MMO Week in Review: Third quarter layoff week

If there’s one constant for September in the games industry, it’s the layoffs as companies juice their numbers at the end of the third quarter. So was was this past week, as we saw corporate layoffs for Blizzard’s Hearthstone team, Roblox, and Epic Games – the last of which saw over a thousand workers either let go or dispatched to new spin-off companies. Sigh.

Meanwhile, we scoped out the future of New World, said farewell to The Cycle, considered the impact of Lord of the Rings Online’s canceled remaster, and pondered the World of Warcraft expansion leak.

THIS WEEK’S TOP STORIES

Layoffs hit Blizzard’s Hearthstone team as Chris Metzen upgrades to new World of Warcraft exec title - Tuesday marked another dark day for the teams at Blizzard once again, with news coming out that the studio is being hit with more layoffs. Multiple sources confirm that numerous…

Interview: New World’s Scot Lane on the MMO’s past, future, and upcoming dungeon finder - New World launched two years ago today. While it may have stumbled out of the gate, I believe it has since evolved into one of the best games in our…

Interview: New World’s Scot Lane on Edengrove housing, transmog tokens, and more - In part one of my interview with New World's game director Scot Lane, we covered topics such as the game's past, future plans, and the upcoming dungeon finder feature. But…

Fortnite’s Epic Games confirms mass layoff of 830 workers - Epic Games has joined the long list of gaming companies to slash its staff after winding up during the pandemic gaming boom. Following a report from Bloomberg alleging that the…

LOTRO Legendarium: It’s OK that LOTRO’s remaster isn’t going to happen - The pricey Lord of the Rings Online remaster is officially dead, and its console port is now on the "backburner." It is, depending on whom you ask, the end of…

WoW Factor: If this is the state of World of Warcraft, why talk about it? - The other day, I was talking with a friend about another MMO altogether. It doesn't actually matter which one it was because the important takeaway is something that I said…

MMO Burnout: Non-MMOs that scratch my MMO progression grind itch - There are plenty of reasons people play MMORPGs, whether it's to experience a story (yes, those exist), run in some PvP wars, or grind out some endgame progression. Of course,…

The Soapbox: The real cost of breaking trust with gamers - There's a quote going around these days in gaming spheres about trust being like a broken vase that can be fixed but will never be the same - and with…

Final Fantasy XIV posts the preliminary patch notes for next week’s Growing Light update - Final Fantasy XIV fans can pretty much set their watch to a number of things that the MMORPG puts out, and one of those things is the preliminary patch notes…

Fall Guys developer Mediatonic ‘hit very hard’ by Epic Games’ mass-layoff – but not shuttered - Epic's mass-layoff of 830 workers (and offloading of 250 more to spun-out companies) yesterday may have been characterized by the company as largely outside of core development, but one online…

Massively Overthinking: The impact of jump start servers in MMOs - With Chris' Choose My Adventure run on Lost Ark - specifically, on its jump-start servers - coming to a close, I thought it would be fun to reflect on the…

V Rising is still eyeing launch for Q2 2024, with a new biome, customization, and live events - Back in June, we noted that Stunlock Studio's vampire survivalbox V Rising - which has been in early access since May of last year and suffered several content delays of…

MMORPG sandbox BitCraft sets alpha for early 2024, picks up Austin Wintory and Rachel Hardy for the score - Earlier this week in our coverage of BitCraft's crafting and economy deep-dive, we pointed out that studio Clockwork Labs has been teasing something big on the anniversary of its second…

Vague Patch Notes: The games industry arrogance cycle, in MMOs and elsewhere - Unity has fallen. Oh, sure, the company has rolled back the worst parts of its incredibly boneheaded "give us money for your successful game" nonsense, but not all of it...…

Pantheon Rise of the Fallen defends its art direction shift as more performative and less generic - Followers of Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen know by now that the game has a new lick of visual paint as Visionary Realms pulled back the curtain on a new…

Wurm Online’s owner Game Chest Group sees negative profits but says it’s ‘on the right track’ in Q2 financial report - Yesterday we reported on Wurm Online's end to a two month-long bout of radio silence, which saw corporate owner Game Chest Group detail efforts to bring in new players and…

Elder Scrolls Online players might score a free house – if the community wins the Secrets of the Telvanni event - Elder Scrolls Online is about to set off a whirlwind of events - and that's without counting the impending season of Halloween. Starting tomorrow, ZeniMax Online Studios will begin the…

