It's finally here – Final Fantasy 14 just got the very exciting Patch 7.56 earlier this week, and the star of the show is most definitely the MMO's new limited job: the Beastmaster.

In case you've not had the chance to experience the class yourself just yet, it plays a whole lot like Pokemon or Palworld in concept.

You capture creatures from all over Eorzea (yes, old A Realm Reborn regions are finally coming back to life), whip 'em out in combat and use all sorts of deadly combos and actions, try to catch more beasts, and… rinse and repeat. There's a handy little bestiary to help you on the way, too.

Put simply, you've gotta (and will wanna) catch them all – and it's genuinely good fun. I've spent hours grinding away in Central Shroud myself, looking forward to the Crucible, in all its painful roguelike-ish glory… and, of course, the glittery Tourmaline Golem mount you can nab by making the duty's official rankings.

I'm not the only loving Beastmaster, though. Discussions over on Reddit prove as much, with one thread dubbing the job "really fun!"

Its poster exclaims, "This content is great," adding that the achievements tied to the new job "are really cool" as well.

A separate post on the Beastmaster sees fans sharing a similar sentiment, with folks writing that they "wish it was a standard job" rather than a limited one – and, honestly, I agree. Another person chimes in that they've "been having a blast" with the job, with a plethora of replies backing their take up.

My favorite conversation so far stems from a screenshot of somebody's Warrior of Light dressed like Ash Ketchum from Pokemon, personally.

"Had to use the appropriate glam," its accompanying words read – and I love it. I also stand with the responses declaring that "the Pokemon vibe is honestly perfect." What else does Beastmaster carry with it, if not a nice old Pokemon vibe? And, that vibe is why so many of us adore the job already.

Obviously, however, not everyone likes it. There are comments here and there about how Square Enix could improve the Beastmaster (and, of course, fears that it might end up a bit… forgotten, like the Blue Mage).

Overall, though, spirits seem high when it comes to the limited job, and I can't say I've found much else to want out of it aside from, well, more levels and more utility in other parts of Final Fantasy 14.

I'm excited to see what Square Enix does with Beastmaster and how it evolves over time. Fingers crossed it's more memorable than Blue Mage – although, for me, it already is.

Final Fantasy 14 fans spot Evercold character in the MMO's Patch 7.56 screenshots, immediately theorize the expansion's new DPS class: "Is that a crossbow?"

On September 6, ChatGPT employee Rohan Varma, who works on the company's Codex coding tool and previously worked at Palantir, proudly revealed Elderwood, a vibe-coded multiplayer game which he later openly described as a "RuneScape clone." By September 9, actual RuneScape developer Jagex had filed a legal notice "asking us to take down the website," and now Elderwood is no more.

"Elderwood has closed," reads the copycat's website. "We received a notice from Jagex asking us to take down the website. Following that notice, we are discontinuing Elderwood's operation, and the game is no longer available."

From the tearful goodbye letter – which is attributed to Varma but, given that he said he used ChatGPT to showcase the game, was likely written with AI assistance – you might think Elderwood was an original game, not a shambling pile of slop and broken copyrights.

"Thank you to everyone who joined us," it adds. "For the levels earned, the laughs in chat, the suggestions, the patience with bugs, and all the little moments in between: you made this a joy to build and a world worth sharing. We're keeping the high scores available as a record of what you achieved together."

As videos from Rohan show, Elderwood was flagrantly styled after early RuneScape, with many menus and items lifted one-to-one and the overall aesthetic mirroring Old School RuneScape closely. It goes without saying that there are several things wrong with it, and it looks noticeably worse than OSRS. But skills like Woodcutting, items such as gold pieces (GP) and party hats, locations like Varrock and Falador, and reams of other details make the ripoff obvious. This was surely a layup for Jagex lawyers.

"In [sic] asked GPT-6 Astra in Codex to build RuneScape and deploy it to a ChatGPT Site," Varma said at the start of this short saga.

Over on the Old School RuneScape subreddit, players are celebrating the death of Elderwood like it's an upstart gladiator that just got gutted in the Roman Colosseum after insulting all their mothers.

"VICTORY DOWN WITH AI SLOP!" declares a top post.

"'Inspired by.' The utter disconnect these people have to reality needs to be studied," reads one reply.

"Weird how inspiration just means stolen assets and AI generation of the game itself. How inspiring," a player agrees.

"Couldn't even write their announcement without AI," says another.

"This stupid project got 1000 times more attention as a result of this sub and we're all dumber for having learned of it," observes one user.

Earlier this year, dozens of game developers told GamesRadar+ why they don't want to use generative AI.

After 25% positive Steam reviews, Soulslike dev realizes people hate AI slop and admits "if it looks like the effort is not there, that is a fair reading of what is on screen."

Almost six years since its announcement, and with hardly anything said about it since, Riot Games' mysterious League of Legends MMO has been referred to as the studio's "Grail" in comments that aren't exactly inspiring the most confidence from fans.

Riot Games co-founder and co-chairman Marc Merrill has spoken about the MMO during a PAX West panel, where he was asked by Kinda Funny Games' Greg Miller whether he had anything to share about its release date (below).

Alas, Merrill doesn't, but he does speak a little about the game's thought process. "We know what players' hopes and dreams are," he begins, adding that it's all up to Riot whether the team can "succeed in the execution." No pressure for the devs, then, but Merrill calls it "a worthy quest."

"We jokingly call it the Grail internally because we're like, 'fuck it,' you know, many a brave knight are going to die on the Grail quest. But fuck it, it's the Grail, so let's go," Merrill continues. "That's the mindset that we really try to cultivate and that is hard to do at scale. But, you know, I think we're doing a reasonable job and I think the future's incredibly bright."

It's not the only promising news we've heard about the Riot MMO recently – earlier this year, it was announced that yet another World of Warcraft veteran had joined the development team, which bodes well. Before that, Merrill had stated that the idea of "making the next great MMO" is something that Riot is "more committed to than ever." But a more recent announcement to come from the home of League of Legends doesn't have fans feeling optimistic.

After its full console launch in January, it was announced last month that League of Legends fighting game 2XKO is ending active development in December. While it'll remain playable, Riot said "we haven't seen enough players stick with the game to get to a path toward sustainability," and ultimately couldn't see "any viable future."

The changes made to digital card game Legends of Runeterra back in 2024 are also fresh in many players' minds. At the time, Riot stated that the game had "faced financial challenges since launch, costing significantly more to develop and support than it generates," and, as a result, was "reducing the size of our team and renewing our focus on The Path of Champions," with a focus on PvE.

Needless to say, you can understand the distrust online regarding Merrill's latest comments about the MMO. "Hard to be excited for this because I wouldn't be surprised if Riot just cuts the team in half and then end support after less than a year when the League MMO doesn't have numbers like WoW or FFXIV within the first month based on how they're treating 2XKO," one user responds on Twitter.

"Hope this time you don't cancel it HALF A YEAR after release because it doesn't have the playerbase of WoW and FFXIV COMBINED," another says, while one tweet asks: "Didn't you guys just kill the fighting game that was barely released. What confidence are we supposed to have in an MMO?"

For now, we're stuck watching this space, but hopefully the League of Legends MMO is able to meet the expectations of fans and its devs alike whenever it does eventually launch.

League Classic might sound fun, but as a 15-year League of Legends veteran, I'm here to tell you: You want this less than you think.

Former Old School RuneScape developer Andrew "Mod Jed" Lakeman has been sentenced for stealing gold from player accounts following several years of investigation and litigation.

The Cambridgeshire Constabulary recently published a report covering the sentencing and history of the crime.

With his arrest in July 2019, Lakeman was charged with "unauthorised computer access with intent to commit other offences, theft by employee, conceal / disguise / convert / transfer / remove criminal property and acquire criminal property." It's estimated this scheme netted him over £300,000.

Lakeman eventually pled guilty to the charges and, this week on September 3, "was handed a three-year sentence suspended for two years at Cambridge Crown Court," the Constabulary writes. His sentence also includes 150 hours of "unpaid work" and a 25-day "rehabilitation activity requirement."

To go back a few years, Lakeman, then known as Jed Sanderson, was a developer at Old School RuneScape studio Jagex. In mid-2018, he began using the game's account recovery system to steal gold and high-value items from players, and then sell that in-game wealth for real money or crypto currency through the MMO's gray market.

A search of Lakeman's accounts found that "he had banked more than £364,829 in cash, which came from crypto currency dealers," the investigation found. In private messages to his wife, Lakeman apparently shared plans to "make a lot of money" before leaving Jagex.

But before he could make his grand escape, Jagex clocked the account breaches and "realized the perpetrator was likely to be someone who worked for the company, as accounts were being recovered using information genuine owners would be unlikely to know," the Constabulary notes. It laid a trap in its employee network firewall and Lakeman walked right into it.

Just as most banned OSRS players reflexively deny any wrongdoing, Lakeman apparently claimed his account must have been breached and used by another party to commit the gold hacks. He was handed to police in 2019.

Detective Constable Andrew McKeane describes the case as "an unusual and lengthy investigation," and "certainly not one you see every day."

"Lakeman was well aware what he was doing was wrong, and the hundreds of thousands of pounds he gained from selling the in-game items is no different to any other theft," the investigator adds. "Just because it’s virtual, doesn’t mean he shouldn’t face the full force of the law."

This investigation has become a tentpole in discussions about the legal value of in-game items, and it could become a useful precedent in case law. At the start of the year, addressing Lakeman's case, the UK Court of Appeal ruled that OSRS gold can legally be defined as "property" subject to criminal theft.

Previously, a judge had ruled that "gold pieces were not rivalrous and were more akin to pure information." (To borrow and slightly butcher the Law Commission's terms, something is rivalrous if, when you have it, somebody else can't.) The appeals court overturned this assessment, ruling that these gold pieces "are rivalrous because the use and consumption of them by the game player necessarily prejudices the use and consumption of them by others."

In September 2025, a different OSRS gold seller sparked tax law evaluation after earning nearly an estimated $500,000 but claiming that its true revenue should be calculated differently due to the classification of in-game gold. Days after this case surfaced – which was likely sheer, delicious coincidence – Jagex announced sweeping cheating and gold selling reforms that have since seen OSRS reach a rare low in bot and gold seller activity.

13 years in, Old School RuneScape is winning the war against MMO bots.

With Guild Wars 3, developer ArenaNet is looking to directly tackle probably the biggest challenge in the entire MMO space: these things are hard to get into, and even harder to get your friends into.

As part of our big Guild Wars 3 preview, we spoke to studio head Colin Johanson about ArenaNet's next big adventure. He examines the onboarding and accessibility hurdles endemic to MMOs, or in short, the second job problem.

"We want to have that next generation come play MMOs," he begins, "and I think that, honestly, one of the biggest challenges the MMO industry faces right now as a whole is when we tell people to come play our game, the first thing they say is, 'I don't have time for that. It's like a second job. I can't engage with it.' And I think that makes it hard for anyone, folks with families, to engage and bring their family in. Folks who are younger who have 50 games that they're trying to play that compete for their time, they don't want to have that experience that's like a second job."

Many recent MMOs have talked about getting to the good stuff faster. Johanson suggests this is part of the solution, but only part of it. The key, he reasons, will be getting Guild Wars 3 "approachable to the point that you can very easily play and progress and complete things, while also having the depth that MMO players are looking for, so that if I want to play for that long, I can meaningfully engage."

Here, he looks at play patterns. "I think a huge part of the problem for MMOs is there's this ingrained 'preparing to have fun' window where you load into the game, you figure out your inventory, organize your inventory, go through your quest log, set up your build, get your gear figured out, get your friends' gear figured out, your build's ready to go, and you're ready to play the content. And you look at the clock, you've been online for an hour, and you haven't started playing yet.

"So many other genres have modernized to the point now where they're accessible and you're able to very quickly get in and start playing the game, and immediately be able to get a return on your time investment. And you need to be able to jump into an MMO and have 20 minutes, 30 minutes, and be able to do something."

Momentum is directly reflected in Guild Wars 3's combat and movement, which veer closer to a traditional single-player action game – even spectacle fighters or character action games – than you'd expect from an MMO. A sense of weight turns actual momentum into a vector of power and strategy, sending you diving and soaring with rare physicality.

Additionally, Johanson echoes a point that the Final Fantasy 14 team brings up a lot: "You also need to be able to set this game down and say, 'I'm going to take a break for four months, and I'll come back when the next expansion comes out, and I'm not going to be left behind and not be able to keep up with everybody. I can just jump back in and play when I want to play.'"

Here, ArenaNet has one big advantage. "I think our no subscription fee helps there too," Johanson says. "There's nothing holding you hostage, [like] you have to keep playing the game. You just set it down for a while and that's a totally healthy, normal relationship with a video game, and it should be, and our system should respect that."

He and ArenaNet are still keeping the details of their solution close, but Johanson says this is collectively "one of the most important things we're trying to tackle with Guild Wars 3 so that it can speak to a broader audience. so that it can speak to a broader audience. So it can be both what brings a lot of older MMO fans back, and the 29 million Guild Wars fans who played over time, bringing all of them back to be able to engage with this game.

"But also to bring a new generation into MMOs, who I really don't think have had an MMO in their life for the last 10 years. [Something] that they all jump into, and we would love to be like that."

Guild Wars 3 may have cracked the MMO code for tired millennials.

If not for the grass I've spent hours gazing at in Guild Wars 2, I might not have recognized Guild Wars 3. With an emphasis on weighty third-person combat and an all-new momentum system, the upcoming MMO has more in common with ARPGs (think Elden Ring, Crimson Desert) than many of its peers. That's by design: going into Guild Wars 3, developer ArenaNet "audited the genre" and found combat and movement were the biggest areas for innovation.

This all culminates in the early alpha build I'm shown at Gamescom 2026. Following a warrior in the first human kingdom of Orr – set 1000 years before the first Guild Wars – my eye is drawn not to the gilded city of gods on the horizon, but the small warrior running circles in front of me. With freeform movement, he's able to run along walls, mantle over ledges, and slide dramatically down slopes when the need arises.

The same fluidity extends to combat. Thanks to a new momentum system, the weight of your movement is carried from one action to the next. Taking a running leap from a cliff, for example, will give you more gusto when you (hopefully) pull out your glider; while in combat the warrior has an aerial attack that scales with your momentum. Though not quite as dramatic as Baldur's Gate 3's owlcat-turned-hydrogen bomb, I've never seen this sort of physicality from an MMO before. Knocking enemies into walls stuns them – and as Chief Goblin Thrower in Baldur's Gate 3 and Dragon's Dogma 2, I'm thrilled to see that knocking enemies off ledges is a viable tactic for one-shotting baddies.

