to a new art direction, meanwhile, might hint at a different set of visual tradeoffs from a studio traditionally at the forefront of visual fidelity, in order to accommodate the new cooperative gameplay.

Guerrilla also makes clear that it’s still working on a new single-player installment in the Horizon series, in addition to the PSVR2 spin-off, Horizon Call of the Mountain, and Forbidden West DLC, Burning Shores, the latter two both due out early in 2023. There are also job listings for an external project, though it’s not clear exactly what that is.

Rumors of a Horizon multiplayer project have been swirling around for a while now, including a report of a Horizon MMO being licensed out to Guild Wars publisher NCsoft. The multiplayer push comes as other major Sony first-party franchises have made the jump to online, including Ghost of Tsushima’s co-op raid update, and an upcoming multiplayer-only Last of Us spin-off.

Following its $3.6 billion acquisition of Bungie, whose successful MMO shooter Destiny 2 has become one of the gold standards in live-service gaming, Sony revealed plans to release over a dozen more live-service games by 2025. If the past few years have been any indication, not all of them will succeed, and few if any will reach the levels of Apex Legends, Genshin Impact, and other recent breakout hits. With a growing majority of all gaming companies’ revenue coming from microtransactions and other “recurrent player spending,” it’s easy to see why Sony would try.

Ethan Gach

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December 16, 2022