Perfect Ten: The 10 unsung heroes of the MMO user interface - If we ever think of an MMO's user interface, it's either when we're getting settled into a new game or when a title decides to streamline or improve its UI…

The Cycle Frontier sunsets today as studio YAGER says goodbye to players, literally - Back in June, we learned the sad news that Tencent-backed YAGER would be sunsetting its PvEvP shooter The Cycle Frontier, owing in part to the game's wild early success. As…

Casually Classic: Six reasons hardcore servers make WoW Classic worthwhile - The first time that I heard about the unofficial "Hardcore Classic" scene for WoW Classic, I didn't get it. The idea of voluntary permadeath play seemed so at odds with…

Palia’s latest open beta patch scorches cooking (and cake parties) with big nerfs - It was a bit delayed this week, but Palia's 0.169 patch did indeed roll out last night, bringing with it a theme of change - just not always welcome change.…

Tencent’s not-a-WoW-clone Tarisland snagged a former World of Warcraft composer for its score - It's not every day that a new MMORPG even talks about its composer or score, let alone sends 'round a press release talking up that composer's accolades, but that's exactly…

Lord of the Rings Online studio pushes back against maintenance mode claims - There are a lot of wild conclusions you could leap to after hearing the report that EG7 put an end to the 2020 remaster project for Lord of the Rings…

Choose My Adventure: Wrestling with disappointment, boredom, and comfort in Lost Ark’s jump start server - It was probably asking a lot of myself to cut through Lost Ark as quickly as possible so that I could get to the endgame, but even so, I really…

Not So Massively: The growing field of StarCraft II spiritual successors - StarCraft II ranks very highly on my list of my favourite games of all time, but while it remains popular, it is in maintenance mode, and its days are slowly…

SAG-AFTRA members overwhelmingly vote in favor of a video game voice actors strike - Over the past few months, Hollywood has been ground to a halt as voice actors and screenwriters hit the picket lines to fight against low pay, lack of safety protections,…

Corepunk is running a tiny preview test this weekend with several more planned ahead of December early access - It's been a long couple of years of waiting - and five delays, several of them due quite literally to the invasion of Ukraine - but Corepunk is finally ready…

Wisdom of Nym: Open questions spawned by the Tokyo Game Show’s Final Fantasy XIV live letter - Thanks to the Tokyo Game Show, we've had our last Final Fantasy XIV live letter live letter before the patch, and aside from the expected date of October 3rd, we…

Roblox sheds 30 ‘talent acquisition’ employees as part of a company plan to improve its profits - We've reported numerous times how the company that runs Roblox has continually seen revenue rise but profits plummet as it outspends those earnings to the point of profit loss. It…

Throne and Liberty offers a rundown of some mid-level bosses, dungeons, and zones that await players - Earlier this month, Throne & Liberty producer Ahn Jong-ok penned a letter to fans that focused mostly on lower level things like a smoother leveling experience, removal of autoplaying functions,…

Lord of the Rings Online talks crafting, says Corsairs of Umbar pre-orders begin ‘real soon’ - The latest Lord of the Rings Online developer livestream may have been mostly about the big crafting changes coming to the MMO this fall, but around the edges of this…

Mortal Online 2’s Unreal Engine 5 update gets a release window of late October - Back in September of last year, Mortal Online 2 began hyping up its transition to Unreal Engine 5, with the transition heralded as a technical step forward as well as…

Ashes of Creation announces Alpha Two for 2024 and previews its updated event system - Remember when Ashes of Creation promised that its Alpha Two build wasn't years away but also not right around the corner? That vague hint has recently taken a bit more…

Datamining uncovers potential details about World of Warcraft’s next expansion - As BlizzCon inches ever closer, players of World of Warcraft continue to ponder where the MMORPG's next expansion is headed. Some of that pondering may have gotten a bit easier…

THIS WEEK’S CASTS & STREAMS

Massively OP Podcast Episode 438: EverQuest what’s next?

Battle Bards Episode 228: Cheery MMO dungeons

The Stream Team: Pre-MOP league practice in Party Animals

The Stream Team: Reliving Destiny 2’s past through timeline reflections

The Stream Team: Dealing with the Droaam army in DDO

The Stream Team: Exploring more Conan Exiles roleplay-friendly mods

The Stream Team: Low levels but slightly high challenge in Lord of the Rings Online

The Stream Team: Rift razing in Guild Wars 2

The Stream Team: Star Trek Online’s Incursion with Cryptic’s CM

The Stream Team: Fighting through Final Fantasy XIV raid content

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.