In a group Q&A with studio head Colin Johanson and lead gameplay designer Anthony Ordon, I ask the pair to start from the beginning: how is this combat possible in an MMO?

"It was very challenging – this is something that Colin and I have been talking about since 2015," says Ordon. "To get it working technically, we really had to start from the ground-up and build everything around a more visceral action experience on a server with allies. That's really gotten us to a great place in terms of gameplay."

"We tried all sorts of different unique ideas until we found what sticks, then we wrapped our arms around those. Those became the center of our game, and [we] built out from there," Johanson agrees. "If we hadn't been making MMOs for 26 years I don't think we could have built this system."

Orr-struck

In terms of multiplayer scope, I'm told Guild Wars 3 sits "right in the middle" of the first and second game.

"It is a giant open-world game and you constantly run into other players as you're running around in the world, but the scale doesn't go up to, like, hundreds of players," says Johanson. It's a departure from Guild Wars 2, which could see hundreds of players teaming up to fend off gigantic world bosses. "It stays at smaller numbers out in the open world to support this fidelity of combat and really let that shine. So for big encounters, probably about 20 players will be the most that you have in combat. If you go to a city or a town, you'll see significantly more than that roaming around."

During the demo, Johanson and Ordon briefly demonstrate PvE combat, with Johanson jumping on as a necromancer to back up Ordon's warrior. Though momentum adds new dimensions to combat, with the warrior's allies able to use his shield as a springboard to attack from above, positioning is crucial. A flamethrower-wielding enemy is resistant to damage until you circle around to hit his weak spot – a very flammable tank – and by juggling aggro, Ordon and Johanson draw enemies towards ledges for instant-kill pushes. Fighting giant spiders, the pair are bogged down in webs which require fire to burn away – demonstrating how Guild Wars 3 will ask players to pay more attention and be more reactive with their builds in the overworld, says Johanson, who sees the first Guild Wars as a touchstone in that regard.

With Guild Wars 3 set to launch on PS5 as well as PC, designing the MMO to be played on controller was a challenge that led to broader improvements.

"Our first goal was 'how do we get the broad combat of an RPG onto the controller without losing the depth', and losing what people love about the options they have to make a build and all that," says Ordon. "We think it actually turned out a lot better, because instead of having 10 number keys across the keyboard, we're doing more interesting things. There are attacks [chained] out of the dash. There's an attack out of the wallrun. So there's a lot more contextual ways to trigger skills, where we end up with as many options – in some cases even more – that end up feeling better."

When I ask if there are plans to bring Guild Wars 3 to more consoles including the Nintendo Switch 2, pointing to Final Fantasy 14's recent port, Johanson says ArenaNet's "focus for launch" is PS5. "It's our first console game, and adding console to the mix is enough of a challenge," he explains. "As it is, we really wanted to just focus on doing one platform to start and getting it right, and then we'll evaluate other consoles in the future as it makes sense to do."

Guild Wars 2 is one of my most-played MMOs, but in recent years I've found it hard to jump back in. The front-loaded information and intricate endgame combos make my favorite characters too overwhelming to pick back up after a break – a problem I have with many MMO endgames. That's a selfish way of getting into another of Guild Wars 3's guiding lights: keeping the door open for players new and old to jump in.

"We want to have that next generation come play MMOs, and honestly one of the biggest challenges the MMO industry faces right now as a whole is when we tell people 'come play our game'. The first answer they give is, 'I don't have time for that. It's like a second job; I can't engage with it!'"

The same can also be said for returning players trying to re-learn the game, according to Johanson. "You come back like, 'what is all of this stuff? I have to answer all of these questions before I start playing', and then you go 'maybe not', turn the game off, and play something else. We have to have a solution for that. We need to have one for the gameplay side, the progression side, [and] the content side. The social side is an interesting place to consider as well – how do we think about the relationships you had when you stopped playing nine months ago?

"I'm not going to tell you today how we answered [these questions], but we're very much thinking about each as part-and-parcel of the same core question. Because we want people to be able to walk away and come back the next time an expansion comes out, and we need to have you feel like you can jump back in and not be completely overwhelmed."

That's not all we saw at Gamescom 2026 - check out our previews for Total War: Warhammer 40,000, Silent Hill Townfall, and Afterworld

Before Final Fantasy 14 gets its hotly anticipated new expansion Evercold, Square Enix has one final update in store with fresh Dawntrail content: Patch 7.56.

Patch 7.56 is set to arrive next Tuesday on September 8, bringing the series of Patch 7.5x updates to a close – and, of course, Dawntrail's bigger post-launch content.

Harboring the limited Beastmaster job, new main scenario quests, and much, much more, it's one heck of a release ahead of Evercold… a release that might just lead into the upcoming expansion itself with the introduction of a strikingly familiar pink-haired Miqo'te.

If you've seen the Evercold trailer, then you likely recognize Visna, the mysterious cat girl with icy eyes and a freckled face – something we don't even get to truly apply to our own Warriors of Light (yet, anyway).

Interestingly enough, Square Enix just updated its official media webpage for Patch 7.5, including Patch 7.56, of course, with new screenshots… and Visna herself appears in one of them, implying she'll be in-game before Evercold.

Not only that, but she seems to be donning a crossbow of sorts on her back – and, you know, that's pretty eye-catching, seeing as there are two new jobs coming in Evercold and we only know about the tank class so far: the Bastion.

Could the DPS underway be a crossbow wielder or something in that vein? Well, the image is certainly proving enough to spur all kinds of theories online.

Just take a look at Reddit, for one.

In response to a fan noting their surprise at "the Miqo'te NPC from the Evercold trailer" seemingly being introduced in Patch 7.56 and asking "she definitely can't be the new job, right," another explains that she might just be.

"You can actually spy a crossbow on her back," they write. "So it might actually be the new job." Further down, somebody else points out that Visna is holding a "wand" of sorts, too.

They suggest "the job will have crossbow and wand offhand and you carve runes with the wand which then grant either weaknesses/special attacks that either the crossbow or your bird can attack."

The "bird" they reference here likely stems from the popular theory that the new DPS class is a falconer of some flavor – but who knows? It's all just speculation for now, but it is intriguing to see the girl in Patch 7.56 screencaps… and her "weapon," if that's what it is.

We'll learn more next week, come Patch 7.56 and its shenanigans. There is the Beastmaster job to look forward to as well as more questing and the like, so it's not all mystery.

Magic: The Gathering swiftly learns the power of Final Fantasy 14 as a mommy cat lady overtakes its most popular commander card

Joel Bylos, CCO at Funcom, has revealed Dune: Awakening devs are looking into ways to make its PvP more engaging, even as most of its community prefers PvE.

GamesRadar+ spoke to Bylos at Gamescom 2026 and asked about PvP in Dune: Awakening being somewhat optional, and whether that works too much in favor of PvE-focused players at the expense of those who are interested in PvP. Creative director Bylos responded, "I think that probably was the issue with the game at launch, was that we were trying to do too much for too many people."

He explains, "We were mixing two types of players together who didn't want to be mixed together," adding that he thinks "PvP players and PvE players don't really want to play together, and when they do, the PvP players are sharks in a fish tank, you know, really enjoying themselves."

However, those PvP-focused players are a minority in the Dune: Awakening community, as Bylos says devs discovered that, "metrics-wise, 80% of our players were PvE, and not PvPers. So we've decided to focus more on that audience."

However, even with a higher focus on PvE and the single-player mode coming alongside Dune: Awakening's console launch next month, Funcom is not completely abandoning PvP players. Bylos notes, "We will look into doing more structured PvP things in the future," and that when the console launch is in the past, "we'll have more time to look and actually think about carefully about the kind of features we're doing." Bylos specifically notes that "faction versus faction" PvP is "something on my mind."

Dune: Awakening's new single-player mode fits perfectly in the MMO because of its strong story, lead says: "I think we have the best story in a survival game that exists."

Dune: Awakening is finally coming to consoles next month, but that's not all – Funcom is also preparing to integrate the long-requested single-player mode.

So, how does that work in what's essentially an MMO and survival game mashup? Well, as chief creative officer Joel Bylos tells GamesRadar+ at Gamescom 2026, it just does – and that's all thanks to the strong story acting as Dune: Awakening's foundation… the very same that acts as an alternate timeline to its source material's own in Frank Herbert's beloved sci-fi book series.

In fact, integrating single-player hasn't been too difficult. The only challenge that has come is balancing Dune: Awakening's obvious multiplayer aspects (think combat, difficulty, etc.).

"We did a major balance pass across the game for the solo experience to make sure that people didn't get bogged down in the parts where later on in the group experience you would need a group of people. So, it's a lot smoother to play through from a progression perspective." And, again, the story helps… a lot.

"I think the story of the game works really well for a single-player game," as Bylos says. "It's just perfectly fine. People will really enjoy it."

That checks out – many of my own favorite moments in Dune: Awakening were spent enjoying the various missions and the storyline, especially as it differs from the Dune I was already familiar with. A solid story isn't easy to find in most survival games, either, which sets Funcom's apart.

As the lead puts it, "I think we have the best story in a survival game that exists." That's quite a bold statement, but I suppose it makes sense. The genre doesn't exactly boast much, erm, story-focused content, thinking of giants like Minecraft and Terraria.
Dune: Awakening is quite unique, and with its single-player mode's release on September 22, it seems this will shine through all the more.

And, as long as people are "looking for a really great survival game experience that they can play as a single player," Dune: Awakening's big launch next month should go well. As a big fan of solo experiences and Funcom's game myself, I've got my fingers crossed.

Dune: Awakening dev knows everyone wants crossplay for the upcoming console release, but it's "technically and operationally complex to implement"

World of Warcraft players enjoying Blizzard's Classic edition have been plagued by one very infamous PvP legend for a good couple of years now – but it turns out that banning him on Twitch wasn't the way to go, frustrations be damned.

If you've not heard of Redridgeguy, he might just stand as the most notorious PvP player on World of Warcraft Classic in all of Europe.

Why, you might ask?

Well, he absolutely destroys other folks – we're talking hundreds per day – by reaching hard (near-impossible) to access spots and sending his pet in to tear through unsuspecting Alliance players. He's been discussed over on Reddit and other online forums time and time again.

Heck, just two weeks ago, a fan asked if he was "allowed" to play the way he does, saying it felt unfair. It's safe to say that "infamous" is a bit of an understatement – and now, players have retaliated… or so they thought.

As a new post over on X outlines, Redridgeguy actually got banned on Twitch following various reports from disgruntled WoW fans. This "backfired," though, as Redridgeguy's streams were the only reliable way to tell where he was in-game.

How come? Redridgeguy's streams were the only reliable way to tell where he was in-game, basically. "With his stream no longer up it became an all-out bloodbath and even other Horde members joined in on the fight to camp the Alliance even harder," as Jerome puts it – and it's quite amusing all around.

As it stands now, Redridgeguy appears to still be banned over on Twitch, too. His YouTube channel is up, however.

It appears that players want him gone gone, though, with one comment writing, "People that do unhinged stuff like this guy deserve to be banned from the game entirely." I'm not sure I agree myself – but then again, I'm not a PvP enjoyer regardless.

The capacity to be downright annihilated (as Redridgeguy evidently does to just about anyone who crosses his path) is far too big, and I've got grinding to do elsewhere without fearing constantly my death.

I do wonder if Redridgeguy will reappear on Twitch someday, although part of me wonders if it'd be more amusing if he doesn't… Considering how he's known for obliterating hundreds while streaming, how many will he take down while completely concealed?

Blizzard takes rare World of Warcraft mount from players as the MMO's latest crackdown on real-money transactions continues

Star Citizen has been in development for a whopping 14 years now, having accumulated well over a billion dollars in the process – so, how's it looking so far?

Apparently, not great. First revealed way back in 2012 by Wing Commander creator Chris Roberts, the multiplayer space game's developers have boasted about various features and many unfulfilled promises over the years since.

It's become a bit infamous online, with countless content creators covering the $1 billion or so backing Star Citizen (notably all via crowdfunding, mind you) and lack of any solid release date over a decade on.

The controversy surrounding Star Citizen is back in the limelight now thanks to a recent live stream hosted by Cloud Imperium Games, the studio behind the perpetually in-progress project – a live stream that, erm, didn't exactly go too well.

If you missed it, you can find clips of it over on YouTube via reaction videos and the like (thanks, Kira and penguinz0), but put simply, it showcases a buggy mess from start to finish.

So much so, in fact, that the devs start sounding almost… passive aggressive toward one another? There's clearly a lot of discontent at the studio, to say the least.

Heck, at some moments, the devs are unable to even reload their weapons, and they're playing a private build that should be the best, most up-to-date version of Star Citizen – not a public test build or any server fans backing the game have access to themselves.

It ends quite abruptly as well, leaving a sour taste in fans' mouths – and devs don't seem any happier than the community by the stream's conclusion.

Comments show that the little faith some had left in Cloud Imperium Games has all but vanished after the stream, with one chiming in under Kira's reaction video, "That studio is one ex-employee tell-all away from total collapse." Another adds, "Limitless money and they still can't get it right."

The conversation isn't just limited to YouTube, though.

Over on Reddit, morale is at an all-time low, too. "The damage done by this stream will last for YEARS," exclaims one viewer. Others dub the stream "such a shit show," with some writing, "hopefully they will learn a lesson from this."

I'm not too certain they will myself, but evidently, something has to change. We shouldn't be thinking that the stream should've never gone live this far on.

It's tough to stomach, honestly, especially seeing as Cloud Imperium Games hoped the game would be "an event almost as important" as GTA 6 come its launch – a hope I'm not so sure will be fulfilled at this point… ever.

Need something more solid to look forward to? Browse through our roundup of the best new games coming this year and beyond to wishlist right now.

World of Warcraft is unsurprisingly no stranger to account boosting and other no-no forms of real-money transactions, with Blizzard cracking down every now and then on guilty players.

This month is no exception, as the developer has sent out another wave of bans against folks it believes are responsible for engaging in real-money transactions – namely in the EU.

You can find countless streams (some mid-raid and all) of entire guilds being wiped out by game mods over on Twitch and the like, seeing players pulled from the game unexpectedly. It's not the first time that Blizzard has taken action, and it certainly won't be the last.

One of the biggest talking points with this round of bans, however, is the removal of players that supposedly weren't participating in real-money transactions but were in guilds that have other people who are – and, you know, reports that Blizzard is also ripping a very rare mount from fans' accounts in the process: the Mythic L'ura mount, to be precise.

You'll find such discussions over on Reddit, where players post the message they got from the dev.

"During a recent review, we found one or more rewards gained on this account were connected to activity that violates our in-game policies," the supposed prompt from Blizzard reads. "As a result, we have removed these rewards from your account."

Comments also mention other allegedly affected players, with some describing how they lost the Mythic mount even though they didn't violate the Terms of Service.

"A LOT of people in my guild (including myself) lost it because people were in our group who paid for a boost without any of us knowing," as one reply puts it. "Kind of fucking sucks."

There are various other threads on the forum (and elsewhere online) claiming the same scenario. It's a tough one, for sure, because Blizzard technically isn't doing anything wrong by cracking down on real-money transactions.

On the other hand, though, it'd be nice to see a better system of detection that snapshots individuals rather than entire guilds – and, evidently, I'm not alone in thinking so.

Blizzard fires World of Warcraft dev after using "development-only spells on a live realm" to help a friend breeze through bosses

Big changes are coming to the MMOs Throne and Liberty and Lost Ark because Amazon's actually stepping away from handling them. In a welcome change from the norm for these kinds of announcements, it's been revealed the original devs will have more control over both projects going forward.

The news was delivered through community updates. "Starting in Q4 2026, Amazon Game Studios will transition live operations of Throne and Liberty in the West to FirstSpark Games/NC," the post on Throne and Liberty reads. "Together with NC, we are working closely to support a smooth transition and minimize disruption to your experience."

FirstSpark games is the studio behind Throne and Liberty, while NC Corporation handles publishing in Asian regions. Given NC is the entity that handles Guild Wars and several other large-scale series and games, it has the resources to handle something like this without much change or disruption, and it's an added bonus that the devs get to be more involved in the publishing framework.

Lost Ark will go through a similar process. "Starting in early 2027, Amazon Game Studios will end its live service operations of Lost Ark, with Smilegate taking over going forward," reads that post. "We are excited about the future of Lost Ark and feel this is a positive outcome for the game's players, as we are handing the game back to the developers."

Naturally, there are a lot of questions surrounding this for existing players. According to information provided, this'll be relatively seamless in Throne and Liberty. Nothing about how or where you can play is changing - it'll still be available on Steam, PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X/S - and the in-game accounts will be the same.

What will be different is where you go for customer support and similar resources, since they'll be sorted by NC, rather than Amazon. "Our goal is to minimize disruption to your gameplay," reads a response to the possibility of disruption.

Meanwhile, Lost Ark players will lose a large amount of their in-game communication history and player nicknames. Other than that, it should be pretty smooth.

I would expect at least a little bit of friction around servers, once the passovers happen and shortly thereafter. Technology like this always needs to be stress-tested, and if you're a fan, you should brace yourself for teething problems.

Beyond that though, it's refreshing to see something like this not be about the games shutting down. Amazon announced it's pulling the plug on New World in 2027, after supporting the survival MMO since 2021. It seems the corporation is divesting entirely from massive, multiplayer releases, and it's nice to have two examples of where that's not a death knell.

15 years later, delisted Lord of the Rings action RPG resurfaces with a remastered version on PS5, Switch 2, Xbox Series X, and PC

A notorious MMO fisherman just finished a 4,300-hour grind that saw him spend over two years catching shrimp in Old School Runescape, and he says "I'd do it again."

12 years ago, Animal Crossing speedrun pioneer and AGDQ cameo commentator Carter 'Bosby' Larson was trading world records with a player named Forstride on the game's "All Debts" leaderboard. To this day, Forstride ranks highly in many categories.

But for the past two years and change, Bosby has been using one well-worn fishing net to gather shrimp and anchovies in Old School RuneScape on his aptly named "OnlyShrimp99" account. The goal was simple: reach 99 Fishing, the highest level in the skill, catching just shrimp and anchovies, the easiest and lowest-value catches in the game.

OSRS developer Jagex caught onto the hype around Bosby's achievement and even verified his accomplishment.

Bosby tells me he "started the account on May 11, 2024 and finished August 7, 2026, so 2 years and 3 months. In-game was 4,304 hours but I cannot stress enough that I was not actively paying anywhere close to full attention during those logged hours."

In total, he caught 275,196 shrimp and 257,064 anchovies. To the horror and amazement of OSRS players everywhere, he saved and stored every single one, whereas many fishers drop their catch on the ground in order to save time and maximize experience gains. "Those lil water bugs just live in my bank now," he says.

Bosby has "always loved playing gimmick accounts in OSRS," and this is far from his first. In fact, he says, "at one point in 2016 I actually made the progenitor to this account, a shrimp-only account that I showed my friends to make them laugh. I played it for maybe a week or two and lost interest."

The bug returned in 2024, and OnlyShrimp99 was born. "The longer the joke went on, the more invested I got," Bosby continues. "I started meeting and chatting with people while fishing, and slowly became resolute to see it out, just to see if I could."

The social side of MMOs became fuel. Bosby says he met over 50 "interesting, cool, and weird people" while fishing, and has become longtime friends with many of them. "A lot of them would message me and check in throughout the grind, eager to see my progress and when I forecasted the end to be."

And if you're wondering, as I was, yes, Bosby has heard of Webfishing, the game about catching fish with folks online. "It seems like a match made in heaven," says Bosby.

But there was more to the grind. The question with these self-imposed challenges is always, why? Bosby says, "It just kind of became an avenue for me to prove my determination to myself. I've been getting accused of doing it for attention, but I really did not expect to get any nor did I want it."

The online response to his shrimp marathon "has been overwhelming to say the least," but "once Jagex tweeted out the shoutout to me, it was all worth it. That was completely unexpected."

"I've loved this game for so long, it felt amazing to be recognized by the people that made it," Bosby adds. "I'm certainly not the first person to do this and won't be the last, I guess I was just in the right place at the right time."

The next question is obvious: was it worth it? "Absolutely," Bosby responds without hesitation.

"To me it was worth it because of the people I met while standing in the same place for over two years. I became a mainstay for those people, they'd run by doing something else, or make a new account and get early fishing levels, and remark on how I was still there. And it was worth it to prove to myself that I could stick with something and see it through, even if it's ultimately pointless, just because it brought me a bit of joy.

"The sincere congratulations have been nice, but the attention I could do without. But I'd do it again just to see the reactions lol, it's something I've considered."

"I do not recommend anyone follow in my footsteps," he adds, "but I had fun, and ultimately that was the whole point. It may seem boring or stupid, and that's because it absolutely was, but it turned into a cozy little side-project, and I'm thankful for it."

"What makes an MMO truly special": Hundreds of Old School RuneScape players have become monks and started a holy war after a pilgrimage got out of control.

Burning some of the goodwill it recently clawed back, RuneScape rolled out consumable microtransaction cosmetics before quickly pivoting to a "buy once, unlock forever" plan after predictable player backlash.

On August 3, RuneScape maker Jagex announced new player-owned house decoration bundles that fans could use to spruce up their homes.

"These bundles act a little differently to other bundles on the marketplace," Jagex rather ominously explained. "They contain a set number of furniture items, rather than cosmetics. As such, each bundle can be purchased multiple times."

In other words, these are disposable collections of one-time-use items designed to be bought over and over again. One of these bundles would charge $12 worth of RuneCoins for items like balloons. I'm reminded of the consumable shader controversy that plagued Destiny 2's early days, except this time the financial incentive was even clearer.

Players unsurprisingly weren't happy, especially since this decoration push followed a substantial price hike for RuneScape subscriptions, not to mention Jagex's recent pledge to clean up the game and make microtransactions less invasive. A new, egregious breed of microtransactions didn't exactly fit the message.

"Move over horse armor – A new microtransaction has hit Runescape 3... ONE TIME use player house decorations," complained one popular Reddit post.

Buried in feedback, Jagex returned on August 4 to say it's changed its mind. "We've been having a chat, and we agree that there's a better way to offer these items up," the studio insists.

It's a total reversal. These party bundles "will no longer be available for repeat purchase," anyone who bought them multiple times will be refunded for extra purchases, and the bundles will now come with permanent recipes for freely replicable items.

The changes are so obvious and have arrived so quickly that you've got to wonder how anyone thought the outcome here would be any different. The fact that the company tried this at all soured some players on Jagex's alleged turnaround.

"Player-Owned House marketplace items are still very much a new area that we're exploring, but it's important to note that none of these explorations are setting a direction in stone from the get-go," the company says. "Per-item sales for POH won't be part of that direction, and future POH offerings will be approached with a 'buy once, unlock forever' mentality."

"What makes an MMO truly special": Hundreds of Old School RuneScape players have become monks and started a holy war after a pilgrimage got out of control.

Final Fantasy 14 is no horror game, standing as the MMORPG gem of Square Enix's beloved JRPG series – but it sure does have its spooky moments.

If you know the lore behind the Palace of the Dead, you're probably familiar with how creepy Final Fantasy 14 can get – but its environments and atmosphere are arguably not very eerie, even in Deep Dungeons with heart-wrenching backstories like PotD… most of them, anyway.

One Warrior of Light has discovered an area that almost feels like it should be out-of-bounds in the North Horn of the Occult Crescent, and it's spine-chilling.

"I think I found one of the creepiest places SE did in a while," they write, sharing screenshots of their discovery over on Reddit. The spot comes from the MMO's recent Patch 7.55, and appears after players go through a foggy Silent Hill-esque hole in the wall – yes, hole.

"Was wandering in Occult Crescent North Horn and found a hole in the wall and got a big chill in the spine seeing this," as the poster reports.

"Reminded me of some Creepypasta Backrooms shenanigans," they add – and, yeah, I can certainly see why.

Everything is paint-white, floating against a pitch-black background. There are crawling arms reaching for nothing, forming freaky arches. Enemies prowl the strange area in the Occult Crescent, too, which commenters note are formidable foes.

"I visited there today too, and let's just say it's really risky," as one reply reads. "All enemies are rank 40+," the person responding notes – but there are "four silver chests and a survey point inside" to make it worth it.

Amusingly, Square Enix has chimed in with its own amusing comment on the matter as well, writing in its own post, "If you're not careful and you noclip out of reality in the wrong areas, you'll end up in the…"

It's a silly little reference to the Backrooms, but I love it.

Will I explore the area for myself? Honestly, I'm not sure I can be bothered tackling the normal part of the Occult Crescent – but the new Phantom weapon does beckon…

Final Fantasy 14 is great and all, but Yoshi-P would "tackle completely new game designs and values" if he were to make another MMO.

The famous Jimothy from Seattle has accepted yet another brand deal. The wild raccoon seemingly suffering from a spinal deformity is being added to Guild Wars 2, in part because the woman who turned the poor creature into a viral sensation named Jimothy is married to an ArenaNet developer.

Kiana Hall posted the hairy dumpling on Instagram two weeks ago, writing in her caption that she and her spouse were "graced with the presence of Jimothy" as he galloped in front of them with the graceless abandon of a bowling ball, proud and round in his toddling. Since then, young Jimothy – his neighbors in Seattle determine him to be around a year old, and I'm guessing maybe a Pisces – has appeared in Skyrim and Stardew Valley mods, and he received an official stat block in Dungeons & Dragons.

Now, ArenaNet shares in a press release, Jimothy will make a sanctioned visit to Guild Wars 2 in August. The developer explains, "An ArenaNet developer's spouse recorded and uploaded a video of an oddly-shaped raccoon in their Seattle backyard. Now, after capturing the world's attention, it's scurrying into Guild Wars 2."

ArenaNet explains in more depth on LinkedIn that, "Bringing a little piece of Jimothy into Tyria felt like a fitting way to honor a story that connected so many people. Starting Aug. 11, track him down in Guild Wars 2 to unlock a Jimothy mini of your own."

"And while we love Jimothy's real-world origin story," the developer says responsibly, "we'd also like to remind everyone that wildlife is best appreciated from a safe and respectful distance. If you're looking to get up close to Jimothy, the in-game version is definitely the safer option." I'm in the mood for a little spaghetti and raccoon meatball, so don't mind if I do.

Guild Wars 3 may have cracked the MMO code for tired millennials.

It's a very risky time to release a multiplayer video game. The 'live service' scene has become inundated with hundreds of titles trying to replicate the success that a select few established games have found. The likes of Fortnite and Call of Duty still dominate the scene, making it seem impossible for newcomers like Concord or Highguard to break in. That's not to mention the number of legacy games that simply can't sustain themselves with the rising costs of development, including Destiny 2, which received its final update earlier this year.

So much of the video game industry is increasingly dangerous and volatile, but one genre has flourished for decades – MMORPGs. As live service games try to hold onto their share of committed players for longer, the developers of the best MMORPGs have had to find new ways to evolve.

To better understand how, I spoke to the leads of three of the longest-running modern MMOs – Final Fantasy 14, Elder Scrolls Online, and Warframe – to unpack how the genre has changed amidst the landscape of multiplayer games.

Building a world

The MMORPG genre began its rise to prominence in the '90s and many developers have tried to play in the massively multiplayer online space since, but precious few have had any real staying power. It's the games which cleanly carve out a niches, and then double down on serving that fanbases, which have any chance at survival. It's a challenge that Nick Giacomini, game director of The Elder Scrolls Online, is well acquainted with.

"The MMORPG genre isn't going away any time soon. MMORPGs are homes for players in a way that most genres just aren't. It's right there in the name: they're massive. The sheer scale of these games gives you a space to truly inhabit, while the community makes it feel alive," says Giacomini.

"That said, the genre is challenging right now, particularly for new games. Creating an MMORPG is a monumental undertaking, and few new MMOs have been able to break through. And on the one hand, the rise of live-service games has made this more challenging. There are so many incredible games to choose from right now, so why should players choose your game when they have so many amazing options?"

That's a sentiment echoed by Warframe creative director Rebecca Ford, who feels there is a new window of opportunity for MMOs. First launched in 2013, Warframe's slow and steady growth has proven it as one of the juggernauts of the genre, able to carry on where others haven't. It might simply be good timing, but the idea of a game that players can "regularly" come back to, as a sort of daily, weekly, or monthly habit, has become more and more attractive in recent years – especially as the cost of everything goes up.

"There's really no place for confidence in the current ecosystem; nothing is guaranteed. The younger generations of gamers have not been exposed to the dominant MMO era, yet the strongest MMOs still stand. 'Interest' in genres comes and goes, but typically, the interest cycles happen much faster because games and hardware were iterated on more quickly," says Ford.

"This means people stick with their comfort games for longer, and devs can work on the same IPs longer. In another life, Warframe would already be on 'Warframe 4', but the conditions of our evolution mean we did not need to sprout gills, so to speak, to evolve. Other genres have certainly impacted interest, as have development costs."

Legacy MMOs like Final Fantasy 14, Guild Wars, Runescape, World of Warcraft are now ingrained into the fabric of online gaming culture and have established, loyal fan bases. The sheer size and nature of the time commitment MMOs have may, in turn, be the secret to their success. Players have to commit to an MMO to some degree, after all.

"MMOs still have several characteristics that could contribute to longer lifespans. For example, unlike games that run on peer-to-peer connections, MMOs have massive servers containing a tremendous number of assets – not just item and character data, but also game systems like player housing and friend lists," says Final Fantasy 14 producer and director Naoki Yoshida.

"When an MMO becomes a hit success, that boosts the number of long-term players and helps stabilize operations, so I can see how those factors often lead to MMOs having longer lifespans. That said, there are still countless MMOs that rose and fell. In the end, all online services have a common principle: they need to have long-term stability and an entertaining experience in order to endure."

It's no coincidence that Final Fantasy 14, The Elder Scrolls Online, and Warframe are undergoing massive shifts in gameplay or ideas at the moment. In accordance, all three of these developers see some kind of symbiotic relationship with live-service titles. Giacomini notes that live service games are helping the MMO genre by "expanding and normalizing the space," while Yoshida says the "boundaries" between MMOs and other genres are becoming more "ambiguous." The influence live-service games have had may not be obvious or tangible, but it's there nonetheless.

"Today, live service games are mainstream. They've normalized the idea of games as a hobby, a place to hang out with friends, and a world that evolves over time. They've introduced MMO-lite concepts to millions of people who may have never considered themselves MMO players," notes Giacomini.

But the other crucial piece of success to the future of MMOs, stressed by all three of these developers, is a passionate community – but more importantly a community that the dev teams themselves can sort of "work" with. The studios behind Warframe, ESO, and FF14 have all opted for transparency, keeping very little to the chest in favour of constant communication with the playerbase, and an open dialogue on what said players want.

"Our players know exactly what they want. They are our 'boss' at the end of the day, and our game is only ever as good as our last update. From the very beginning, we've been transparent and flexible with them, almost every month for nearly 200 announcement-filled Devstreams," says Ford.

She adds: "If we announce a feature and players hate it, we are prepared to scrap it or work collaboratively with them to find the Goldilocks version that feels right for Warframe. We as creatives will always try to take big swings with new things and cross our fingers that they land well. But if we miss the mark, we are always willing to hear our players out and iterate on the idea into something we all love, as devs and players."

"A balancing act"

There's a fine line to tread between retaining the experience players love, but still being experimental and ambitious enough to try new ideas. With a lack of growth, even a successful MMO can grow stagnant, or fail to attract new players. Change is often a scary word in the realm of tech and games, something that connotes that you're losing something, especially daunting when it's a game you've sunk days, if not weeks and months, of your life into.

But a particular, and noticeable, shift in MMOs has been to accommodate a wider variety of players. But a particularly fascinating part of this is these long-running games having to essentially "age up" with their players. Giacomini assets that, as live-service and multiplayer games continue to appeal to young audiences and new players, longstanding MMOs have had to adjust for players whose lives have quintessentially changed across a decade or two.

"If your design ethos doesn't change over ten years, you're going to get left behind," he explains. "Players who started playing with us a decade ago are at a different stage in their lives now, and we have to evolve to provide them with what they're looking for today. Player expectations have also shifted based on what successful new games are bringing to the table. Trying to make sure that every moment players spend in our world feels worthwhile requires change."

"It's definitely a balancing act. If you push too much unwanted change, the game becomes unrecognizable, and you risk alienating your core players. But if you don't change enough, you become formulaic and risk boring them. MMORPGs feel very different today than when I first started playing over 20 years ago. They're recognizable but fundamentally evolved. And I think that kind of continuous evolution is what innovation is going to look like for successful games in the genre."

Speaking to these key creatives, they've all reached similar philosophies in different ways. Both Ford and Yoshida note that the support and deep involvement of their respective communities is the key piece that keeps these games moving. All three stress the need for 'rewarding' experiences, ensuring the time players invest in their game feels well-spent. The development of each of these games revolves around player feedback, but trying to integrate that with the idea of experimenting and finding things that will surprise even players who have spent 10 years on a game.

Ford points to FF14 as a prime example of a game that's adapting to the needs of players, saying it's great to "see them [the FF14 dev team] focus on what they're good at, like Raids, at large scale." But she also stresses the need for integral change. Ford says there's one crucial way MMOs need to keep experimenting.

"Get weird! Go left instead of right, but always, always be ready to work with your community, not for or against them. Nothing is ever set in stone. Game design trends will always be in flux, whether that be due to advancements in technology or changes to player habits due to things happening in the world or their personal lives," Ford says. "We kind of joke about this. You don't want to see the current Warframe leads – me and Pablo Alonso, our design director – try and make a PVP mode again. Even if players think they want it, we simply aren't good at it, so we can't innovate with hero shooter genre appeal, so we have to try other things!"

FF14 is in the midst of one of those moments, with upcoming expansion Evercold making some of the biggest, most sweeping changes the MMO has seen since its relaunch as A Realm Reborn in 2013. And while Yoshida notes that his approach to developing FF14 has undoubtedly changed over the past decade, in a way, that's secondary to how the studio tweaks the game as a whole. Because the community has become such an ingrained part of FF14's identity, it's more about knowing when to hold off on major changes, and when to push forward.

"For our upcoming expansion, Evercold, I chose to steer FF14 towards 'change' in pursuit of creating even more enjoyment and evolving further. I felt that, in terms of mindset and time, we were prepared to update the gaming experience to be more enjoyable and comfortable for our players and their lifestyles," Yoshida says. "Our lifestyle routines are constantly changing, and the rate of change only keeps accelerating. But making sudden changes to try and keep up with that pace can be harmful to our operations, like how making sharp turns while driving fast tends to lead to accidents. Making these judgment calls is a constant part of overseeing FF14."

However, Yoshida says his approach might be completely different if he was making something from scratch, adding, "Incidentally, if I were to develop a new online live service title from scratch, I'd be challenging myself to tackle completely new game designs and values."

But cutting through all the noise, there seems to be one universal truth to the success of MMOs – something that none of these teams have forgotten even as they try to shift and adjust to changing player expectations. And it's especially attractive in light of so many multiplayer games that lean into short bursts of excitement, battle passes, and an ever-changing experience.

"The industry is more crowded now, but the desire for a world you can live in and escape to is stronger than ever," says Giacomini. "And if MMORPGs can evolve to meet players where they are and ensure the time they invest here feels worthwhile, the genre will thrive for decades."

Read This Next:

A World of Warcraft game master has been fired from Blizzard Entertainment after the community caught them using "development-only spells" to help their friends breeze through a dungeon and instantly wipe two bosses. Essentially, they were caught helping some mates cheat.

The cheating scandal first came to light earlier this week when a couple of Reddit users shared evidence that a game master had used insta-kill abilities usually reserved for Blizzard employees to demolish at least two bosses. A player from the group all but spelled out the situation in a stream with Yumytv, too: "I go to my GM friend and I'm like bro please can you do me a solid? This thing has 20 million [health] bro, can you please just one-shot it?"

Things sort of escalated from there, with the community wondering how commonplace incidents like this were. "Now you know it exists, therefore the pandora's box is wide open," one Redditor writes. "Which make you question a lot of stuff." Were secret GMs all around, helping their pals achieve titles and record runs?

As PC Gamer reports, Blizzard has now investigated the incident, fired the employee responsible, and assured folks that GMs aren't regularly manipulating games in secret.

"As we mentioned, we internally monitored and confirmed a recent incident in which a World of Warcraft group gained an unfair advantage by abuse of access to development-only spells on a live realm," community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan writes in a recent forum post. "Our tools confirmed what was also surfaced in community discussions, and we have investigated the incident carefully. We can confirm that this was the action of a single Blizzard employee, in violation of our Code of Conduct. This employee is no longer with the company effective immediately. We are also taking action against the player accounts that were complicit in this violation.

"It has always been the case that a small number of Blizzard employees can use developer tools and spells on live servers: this lets us test and make urgent fixes to the live game when they’re needed," Kaivax explains. "Every use of these internal spells and commands on live realms is logged and shared with our Platform Security team to help ensure that the occasional use of this access is warranted. The use of development tools for anything other than development work is against company policy. It's because of the process we have in place around use of these tools that we're confident this incident was isolated to one individual."

The community manager than thanks everyone who brought the information to light, alongside community-led sites. "When your findings line up with ours, it helps confirm that our own tools are catching what they should, and we're grateful for the way we work alongside you all to protect the game and each other."

"You'll never get another World of Warcraft or Morrowind in the current climate," id Software producer says as constant layoffs batter the industry.

Until I played Warframe, the MMO had always been a hard sell for me. The constant updates and endless narrative expansions as seen in World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 intimidate like nothing else in the video game world. I almost always crave the comfort of knowing I'm progressing towards a logical end point – at least when it comes to story-driven games – and the best MMOs, as a rule, seek to go on for eternity.

So despite my efforts, games like Black Desert Online, Fallout 76, and Genshin Impact lose me soon after I start, simply because I can't accept the potentially limitless experiences on offer. How am I supposed to feel satisfied with my progress if there's no end destination? Well, one game recently changed my mind.

Never too late to try again

I first tried Warframe over a decade ago on Xbox One but quickly bounced off it. This was a different time in my life, before I could appreciate single-player live service games like Diablo 4 and arguably Fortnite. Even the original Destiny didn't hold my attention, so maybe it was a sci-fi thing? No, that wasn't it – what futuristic FPS could compare to Titanfall back in the day? Or now, for that matter?

But when I went to TennoCon earlier this month, I saw Digital Extremes' long-running epic in a whole new light. The game's community is held in high regard, and it was almost immediately clear as to why. The fans attending the convention were enthusiastic, friendly and generous, praising cosplays and handing out stickers in the name of Warframe and Soulframe, the latter being Digital Extremes' latest work currently in early access on PC only.

As I breathed in the atmosphere, I knew I had to try Warframe again – so I installed the free-to-play title on my Xbox Series X when I got home and jumped in. I chose my first playable biomech warframe (Volt, if you're curious), and began exploring the numerous planets, enemies and loot all crying out for my undivided attention.

(War)frame of Mind

Unlike many of the new games I've been playing in recent years, Warframe is 100% a power fantasy. Right out of the gate, I was blasting foes to bits with firearms, cleaving through them with blades, and electrocuting them with my warframe's unique abilities.

It all felt wonderful. There was no immediate challenge like Elden Ring, or intrinsic sense of vulnerability like Resident Evil Requiem (the Grace sections, anyway). This isn't to say I don't enjoy FromSoftware and Capcom games – because I do – but the change of pace is refreshing in 2026.

As for the all-important narrative element that usually leaves me frustrated in an MMO, I was saved from my usual despair by simply not knowing what was happening. This tracked with what creative director Rebb Ford told GamesRadar+ when we interviewed her recently: "You will have no idea what's going on, and that's okay," she said with a smile, and she was right on the money. Luckily for me, the old adage of 'ignorance is bliss' rang true, because I was having too much fun dishing out damage to care who or what a Tenno was.

So why couldn't I stop worrying and learn how to love the MMO before? In truth, I don't entirely know, but the satisfyingly slick combat and traversal of Warframe certainly plays a part. Each time I begin a mission, I hurl my warframe head-first into the mayhem, shooting, slicing and ability-ing my way through the enemy hordes without a care for why I'm doing it. Yes, I have the guiding voice of Lotus, the game's matriarchal figure (and voiced by Rebb Ford), for support, but I don't pay too much mind to the why, merely the what..

And yet, my mind wanders from time to time. I think about Lotus, Teshin, and the other NPCs I've made contact with in Digital Extremes' universe, and I want to know their histories, motivations, hopes, and everything else about them. The thing is, I'm in no rush. Warframe has enough content to keep players occupied for a long time – between 114 and 1,556 hours according to How Long to Beat – so I'll find the answers when I'm ready.

My newfound appreciation for Warframe has doubled my excitement for action-RPG Soulframe, which I had the pleasure of dabbling in a few years back as part of an Alpha test. Now knowing what the developer is capable of in terms of gameplay and longevity, I can't wait to see it grow over (hopefully) a similar timeframe – only now, I intend to be there from launch day. And if I do end up taking a decade to fully commit to Soulframe, its predecessor (and creative director) has reassured me that it's okay to be late to the sci-fi party after all.

Related Stories:

The lead designer behind pioneering MMO Ultima Online says the genre has finally broken free from the shackles of World of Warcraft.

Speaking to 80LV, Raph Koster, whose MMO resumé also includes a suite of early 2000s titles including EverQuest and its sequel, as well as Star Wars: Galaxies, says that he is finally returning to the genre after several decades, in part because it no longer has to chase World of Warcraft.

After Blizzard began what has proven to be an almost uninterrupted stint at the top in 2004, there was a rush to create 'the WoW killer' - a feat Koster suggests was a fool's errand.

In returning to MMOs with Stars Reach, Koster says he was encouraged by the feeling that "MMOs were finally free of the fever dream of imitating World of Warcraft." That's partly because of "the rise of sandboxy gameplay in multiple genres at once." Citing the broader multiplayer options of games like Minecraft, Animal Crossing, Stardew Valley, Valheim, and No Man's Sky, Koster says that "it's clear that there's interest and demand for more than killing orcs over and over."

Whether that's a fair criticism of World of Warcraft in 2026 is a debate I'm not qualified to have, but it's undeniable that multiplayer gaming has gained a lot of depth in the last decade. Fortnite and Roblox are other key examples, showing off a world in which the desire to simply spend time together is just as important as having a dedicated goal. The rise of 'friendslop' titles like Peak are other examples, even if they're not 'massively' multiplayer sandboxes.

For Koster, "the unique thing" that MMOs offer is a persistent world and large numbers of players. Most of those games listed above offer that persistence, albeit with smaller populations, and their popularity meant Koster thought "the time was ripe" to make his return to the genre.

A World of Warcraft game master has been accused of helping a Twitch streamer's Mythic group cheat a high-level dungeon by using their GM powers to insta-kill an enemy, and Blizzard says it's actively investigating the situation as evidence piles up.

This began with a July 21 Reddit post from user Acrobatic_Pianist688, who claimed to have seen a "Blizzard GM death touching mobs in M+23 for their favorite streamer." Of course, we don't actually know if anyone's "favorite" streamer was involved, but Acrobatic_Pianist did link to a Warcraft Log record showing an abrupt end to a Mythic+23 fight in the Nexus-Point Xenas dungeon, caused by an "instakill" and "Area Death (TEST)" effect from user Daijosai, believed to be the GM in question.

Game masters are Blizzard employees with World of Warcraft privileges and permissions that enable them to resolve in-game disputes and support requests.

The incident caught fire online, and chatter only intensified after this Warcraft log was highlighted in a stream from WoW content creator yumytv during a conversation with Yiesus, a small Twitch streamer and one of the apparent teammates in this dungeon run, who's described by yumy as "witness testimony."

The moment was clipped and shared, the Twitch chat filled with accusations of "cheater," after Yiesus openly said, "I go to my GM friend, I'm like, bro, please can you do me a solid? This thing has 20 mil bro, can you please just one-shot? One time for the one time. I meant no harm from it. If Blizzard wants to revoke that key or revoke my title, whatever they see fit, I don't care. Personally, I think it was harmless. I didn't expect him to do it. In hindsight he shouldn't have done it. He was just doing me a solid."

One of the other streamers in this dungeon run, YaraByte, shared the same clip on her Twitter.

This mess quickly reached the official Blizzard forums, with players calling for the GM to be punished and the clear to be revoked, prompting a response from Blizzard. Late Tuesday night, community manager Randy 'Kaivax' Jordan replied, both in the forum thread and to the original Reddit post.

"Thank you to those who flagged this," Jordan says. "We are reviewing and will take action as appropriate. A fair and competitive playing field is essential to our games, and we won’t tolerate cheating."

Blizzard continues taking action against World of Warcraft private servers as it pushes on with a lawsuit citing "large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement" of its MMO.

I blinked and a holy war kicked off. Over the weekend, a battalion of Old School RuneScape players gathered together to spread the good word of Saradomin, a pillar of the game's theology, on a pilgrimage through the MMO's PvP-enabled Wilderness zone. One thing led to another, and, well, a second pilgrimage is now planned for July 25, this time targeting a home base of the opposing Zamorak faction that has rallied in response to this all godly do-goodery.

On July 18, seemingly hundreds of OSRS players assembled at the monastery in the town of Edgeville sporting monk robes, holy symbols, white staves, and pockets full of lobsters (for healing, obviously).

Their plan, as Reddit user jan7283 explained, was to march to the PvP-heavy Revenant Caves as "one enormous, deeply underprepared religious group" with "absolutely no plan" beyond admonishing anyone found guilty of attacking other players.

In OSRS, PvP aggressors have a temporary skull icon placed over their heads, you see, making them a target for the chanting of these followers of Saradomin: "Brother, your skull concerns us."

Absolutely nobody in the pilgrimage dabbled in, or specifically brought weapons for, killing other players, and anyone telling you otherwise is a Zamorakian traitor.

The cause was so noble that a true demon – not a player in a mask, another Zamorakian lie – even joined the pilgrimage. "I've changed my ways, but due to prejudice, some will say I can't wear these robes," says pious Reddit user gomy1020. In the end, they were accepted by some, with fellow monk Even-Stranger5764 reasoning, "Doesn't matter how you pray to Saradomin, as long as you're praying brother."

The so-called "Brothers of the Monastery" successfully purified the Wilderness, as footage from Redditor Miro_Game shows.

"Really channeling the essence of the 2006 to 2008 era shenanigans with a 480p recording," replies user Cold-Sigma-770. "Well done OP. A thematic masterpiece. Just needed the Unregistered Hypercam 2 watermark for the finishing touches."

The pilgrimage went so well that, on July 19, de facto leader jan7283 announced the Brothers' next mission. This time, on July 25, they will storm the Chaos Altar which is home to many Zamorak devotees. "They can kill some of us. They can kill most of us. But they can’t kill all of us," jan asserts.

But the wicked were not quiet. The same day, scion of Zamorak (and Reddit user) suresh declared, flanked by an army of demons and dark wizards, that "THE ALTAR WILL NOT BE TAKEN."

"The servants of Saradomin intend to march upon the Chaos Altar, draped in monk robes and calling their invasion a 'holy pilgrimage.' Let them come," preaches suresh. "We will meet them in the Wilderness and remind them whose ground they trespass upon.

"Bring your finest robes of Zamorak, your weapons, your runes, and enough food to survive the march. Scouts, mages, rangers, warriors, and any loyal soul willing to defend the altar are called to arms.

"They preach order. We answer with freedom. They bring light. We shall show them fire. They claim we cannot kill them all. We accept the challenge. For chaos. For strength. For Zamorak." I have to admit, they are persuasive.

The discussion in the lead-up to this July 25 conflict has been heated. "Brother, your plan concerns us," remarks one Saradomin follower. "Hold fast, brother. Do not let evil strike fear into your heart. In Saradomin's light there is no dark," assures another.

"Are we just recreating God Wars now?" asks Tzazon, perhaps the most sensible person in the room, in a reference to the deity-on-deity combat at the heart of some of RuneScape's juiciest lore.

So, here we are, watching the mortal armies of the RuneScape gods try to outwit one another in a genuinely powerful demonstration of what makes MMO communities so great. There are even fliers for the coming march: Saturday, July 25, at 12pm ET / 5pm BT / 6pm CT. The Brothers will meet at the Varrock Chapel and then meet the followers of Zamorak at the Chaos Altar. It's sure to be a sight to see.

"I remember with a load of friends back in the day we all dressed up as LOTR characters and was seeing how far we could get into the wild and stay there without dying," says one delighted player. "One of my fondest memories, love shit like this."

"This is what makes a MMO truly special," agrees another. "Love to see it. Hail Zamorak!"

After 6 years living as a monk and a total of 19 years later, MMO player returns to Old School RuneScape and proves the classic phrase: you don't quit, you take breaks.

Being the second-biggest game in any given corner of the medium is nothing to sniff at. It's a competitive industry, and having enough players to stay afloat is a luxury many never manage. RuneScape studio Jagex isn't exactly dissatisfied with silver medals at the minute, but the aspiration is to take the top spot someday.

The studio's CEO, Jon Bellamy, made as much extremely clear to The Game Business. "The dream is that we're not the number two biggest MMO brand in the world, we’re number one," he says.

"There's a big old gap between us and number one," he continues. "But if we get it right, we know we can make headway."

The top spot belongs to World of Warcraft, still the definitive MMORPG. We could split hairs for hours over what constitutes an MMO here and by what values we're ranking them (Final Fantasy 14 players would surely like a word), but RuneScape and WoW are both online fantasy RPGs, making them fairly direct competition even if they play very differently.

RuneScape's got a strong foothold at this point, since the original version predates our first quests around Azeroth by a few years. However, World of Warcraft's been impossible to overtake since soon after launch, with greater production values than practically anything else available at the time, and a business model that toed the line between affordable and sustainable.

But Jagex has hung in there over the last 25 years, providing a worthy alternative to anyone who doesn't enjoy WoW or sickos who want another grind on their second monitor. Bellamy knows how it sounds having the giant in his sights, but argues, what's the point of goals if they don't scare you a little?

"It's lofty and ambitious, but if you're going to set lofty and ambitious goals, why not swing for the top?" he adds. "So, that's the number one goal."

Honestly, I wouldn't count out the classic MMO. RuneScape's maintained relevance without abandoning the aesthetic and (very literal) old-school ideas that made it what it is. We'll see what the next decade has to offer.

RuneScape creators asked their mom to help design the MMO's first enemies: "Only much later did they even consider actually hiring people"

Ex-The Elder Scrolls Online senior encounter designer Morgan Goin was one of the devs let go from Zenimax Online Studios and says she can't see how the studio can maintain the same cadence of updates going forward.

Microsoft kicked off its fifth batch of layoffs since spending $75 billion on acquiring Activision Blizzard in 2023. Since then Microsoft has effectively had yearly layoffs each July, with Zenimax Online Studios – which was hit in a major way last year's layoffs, resulting in the cancellation of Project Blackbird and several high-profile departures from the company – being one of the biggest hits for of this year's wave alongside Doom developer id Software, as up to half of the devs behind Bethesda's MMO have reportedly lost their jobs.

While Bethesda did try to damage control this somewhat with a statement saying its team is the same size as in 2015, devs are painting a different story. Speaking to BBC News, Goin says she was "blindsided" by the sheer number of cuts and estimates that some disciplines at the studio have been reduced to a quarter of their pre-layoffs size. Goin adds, "We're not going to be able to put out the amount of content at the speed that we were… or anything approaching that."

Andrew Young, a senior content designer on Elder Scrolls Online from 2012 until 2024, said the MMO "basically funded other failing projects." While nothing specific was mentioned, The Elder Scrolls Blades and Legends didn't exactly light the world on fire, but it could be in reference to any number of underperforming Zenimax titles (two bad Wolfenstein spinoffs releasing on the same day, anyone?).

Like with last year's layoffs, Zenimax Online Studios is losing several high-profile staff as a result of this year's cuts, with studio head Joseph Burba, Elder Scrolls Online executive producer Susan Kath, studio game director Rich Lambert, and production director Ala Diaz all reportedly leaving the company.

Making Fallout and Elder Scrolls games will "be harder than ever now" following Xbox cuts, say laid-off Bethesda devs calling loss of institutional knowledge "staggering"

Bethesda Game Studios – and, in particular, ZeniMax Online Studios – have felt the impact of Microsoft's recent plan to cut over 3,200 employees at Xbox, with the company's union representatives reporting a loss of "dozens of programmers, artists, designers and testers."

It's no secret that the layoffs have torn through Bethesda and its Elder Scrolls Online studio, which has been hit particularly hard.

An MMO team that grew over time to quite mind-boggling figures has now been reduced to the same size it boasted over a decade ago, leaving remaining developers – and fans – concerned about the future. Those affected didn't just include devs, however… leadership has faced the chopping block, too, apparently.

We learn as much from Game File, which reportedly obtained a copy of the official notice from ZeniMax Online Studios regarding its plans to "transition" to new leadership "over the next few months" – leadership that consists of company veterans.

Leads departing include studio head Joseph Burba (who has a 14-year history at the company and was just appointed to his role last July), Elder Scrolls Online executive producer Susan Kath, studio game director Rich Lambert, and production director Ala Diaz.

They "will remain in place during the transition period to help ensure a smooth handoff," however.

As for who will step in to take the helm, head of business operations Joshua Henderson will run ZeniMax Online Studios alongside Nick Giacomini, who was just promoted to Elder Scrolls Online game director last August.

In their statement, the former leaders note that they predict "growth" for the MMO.

"We have tremendous confidence in Josh and Nick," they write, "the future of this studio, and the continued growth of ESO. With exciting experiences still ahead for our players as we wrap up work for Update 51 and beyond, we believe that your passion, creativity, and commitment to each other and the community will continue serving as the heartbeat of ESO."

It's bittersweet – especially after some 200+ losses at the studio.

Here's hoping that the affected developers are able to land on their feet, and ZeniMax Online Studios can pick up the pieces somehow – these certainly aren't easy times in the industry, and the impact is more evident than ever.

Making Fallout and Elder Scrolls games will "be harder than ever now" following Xbox cuts, say laid-off Bethesda devs calling loss of institutional knowledge "staggering"

The past couple of weeks have been undeniably difficult for the video game industry, with Microsoft's plan to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox affecting various in-progress titles and studios – one of which is id Software, the team behind Doom.

In fact, id Software producer Andrew Willis has spoken at length about the layoffs and their impact across the board. A few days ago, he called them "incomprehensible," saying that small worker-owned studios are "the only path forward" from here.

Since then, he's continued to share his thoughts over on LinkedIn, writing, "The games industry must change if it is going to create art and franchises that have long-term sustainable value."

As the producer states, "Right now, it feels like the monopolies that control it are simply trying to extract as much goodwill and value (that took decades to build) as they can with little concern for the diminishing returns it's leading to. This is what happens when the people who control it (most Ivy League MBAs) do not play games, have never shipped a game, and fundamentally do not understand the industry they manage."

Willis then says, "You'll never get another WoW or Morrowind in the current climate" – a statement I can't help but feel rings especially true right now.

It's difficult to imagine such impactful games releasing when so many developers are struggling to mitigate the blow that widespread layoffs are leaving in their wake… and according to the producer, a lot of the issues stem from improper management.

"One thing that drives me nuts while watching the games industry be mismanaged is how everyone is looking for these massive 10x returns but is so focused on short-term growth that they essentially kill the goose before it can start laying eggs," as he explains.

"Disbanding and destroying a team after just one commercial letdown… makes it so you won't ever have a group that learns from their mistakes and perfects their next attempt (see Helldivers 2)."

With such quick trigger-pulling, Willis says studios will "never get that breakout success" they're after.

"These people would've turned down funding for George Lucas, Walt Disney, etc., and they wonder why they can't establish another colossal IP that pays dividends for decades. It's mind-boggling. There is lots wrong with the game industry, but I believe that one of the main things is that the people who manage it today have no idea how it actually works and refuse to learn or listen to the people that do."

The producer cites how wild it is to see spending on hardware and software go up, but layoffs never settling.

"It's really amazing how demand and consumer spending on video games continues to increase year over year, and yet the supply side continues to be extremely volatile for employees," he describes. "The failure to connect these two sides in a way that creates sustainable growth points to a direct failure of executive leadership – the consequences of which are only suffered by workers."

Willis signs off with one final thought: "The more I think about it, the more I come to the conclusion that the executive management class that controls the video game industry is so severely inept that they have somehow failed everyone all at once in every aspect – the shareholders, the consumers, the employees, and anyone who cares about games. They tried to sacrifice quality for profit, and they didn't even manage to generate the latter. Abysmal choices."

I'm inclined to agree with Willis on his point about a "breakout success" in this climate – it feels near impossible. Here's hoping the industry is able to heal a bit over time, and that we see less news regarding mass layoffs, too.

Layoffs might offer "better short-term financial results," late Nintendo president Satoru Iwata admitted in 2013, but "employees who fear that they may be laid off" will never produce the same results

World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 players can finally earn some cash by playing their beloved respective MMOs and put it towards a real-life degree – but it's not as easy as it may sound.

The University of Silicon Valley in California has quite an offer on the table for a few very lucky select students (10-15 annually, apparently) – the Max Achievement Scholarship, as the educational institution outlines on its official website.

If you've not heard of it before, it gives folks a chance to score up to $15,000 in scholarship money… but it's far simpler said than actually done. It isn't only a matter of playing games, you see.

As the university explains, "The Max Achievement Scholarship recognizes students who have demonstrated extraordinary mastery, persistence, and systems thinking through the completion of rare and demanding achievements in digital gaming environments."

Yes, that means that aspiring players need to get to grindin' in their game of choice. We're talking "ultra-rare accomplishments" for the "Legendary Tier" of awards.

Many of these, as the University of Silicon Valley describes, require "500+ hours of sustained mastery across complex systems (typically <1% global completion rate)." For example, World of Warcraft players need to have Loremaster unlocked, all 13 professions maxed, and 25+ Exalted reputations, plus the Keystone Master achievement.

As for Final Fantasy 14 players, the requirements are higher than the in-game requirements to become a Mentor.

I know, I know, those aren't exactly ridiculously high themselves – but the university's are. Players need all 20 combat jobs and eight crafter/gatherer jobs at level 100 (the game's max level), plus all role quests and "all 12 extreme trials cleared," although it's not specified which ones.

I'm assuming Dawntrail's trials… and then some? The bottom line is that this scholarship money isn't easily obtainable, regardless.

MMOs aren't the only games up for the cash, either – heck, there's everything from Minecraft to Dark Souls (good luck with that one). You can even apply as a general PC, PlayStation 5, or Xbox Series X|S gamer, but you'll need platinums and perfect games galore.

Put simply, there's no quick way to have a go at the Max Achievement Scholarship money. If you think you might qualify, though, the university is accepting submissions now.

Multiple achievements may be submitted, too – but "achievements earned via modded, private, or emulated servers are not eligible." So, if you're a World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14 (or insert another game name here) stan, shoot your shot.

Blizzard knows World of Warcraft's removal of raid add-ons is "controversial," but the MMO's lead says its new UI "has been successful so far"

The Elder Scrolls Online team is unfortunately part of Microsoft's ongoing plan to cut 3,200 employees at Xbox, leaving the developers behind the Bethesda MMO far fewer in number than before.

In fact, the team is apparently as small as it was about a decade ago, when the game only really began to take off after its shaky launch – or, at least, that's what prominent community figure Baratron, who helps run the Unofficial Elder Scrolls Pages and its Discord, reports.

He reveals as much in a new message, explaining that he learned the news from associate design director Jason Barnes and associate director of community management Jessica Folsom.

It came during the past weekend's Elder Scrolls Online Tavern event in Hesse, Germany, where fans and developers gathered to celebrate the MMO.

"This is important," writes Baratron. "According to both Jason Barnes (Associate Design Director) and Jessica Folsom (Associate Director of Community Management), Zenimax Online Studios is now at the same size as it was when they made both Wrothgar and Summerset."

That's shocking, to say the least – but he doesn't seem to think it's a bad thing. After all, "both are highly acclaimed DLCs," as the UESP admin puts it. "So while the layoffs are extremely upsetting for everyone involved (of course including players), this is not necessarily the end of new content or the game going into maintenance mode."

Baratron assures that there's more reason to think the end of Elder Scrolls Online isn't near, too.

"Also Nick Giacomini (Game Director) and Susan Kath (Studio Executive Producer) are specifically not at the ESO Tavern because they're working on the new Roadmap of when content will be released," he states. "It really is not the end yet."

It's a bit of bittersweet, good-and-bad news, all things considered – the layoffs, obviously, are not nice to hear about… but it's reassuring that they don't spell the demise of the MMO.

Here's hoping any and all affected developers are able to land on their feet, and The Elder Scrolls Online proves to have a brighter future than fans expect following the upsetting news circulating recently.

"There's really no one left": Former Elder Scrolls Online dev says the MMO "basically funded other failing projects" as Microsoft guts the studio

Blizzard made waves in the World of Warcraft community after deciding to remove combat mods alongside the release of new expansion Midnight, but director Ion Hazzikostas remains certain that it was the right decision.

Speaking in a new interview with PCGamesN, Hazzikostas first reiterates that raid mechanics were never developed "with the intent that add-ons would be used to solve them." It's an issue that Final Fantasy 14 players will understand well, too – although Blizzard only recently took action against combat plug-ins.

Players were meant to overcome World of Warcraft's greater challenges more organically, hence the removal of such add-ons.

Even though fans themselves have offered a bit of a mixed bag of reactions to the entire debacle, Hazzikostas believes the UI changes accompanying the add-ons' departure have largely been a good thing.

"I know this may be a controversial statement, but I will say that, overall, [the new UI] has been successful so far," he says. "It's not done, it's not perfect; there's more work to go, and we are continuing to undertake that work."

But, Hazzikostas assures us, "By and large, the vast majority of people are completing the same level of content that they were before, and far more are doing it without feeling like they need to seek out external tools."

Blizzard isn't done yet – the devs are "continuing to improve our base interface" while also making things a bit easier for add-on authors. It's about striking a middle ground, not just scrapping everything players used to know.

And, as Blizzard has said time and time again, "All of this has been in service of a more approachable experience and a more level playing field."

Reactions didn't make that easy, as the whole "killing add-ons" rhetoric "led to a very understandable, very negative reaction around that idea because add-ons have been a part of WoW for 20 years." But, they still are – just not in the same way they used to be.

It's nothing like Square Enix's third-party tool policy that those of us invested in Eorzea know very well – and it's evolving.

"While it's certainly been a transition with its challenges, we're excited to have this new baseline and foundation, and things will only continue to get better from here, both as we continue to add functionality to the base UI, and we continue to empower addon authors to add customization options," as Hazzikostas states.

Ultimately, Blizzard wants "to open up new doors and possibilities for players in raids, dungeons, delves, and everything in between" – and that's what Midnight's changes (and future tweaks, too) aim to do.

Blizzard continues taking action against World of Warcraft private servers as it pushes on with a lawsuit citing "large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement" of its MMO

While I've drifted away from Guild Wars over the years, it's secured a place in my heart, with the proud title of "Only MMO I've Ever Liked". I like to think it wears a sash that says this. The announcement of Guild Wars 3 has since piqued my interest all the way back up again, particularly as it looks like an MMO that actually respects your time. This was highlighted by ArenaNet's studio head, Collin Johanson, who said in an interview with IGN Live that it would be playable "as much or as little" as the players want.

God above, that's pleasant to hear. Look, I'm all for games that you can immerse yourself in, but I'm also in my early 30s and I don't necessarily want games to be all-consuming entities that, like some eldritch abomination, get their hooks in you and siphon time away with repetitive tasks. Sometimes I just want to be able to jump in, play for a while, then come back a week or so later, without feeling like I've lost out on something.

Rise and grind

Gamers are perennially fascinated with MMOs. When you're first getting into online gaming, the idea that you can share a living, breathing world with thousands of other players is intoxicating. But far too often, MMOs don't live up to their promise.

Take World of Warcraft, one of the biggest games of all time, but one that I bounced off like a rubber ball. I've been around the MMO block a fair few times, from The Secret World to Dune Awakening, but I can't seem to stick with one for very long. Even Eve Online, which has produced so many incredible stories, just doesn't offer gameplay that I personally find entertaining. There is one exception: Guild Wars 2.

I first entered the world of Tyria back in 2013, and fell in love with its structure. The mix of ongoing, large-scale quests, snack-sized daily objectives and larger monthly ones, immediately gave me the structure that I felt MMOs were lacking. I now knew what I had to do, day in, day out, making hopping on for an hour feel less like a chore and more like an opportunity to see what was new in the world of cat men and plant people. Crucially, it was also free, which was great!

For all of its grindiness, that's something that I feel Warframe does really well. When I hop on with a friend, it's easy to spend a couple hours slicing up Grineer then leave it until a week or so later when we're next free. I don't feel that I miss out on anything significant by doing this, and that's fantastic. Games aren't meant to be a second job, and whether that involves filling out a Battlepass or harvesting endless quantities of vampire gallbladders, that's something that MMOs are often guilty, with malice of forethought, of doing.

It's a choice for, say, World of Warcraft, to be oriented around small dopamine hits that keep you grinding away for dopamine. I don't mean to yuck anyone's yums, but it's not for me.

Get the guild back together

With Guild Wars 3, ArenaNet plans to avoid "keeping people hostage", as Johanson says, adding that "the MMO genre is ready for something new". That's the handle, right there.

MMOs have barely changed over the decades, and with live-service games, we can see MMO mechanics spreading like wildfire. Consider something like Call of Duty, which has decided that weapon progression and cosmetics aren't enough to keep people playing, and has implemented a battlepass, which introduces FOMO to keep you playing. If you haven't completed a battlepass, can you truly say that the money you spent to get the premium unlocks was worth it? Probably not, right? So keep playing!

Games across all genres can be deeply predatory. Games that I love, even. Yet the best games don't do this. You play those not to unlock content that you've technically already paid for, but because you're interested in what they do, what they have to say, or enjoy the process. I've recently been playing 1000xResist (it's a banger), and I wouldn't have felt more of a draw to complete it if I'd been offered a new Watcher skin for successfully completing 5 communions. Conversely, I played Assassin's Creed Valhalla a few years ago, had completed a ton of the game, then saw a yawning chasm of 50 more hours stretching ahead of me if I wanted to actually finish it, and felt insulted.

We've all got a limited amount of time on this Earth. I don't have the time anymore to sink endless hours into an MMO, and, as more and more people keep playing video games well into their adult lives, that's true for an ever-increasing number of us. If Guild Wars 3 is capable of staying captivating, without chaining you to your desk in pursuit of that next dopamine hit, it may well be a game that I come to love. Maybe Guild Wars 2 needs to get ready to share that sash.

Here are the best MMOs and MMORPGs to play right now in 2026!

Blizzard is pursuing legal action against private World of Warcraft server Project Ascension – a server that isn't the first to face a lawsuit from the company.

In case you missed the news earlier this year, Blizzard cracked down on private server Turtle WoW with a cease-and-desist order – only to then do the same to Stormforge, another server run by the MMO's players. There was no clear connection at the time, but Blizzard didn't stop with just the two. Most recently, it's gone on to target Project Ascension, a separate private server, with a lengthy lawsuit (thanks, Wowhead).

Project Ascension boasts a classless, free-to-play take on the usual World of Warcraft formula, with various game modes, custom raiding, and much more. It's been around for a good few years, undeniably catching the eye of Blizzard.

The company hadn't taken action against the private server for using its intellectual property until now, dubbing it an "egregious" violation on June 12.

"The defendants … have built an entire business on large-scale, egregious, and ongoing infringement of Blizzard's intellectual property," its initial complaint from earlier this month reads, outlining how Project Ascension stands "among the largest private WoW servers available today" with its million or so players.

A few days ago, Blizzard followed up on this with a summons request – and now, the clock is ticking.

As per the new request, the creators behind Project Ascension have three weeks to respond. "A lawsuit has been filed against you. Within 21 days after service of this summons on you (not counting the day you received it)… you must serve on the plaintiff an answer to the attached complaint or a motion…"

It concludes, "If you fail to respond, judgment by default will be entered against you for the relief demanded in the complaint."

That's not a lot of time, considering the private server's years of service – and, uh, also the fact that its developers are still adding to their project. Heck, 20 hours ago, the official YouTube channel announced a whopping 21 new classes.

All of this begs the question: What's next for Project Ascension, really? Will it face the same fate as Turtle WoW and Stormforge… or somehow dodge it?

Honestly, I can't see the server dodging Blizzard's legal wrath here, no matter how I spin it in my head – but I suppose only time will truly tell.

World of Warcraft Camelot discovery gives the MMO's community its most compelling evidence yet that Blizzard might actually turn a myth into a long-hoped-for reality.

Final Fantasy 14 expansion Evercold is on its way, so it's a great time to take a step back and look at what might just be one of the best raid tiers the MMO has seen to date: the Arcadion.

It's no secret that Dawntrail, as an expansion, left many of us a bit disappointed – I mean, they can't all be Shadowbringers, am I right? It has dipped in and out of a "Mostly Negative" rating on Steam (now sitting at "Mixed" reviews overall). But, still, it didn't go wrong in every delivery.

In fact, its raid series, the Arcadion, is widely regarded as one of the greatest… both for casual players and hardcore fans tackling the Savages.

As a dedicated raider myself, I'm interested to see what Evercold's own raids might bring – and what Square Enix learned from the Arcadion's solid reception. So I ask assistant director Tsuyoshi Yokozawa during a recent interview what the developers are considering carrying over into the next tier.

"Our experience with the Arcadion has served as a firm guideline for our future battle content development," he tells me… which, yeah, makes a lot of sense.

"We would like to strongly carry over the following three points in particular into the next raid series." The first is the "pursuit of unique experiences without fear of risk" – something I'm certainly a fan of.

"What this series has reaffirmed for me is that surprise and novelty are at the very heart of what makes content truly entertaining," Yokozawa explains. This means risk-taking while battle planning and "'prioritizing unprecedented experiences.'"

This might cost more resources, but it's clearly worked with the Arcadion. I don't think I'll soon forget the fight designs from Dawntrail's high-tier raiding, and I'm ready for more of that. I'm also ready for more of the lead's next point – the "creation of boss characters that players can genuinely connect with."

Is he low-key talking about Honey B. Lovely here and how she became a community icon? I'd like to think so.

"Instead of having them exist purely as enemies to defeat, we want to further emphasize portraying their individuality, background, and personality through the battles themselves," continues Yokozawa on raid bosses, "so that they can be appreciated and loved as characters over the long term." This approach is something Square Enix plans "to place even greater importance on" in Evercold.

The third point the assistant director brings up might have a greater effect on us hardcore raiders than anyone else: "designing gameplay that allows for flexible problem-solving."

According to Yokozawa, "Rather than forcing players to utilize a specific strategy, we value leaving in room for players to approach situations in their own way, using their creativity and judgment to overcome challenges." Comparing different statics' clears proves his point, honestly.

Square Enix "will continue to include mechanics where mistakes can lead directly to a full wipe," but the devs "want to be more deliberate about where those moments occur."

They'll do this "by expanding the opportunities for recovery" – think limit breaks, healing, and rezzes. It's all about the feeling "overcoming difficult situations through players' own resourcefulness" gives us as raiders, and I get it.

Just think about how much better a kill feels when you think you've truly contributed to the static's overall ability to get it – it's a feeling I know well as a healer main. It's nice to see devs acknowledge its power.

As Yokozawa concludes, they "always take our players' voices seriously" and are "committed to creating battles that deliver both excitement and a strong sense of accomplishment." The Arcadion serves as proof.

"Of course, we have much to learn from missteps and areas where we reflect and improve – but we take all of that forward as motivation to keep delivering experiences that can only be found in FF14," he admits, before signing off with a heartfelt message: "I look forward to seeing you all on the battlefield in the next challenge. We hope you will continue to look forward to FF14's battle content in the future!"

I know I already am – my fellow static members definitely are, too. All of these points, along with the upcoming job changes, have me at the edge of my seat.

Final Fantasy 14 fans make their own in-game Tinder, with gil-hungry bunny boys and modded cat girls galore.

As the wait for new Final Fantasy 14 expansion Evercold drags on, the MMO's community is finding fresh ways to spice its time in Eorzea up… including via a Tinder-like add-on.

Yes, you read that correctly. We can all try and score our very own Limsa baddies in-game (a girl can dream, right?) thanks to AetherLove – a Dalamud plug-in that adds matchmaking to Final Fantasy 14.

I'm not promoting third-party tools or anything here, but should you be intrigued by the concept, AetherLove apparently functions much like Tinder does… albeit in-game, of course. It's all contained within a convenient mobile (tomestone) window.

All you need to do is set up your profile – you know, include all of the essentials like your favorite music and Final Fantasy character – and et voilà! You can swipe left or right on fellow Warriors of Light, depending on how you feel about their Miqo'tes and what have you.

Do be warned, you'll see a lot of modded outfits (and perhaps more NSFW gpose pictures than you've bargained for). In other words, AetherLove is exactly what it sounds like.

As one might expect, fans are already going wild over the unofficial Final Fantasy 14 Tinder equivalent. It's Lovebringer all over again, except now as a handy add-on – and I can't get enough of the chatter online (and admittedly, in my own Free Company chat) about it.

Heck, just take a peek over at X for AetherLove profile screenshots, ratings, and, of course, drama. It wouldn't be Final Fantasy 14 without some drama, eh?

From the bunny boys looking for sugar mommas to the cat girls seeking their one true love, it's all certainly something to behold. Just how long will it last before Square Enix cracks down on it, Mare Synchronos-style, though?

I do hope it stays up at least a bit longer so that I can continue browsing through the chaos on social media, if I'm honest… but I'm not brave enough to dip my toes into AetherLove's digital dating myself.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I have amusing screenshots to share among my FC pals – and various new AetherLove profiles to judge.

Final Fantasy 14 boss Yoshi-P has "many game ideas" tucked away that he'd like to do something with, one being a "game design that combines AI and servers"

A newly discovered version of World of Warcraft, called "World of Warcraft Camelot," once again has the MMO community hoping and theorizing that an enhanced version of WoW Classic is on the way.

This week, a dataminer over at Wowhead came across something called 'World of Warcraft Camelot.' Rather than a new expansion for the retail version of the MMO, though, things are pointing to something else. That's because the new discovery is attached to patch 1.60, which was initially released in July 2006.

And that's not all. The dataminer also uncovered Epic and Heroic versions of World of Warcraft Camelot, which does point to something substantial, but probably not something related to the current trilogy that the main version of World of Warcraft is going through.

That's about it for the latest discovery so far, though it's worth mentioning that it's the latest in a string of circumstances that everyone thinks lead to WoW Classic+. Plenty of eyebrows were raised in the community when several content creators revealed they visited Blizzard to see something, though other teases are even starker. One being executive producer Holly Longdale gearing up to announce what's next for WoW Classic before being comically cut off.

Regardless of what's happening, it's something Blizzard appears happy to tease. Just last year, in fact, the developers released a yearbook that mentioned developers "cooking on the long-term future of WoW Classic."

So what is WoW Classic+? It hasn't actually been confirmed by Blizzard yet, so there's no one way to explain it. Broadly, though, fans are hoping for a new version of World of Warcraft that branches off from the main MMO and resembles something like Old School RuneScape. Naturally, the original WoW Classic was Blizzard's initial take on something new based on something old, but we have been slowly catching up with retail WoW with the release of new expansions, so it's clearly time for something fresh in that space.

Out of everything we've seen so far, the datamine is certainly substantial. It remains to be seen if World of Warcraft Camelot is the WoW Classic+ fans have been hoping for, though it wouldn't be surprising if it is, as Blizzard's future plans for the MMO in its various forms have often been spied early thanks to the efforts of dataminers. With BlizzCon set to take place later this year, we should hopefully find out before too long.

"They will hopefully p*** off": As World of Warcraft players take on the Casino Bots themselves, lead confirms Blizzard has "a few folks looking into ideas" to get rid of them.

If you've been wandering around Azeroth of late, especially in any of the bigger cities, you've likely spotted casino bots – automated advertising for local gambling. They're meant to be against the rules in World of Warcraft, but real-money traders – RMTs – have been using them to get richer, quicker, and as players blow them up, Blizzard's looking into further preventative measures.

These nuisances can be found standing on wooden boxes, dancing away to pull you in for a gamble or give a winner a moment in the limelight. Users have gotten weary of the distraction, and in lieu of developers patching in more constraints for them, they've taken to taking them out.

A compilation on Reddit by user sozbro_ shows several being quite literally exploded. "I can't be online 24/7, and I certainly can't drop infernals on every casino bot myself," they say in the caption of the video. "Fortunately, this isn't a one-warlock problem."

As this is happening, Blizzard is on the case. "The casino thing that's vogue right now. Just to confirm we're aware, it's still against policy to advertise a casino so keep reporting them (or dropping infernals on them)," Tom Ellis, senior game producer on World of Warcraft, says on Twitter (thanks, Wowhead).

After some "digging in," he pins it on RMTs, because it's "an easy way to make gold quickly and cheaply." A blockade is being constructed, but don't expect much fanfare when it happens.

"We have a few folks looking into ideas on how we can make getting these people out of the game much faster so the activity is less lucrative and in turn, they will hopefully piss off," he explains. "Don't expect any sort of big fanfare 'Mission Accomplished!' banner for this one, this is one of the ones that you hopefully don't even notice stopped happening if we get it right."

As one Reddit commenter points out, gambling can be incredibly difficult and problematic for people. The allure of such activities could be triggering, especially if unexpected. Hopefully Blizzard's able to clamp down on this problem sooner rather than later.

"It has been an honor": World of Warcraft fans gather in popular private server Turtle WoW to say goodbye as it ends 8-year run following Blizzard lawsuit.

It's the most wonderful time of the year for gamers as Summer Game Fest rolls around, with plenty of big reveals and sneak peeks at upcoming titles – including the long-awaited Guild Wars threequel... Guild Wars 3.

Yes, the rumors were true – Guild Wars 3 is actually happening, and it looks incredible. ArenaNet unveiled its new MMO during tonight's Summer Game Fest showcase, surprising fans of the iconic 2012 gem that's dominated the genre alongside other greats like World of Warcraft and Final Fantasy 14 since.

It's been a long 14 years, after all, and the community has grown restless.

Thankfully, fans won't have to wait long to dive into Guild Wars 3. ArenaNet has further surprised us with a beta announcement – one that's set to open in the fall of 2027. You can already sign up if you're interested, in fact, over on the game's official website.

Guild Wars 3 sounds like it'll be quite the entry to ArenaNet's MMO lineup, too – the devs say their goal with it "is to push MMORPGs forward, to create an online game world that feels believable, rewarding, responsive, and innovative while at the same time respecting players' time and providing a positive, supportive space to build community and enjoy new stories in our universe."

As for the story, the game is set over a thousand years before the OG Guild Wars, making it a prequel of sorts. Set in the Tyrian region of Orr, there are – unsurprisingly – various guilds fighting over the verdant landscape's resources.

ArenaNet teases "deep character customization" and "skill-building gameplay," too, which I'm personally very excited to hear. I want to look good while dealing damage – who doesn't?

More information will come later this year and in 2027 before Guild Wars 3 enters its beta period – but for now, I'm content just knowing it's actually real.

Searching for something else to wishlist? Here are the best new games coming this year and beyond to look forward to.

Oh, the rumor mill is spinning when it comes to Guild Wars 3. Various reports and false flags for the latent follow-up to Guild Wars 2 have sprung up in recent years, but a domain update spotted by fans may indicate movement on the MMORPG.

A dot-com domain for Guild Wars 3 has been registered since June 2004, presumably as a precaution by NCSoft when the original came out, in case the original game became a successful series. 22 years later, that turned out to be a smart move.

But after over two decades, the site got an update on June 5, 2026, according to online directories for URL information. That's today, at time of writing. Now, there's nothing public - the URL isn't live or anything - but something stirred on the backend somewhere.

The site is tied to Amazon Web Services, a popular contemporary hosting platform, providing another sign of movement, however meager. Assuming this is leading toward a reveal, the timing becomes yet more conspicuous because Summer Game Fest is happening at the moment, and developer ArenaNet's got something to unveil during the main showcase.

A glance through the Summer Game Fest 2026 schedule doesn't yield many other places where Guild Wars 3 may appear, until you get toward the end. The PC Gaming Show, on June 7. Could we see it there, either? Possible, if it's not part of the central event.

Players are taking this all in stride. "Cautiously optimistic. I'll be happy if it happens but I'm not settling myself up for disappointment if it does," says one fan on Reddit. "Are we finally getting a new triple A MMORPG? WE WAITED 10,000 YEARS!" another says.

The latest expansion for Guild Wars 2, Visions of Eternity, arrived in July last year. The central narrative of the RPG actually finished back in 2023, as part of the End of Dragons expansion, setting the stage for another installment. Keep all expectations in check, but we might be learning more soon.

Persona 6 to be announced at Xbox Games Showcase, prominent Switch 2 leaker claims as rumored images circulate

One of the most difficult fights in Final Fantasy 14, an Ultimate raid from Shadowbringers, has just met its match in a static comprised entirely of casters and healers.

If you've ever done The Epic of Alexander (Ultimate) yourself, then you probably know how challenging it can be. I still have nightmares about the wormhole phase to this day, and it's been literal years since my group took on the revamped Heavensward bosses.

That raid – the one that took me a whopping three months or so to finally clear – is apparently easier to some of than others, though… A static has just managed to clear it with no tanks, after all.

Not only did the group clear with no tanks, however – it's a group made up of three healers (in this case, White Mages) and five casters (Black Mages, to be precise). That tank Limit Break during Perfect Alexander? Psh, they evidently don't need it.

You can watch the static tackle TEA over on YouTube, with each member juggling aggro back and forth as there's no Dark Knight, Gunbreaker, Paladin, or Warrior to take it themselves.

It's quite a moment to behold, honestly. This is a nearly 20-minute fight that groups with normal compositions struggle to do… and unsurprisingly, the community is impressed.

"I love when people just clear old content with really silly combos, and here I am, unable to even find a group to start doing it," reads one comment. Another jokes that "tank LB3 is a suggestion, not a requirement." It would seem so, anon. It would seem so.

One person jests that "the BLM parties from FFXI are coming to XIV, I see," referencing Square Enix's previous (and still active) MMO: Final Fantasy 11. My favorite response comes from a tank, though. "As a tank main, I can barely survive the tank buster, and here you are BLM take it like a champ."

I'm a healer myself, but this resonates with me so much. I hate feeling like I'm overhealing in raids, but TEA genuinely felt so tight sometimes.

I suppose that speaks to this group's skill… and I'm sure that as the new Kefka Ultimate – Dancing Mad – becomes "contemporary," we'll see more impressive clears like this.

Final Fantasy 14 legend spends 3 years soloing the MMO's Free Trial in the worst way possible, and now the finish line is in sight after suffering Shadowbringers' last big boss for 3 days straight

Dune: Awakening may be lifting off from PC-only territory and arriving on consoles soon, but you won't be able to explore Arrakis with just anyone. According to developer Funcom, crossplay won't be supported because its focus is on finishing the ports and releasing the single-player mode.

Funcom acknowledged that players might be disappointed to hear it won't have crossplay at launch, but suggested that it might be added in the future in a statement to Eurogamer.

The studio said it will "address it more in an upcoming livestream," but that it's "technically and operationally complex to implement crossplay in Dune: Awakening and would require us to put resources on it that are currently focused on making the console port and the September update the best it can be."

That means PS5 players will be stuck playing with people on the same platform. Xbox Series X players will too, although they will be able to play with anyone on PC who owns the game through the Windows Store.

Ironically, the big September update will add a single-player mode to the early access game. Maybe that's why its director recently said he doesn't consider it an MMO. Dune: Awakening is about to lean into being a survival game first and an MMO second, which sounds a lot like Final Fantasy 14 players describing that game as an RPG with MMO mechanics. It's really up to you to decide how you want to play it.

The update will drop on September 22, giving console players the opportunity to play through the entirety of the game's book one story. New players will see a single-player option before they jump in, but will need to decide if they want to cut themselves off from ever seeing other players, including PvP in the Deep Desert.

Dune: Awakening fans "so disappointed" by no Polar Cap in 1.4, Funcom says it's "a huge amount of work" but the devs "are still very much actively working on the new map"

Emerging from an identity crisis, Dune: Awakening developer Funcom concluded last month that the game is "not an MMO" but rather a "complicated" survival game with online play. The big announcement out of Tuesday's PlayStation State of Play show – not God of War Laufey, the Dune news – leans into this not-an-MMO future, with a single-player mode coming to the game in September.

On September 22, Dune: Awakening will launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X, with single-player coming the same day, and the final act of the book one story dropping as well.

"This will be the best version of Dune: Awakening yet," Funcom insists in a Steam post. "Not just a great Open World Survival game, but the ultimate gateway into one of science fiction’s most iconic worlds." I like to think "Open World Survival" game is in title case to deepen the line in the sand. This ain't no MMO, buddy. This is an OWS.

Single-player will be an option when you first start Dune: Awakening, the devs explain, letting you "finally experience the entire game in single-player mode, across all platforms, and play it entirely at your own pace."

This solo mode will offer three preset difficulty settings as well as "full manual customization" for things like XP, enemy strength, and harvest speed. "All the NPCs are here, but no other players," Funcom adds.

"The Deep Desert is fully available with all its content and challenges, but the map never resets and your buildings are never wiped," the devs say, and I know that will be music to some players' ears. "The Coriolis Storm remains as a weather event but is less destructive. The Landsraad endgame simulates other players engaging with the faction conflict, keeping it competitive and engaging."

How does this new mode fit into the updated Dune ecosystem? "We're putting characters – not servers – at the center of the experience," Funcom says. Single-player characters will "remain exclusive to the single-player mode," but private and self-hosted server characters "can be played on any of these and can even go between private and self-hosted servers."

Characters made on official servers will be able to go between any official server, and can move to private or self-hosted servers, but can't then go back to official servers "to ensure the integrity of official servers."

A lot of true-blue MMOs are playable solo in some capacity, with the clearest example probably being Ironman accounts in Old School RuneScape, which, by design, can't trade or really interact with other players. You can also put your head down and just focus on story quests almost entirely solo in the likes of Final Fantasy 14, which has even made solo play easier by beefing up NPC allies who can streamline multiplayer dungeons and the like.

But the clue's in the name: MMOs aren't single-player experiences, so adding a single-player mode is about as loud a declaration as Dune: Awakening could make. This ain't no MMO, buddy, etc, etc.

"Single-player is one of the most-requested features since launch," Funcom says. "We’re also adding the final chapter of Dune: Awakening’s Book One story, so whether you want to play entirely by yourself, with friends on a private server, or with strangers on a larger multiplayer server, you will now be able to play the story from the start to its dramatic conclusion."

The demand for solo play is interesting on its own. It reflects the muddier definition of what Dune: Awakening really is, and the audience it attracted. People generally don't come to an MMO to play alone, but survival games – that is, the more conventional ones – do have a huge single-player audience. Multiplayer is also baked into a lot of survival games – from Rust to Palworld to Valheim, with the likes of Don't Starve Together and now Subnautica 2 explicitly emphasizing it – but it's not as essential to the genre.

Everything announced at the PlayStation State of Play June 2026.

Final Fantasy 14's most hardcore players have spent the last day or so grappling with patch 7.51 and its newly introduced Kefka-themed Ultimate raid – a raid that takes everything folks know about the MMO's mechanics and throws it into the wind.

In case you weren't around for Stormblood and its Sigmascape line of Savage raids (or Final Fantasy 6, from where the boss originates), Kefka terrorized Final Fantasy 14 fans with his chaotic mechanics and confusing puzzles for quite some time back in 2018 with patch 4.2.

Now, he's back for more clownin' around in the Dancing Mad Ultimate – a fight that fans are amusingly dubbing UMAD thanks to the sheer amount of trolling Kefka does.

The top raiding groups around the globe are currently competing to take down the mad mage, with Chinese static NO CCHH currently in the lead as per FFLogs – although the leaderboard is constantly changing right now as players progress through the fight.

It seems that many of them, however, hit a wall at the end of the second phase… when Kefka tricks them into thinking they've finished the entire fight with a fake chest and "Complete" cutscene.

As one clip over on X shows it as it played out live, Kefka "dies" while in his godlike form, with a small cutscene playing that reads "Complete" – not the game's usual "Duty Complete" message, notably. Then, a massive chest spawns beside the instance exit as it would upon a real completion… only to *poof* and vanish once opened.

The only option a group is left with is to leave and restart the entire fight after trying the chest.

Honestly, it's absolutely hilarious, and it seems to be what fans see should they not resolve all of Kefka's mechanics properly… which, you know, isn't exactly easy to tell, seeing as the whole raid is topsy-turvy when it comes to debuffs and whatnot. Viewers are loving it, though (myself included), judging by the chatter online.

One person comments that it's "absolute cinema," while another chimes in, 'This is the greatest fight ever!"

Others make jokes about the whole "UMAD" title given to the fight – one that, if it had followed the usual acronym standards, would actually be known as "DMU."

As one fan says, "This is why UMAD has to be the name." Agreed – "Kefka is the ultimate troll," after all. He's managing to trick the most elite Final Fantasy 14 players, spurring the greatest memes I think I've ever seen from the community during a world's first race.

My static will be taking Kefka on, too, soon, and honestly… I'm not so sure how I feel about it anymore. Nonetheless, I'll be sure to prepare my Warrior of Light with a clown nose and plenty of Swiftcast saving for quick resurrections.

Final Fantasy 14 legend spends 3 years soloing the MMO's Free Trial in the worst way possible, and now the finish line is in sight after suffering Shadowbringers' last big boss for 3 days straight

Final Fantasy 14 fans, the moment has arrived – Patch 7.51 is here, and with it, we've got a brand-new Kefka-themed Ultimate raid… and a, um, taco-eating emote?

That's right. While we wait for Evercold to arrive in January 2027, our Warriors of Light can enjoy some fresh, hot tacos in-game, much like G'raha Tia did in the ever-iconic Dawntrail trailer back in 2024.

As per the official patch notes from Square Enix, 7.51 brings some new emotes to the MMO – and one of those involves your WoL happily eating a taco, because how else would one eat a taco? It's brilliant, honestly.

In case you're out of the loop on the connection between Final Fantasy 14 and tacos, there's the iconic G'raha Tia moment to look to, and also the amusing misheard lyrics from Ultima.

Ultima is a song you'll know very well if you're a Main Scenario roulette frequenter, or someone who spent far too long farming the Ruby, Emerald, and Diamond Weapon trials – one that sounds as though its singers are chanting "BIG FAT TACOS" over and over again.

Heck, folks have even mashed the two moments together, with G'raha Tia eating his taco to the tune. It's unsurprising, then, that Patch 7.51 and its addition of the taco-eating emote stand out… even amid all of the, you know, arguably more significant changes to come with the update.

Just have a peek over at Reddit, where a post on the patch sees various comments roll in regarding the emote. The top response is literally "taco time."

One fan jokes, "/devourtaco autotranslate is gonna be in so many people's search info" – and, yeah, I think they're right. People are also noting that the emote loops, which means endless taco monching. Sign me up.

Plus, it'll pair nicely with my Warrior of Light's tea-drinking and whatnot. As another commenter puts it, "Ooo taco emote. I have a whole lunch set now in my emotes." What more could a food-loving Au'ra ask for?

It's not the only silly feature to come out of Patch 7.51 that has the community excited, either – just look at the new shovel accessory… and this is why I love Final Fantasy 14.

Final Fantasy 14 fans celebrate a huge win: finally, we can kick Lalafells in the face and send them flying into the void

As the Final Fantasy 14 community prepares for patch 7.51 tomorrow and, of course, the new expansion Evercold arriving in January, Square Enix is updating the Mog Station with emotes – including one that has folks roleplaying all sorts of cartoonish violence.

The Mog Station, home to the MMO's paid online store (in which I have spent far too much money), recently saw the arrival of two new emotes: Blown Away and Overreact. Although both are admittedly silly – and perfect for those of us obsessed with gpose – the former is making for some very humorous RP moments and clips on social media.
What do these show, you may be wondering… and the answer is lots of Lalafell violence.

"Lala, run over and killed," one post so eloquently describes its attached footage. In it, we see Lalafells slapped to the ground dramatically thanks to the Blown Away emote, and, perhaps more literally, blown away by another Lalafell's chonky landing. "What a shockwave," the player behind the clips jokes.

There's more, too. Another fan jokes, "The potential of the new emote is insane," highlighting just how in their own video. We watch an Au'ra casually kick a little Lalafell down to the ground, with 0 regrets in sight.

Elsewhere, a separate thread shows more Lala-on-Lala action, with one popoto-shaped Warrior of Light slapping another silly. Both feature the Blown Away emote as the receiving party's movement of choice, which acts as the cherry on top of the amusing (and violent) cake.

Lalafells aren't the only characters being Blown Away, though.

A different compilation of clips proves as much, with its creator – a Miqo'te – being run over by mounts, fanned off into the wind, and zipped away by parasols… all thanks to the Blown Away emote.

In the best way possible, this is all too reminiscent of the recent obsession with Chort – we can always count on the Final Fantasy 14 community to eat up the most chaotic, hilarious parts of the MMO… and I'm so here for it, personally.

Running Final Fantasy 14 for 16 years means Square Enix knows live service, former exec says, but it's "used to being slow" and has "failed to bring its IP to a new generation

As one of the oldest, biggest, and best-understood MMOs around, Old School RuneScape has long been plagued by bot accounts using scripted actions to generate ill-gotten gold to sell on a gray market. This has led to congestion at popular areas in-game, with real players fighting bots for space and resources, and huge fluctuations in a trade market battered by absurd spikes in supply. But for the first time in a very long time, an extinction-class meteor seems to have hit the bot armies.

Two OSRS experts, SirPugger and FlippingOldSchool, both weighed in this week and came to the same conclusion: bots have been annihilated. This follows several periods of record-high OSRS botting in the past few years.

More pertinently, it comes on the heels of a renewed crackdown on botting and real-world trading by developer Jagex under new CEO Jon Bellamy. Jagex has obviously had anti-bot measures for ages – like every game with cheaters and anti-cheat, it's a never-ending battle – but for a while it seemed to be pretty clearly losing to botters. That's changed dramatically in 2026 thanks to harsher punishments and improved detection tools, seemingly with far more resources put behind them internally.

SirPugger, who has investigated and reported shockingly large bot farms for years, reckons "RuneScape No Longer Has a Bot Problem." Common bot hotspots in OSRS are completely vacant today. "I've never seen the caves so empty and I don't think I found a single bot," he says of one popular area in the Wilderness PvP zone.

Several professional botters have spoken to SirPugger over the years, and a current large botter reportedly believes that the current climate in OSRS is untenable. There are other games to bot, and OSRS is a less appealing target when it's harder to escape account action long enough to reliably generate and transfer gold, especially when you have to spend real money, or gold that you'd rather sell for real money, to get those bots into more lucrative membership areas.

"He told me that, all of the sudden, in January this year, bots in members [worlds] started getting banned in a matter of hours, not days or weeks," SirPugger relays. This trend has seemingly continued through the spring, with another recent blow sparking this discussion around the absence of bots. Updated account security numbers from Jagex show that over 8 trillion gold, roughly two-thirds of the 2026 total, was removed from OSRS in April alone as a result of bans and other account action.

"From what I've seen, the ones who claim they know how to avoid bans right now are the ones selling bot clients and scripts," SirPugger adds.

This is generally good news for the health of the game, but as FlippingOldSchool points out, there is a flipside. On one hand, the value of several heavily botted items – typically, resources that can be passively farmed in large quantities – has skyrocketed, giving players access to more profitable money makers (even if they also have to pay more for those items themselves). It's also a lot easier to find an available world for multiple activities, which is especially good for Ironman players who don't care about the trade economy because they have to get everything themselves anyway.

However, a lack of bots ironically makes botting more appealing because it makes it more profitable. Those higher prices can also benefit the few bots who slip through the net. Whoever can crack the current climate first and establish a reliable bot farm stands to earn considerably more gold and money than they would have even six months ago. And a lot of botters will have entire stables of accounts ready to go if and when the dust clears.

I don't think we'll ever see a true end to the bot wars in RuneScape, but this is by far the biggest blow dealt to botters in recent memory. I've seen countless videos and posts from players lamenting the scourge of bots in recent years, with some major content updates seriously sabotaged by locust-like botters, but the game's really bounced back. A comment on FlippingOldSchool's video sums it up for me: "When green drags are empty, you know things are getting better."

Illegal MMO gold seller earns nearly $500,000, becomes a tax issue, and days later devs announce plans to curb real-world trading.

Games have always been able to make players feel emotions, even make them cry, but subjecting them to such feelings hasn't usually been the medium's goal. Twenty years ago, though, one developer made it their explicit mission to make video games about feelings and emotions, and from that, we got thatgamecompany, the developers behind Flow, Flower, and Journey, a frontrunner and winner of several "Game of the Year" awards when it was released in 2012.

In an interview with Edge Magazine, thatgamecompany's president and creative director, Jenova Chen, recently reflected on the legacy of the studio and how well it has been able to realize these ambitions. According to Chen, the run between Flow and Journey notably changed things in the world of games and built momentum for a larger shift that we're still seeing play out.

He says, "After three games, we thought we had influenced the industry to some extent. We saw triple-A games like God of War and The Last of Us, which started to pick serious, emotional subjects, very personal subjects."

Chen continues, "I think that's a positive influence we had on the industry. And I was feeling pretty happy for the growth of the industry, because that's what the players asked us to do."

Of course, each of the games Chen mentioned went on to garner critical acclaim in the years of their release, especially for their mature and emotional narratives. The reputation of each also now transcends mediums; The Last of Us has an award-winning TV adaptation on HBO that's going into its third season, while Amazon is officially on the hook for at least two seasons of an upcoming show based on 2018's God of War and its sequel Ragnarok.

According to Chen, this outsized and apparent impact was part of the motivating force behind thatgamecompany's next game, the mobile-first and pacifistic MMO Sky: Children of the Light. Just as the studio had done for the console space, it wanted to "do something in the mobile industry to change people's view on games [at a broader scale]."

This meant wrestling with monetization options for about two years, which added up onto Sky's lengthier development time. Journey took thatgamecompany three years to make, while Sky (which featured a bigger team) ultimately took the studio seven years to realize and get out the door.

Even now, as Sky continues into its seventh year of operation as a live-service game, Chen still views the role of thatgamecompany as curators of experiences that center emotions. He says, "But ever since Journey, and continuing with Sky, we're playing with a new dimension. If you compare cinema and games, games have everything cinemas has, but they also have interaction with input and output. With Sky, I'm playing with a second instrument, which is social dynamics."

From the sounds of it, playing that second instrument not only saved thatgamecompany, which has been able to weather much of the games industry's turmoil over the last several years, but allowed Chen and his team to continue defying expectations and charting more emotional paths for games to follow.

World of Warcraft was a "savior" for the creator of Journey, and "beautiful moments" between Horde and Alliance players inspired his own games

Pour one out for our long-suffering Guardians, because Destiny 2 is officially dead. Or at least, that's how it feels; with "active development" ending in June for the nine year-old shooter, we won't be jetting off on any new adventures. And honestly, I'm gutted that it's going out like this. As someone who's been there since day one and has watched the game slowly yet steadily fall apart, it's heartbreaking to watch.

My Guardian – a dapper-looking Exo Warlock that I've used from day one – took their first steps back in 2014 with OG Destiny. I was there for the pre-release beta. I was there for the infamous 'Loot Cave.' I was there for the short-lived Dinklebot, before Nolan North took over from Peter Dinklage as our Ghost companion. With Marathon becoming the only active game developer Bungie has on the docket, and no Destiny 3 on the horizon, I have a horrible feeling I'll soon be saying goodbye to a character I've used for well over a decade.

Final Shapes

On the one hand, I get it. As our own Austin Wood noted when the news broke, "the vibe was that Bungie didn't know what to do with the game anymore, and perhaps it truly didn't." I agree, and think it's clear that Bungie is done with Destiny for the time being. On the other, though, part of the reason this stings so much is because of mismanagement. I don't doubt that the team has tried to do right by this series (no-one sets out to make a bad product), but the promise of Destiny feels squandered. Austin says it best by pointing out that "unpopular systemic changes, wobbling epilogue narratives, and a severe content drought brought Destiny 2 to a crawl in the past year and change."

Looking back at how tantalizing those early days were doesn't help. I didn't just fall in love with Destiny because of its gunplay; that's obviously fabulous, but for me, it pales in comparison to the impossibly rich world Bungie created in 2014. I appreciate that Destiny's dense worldbuilding has become a subject of (sometimes justified) mockery thanks to how near-obnoxiously unintelligible it could be unless you were knee-deep in backstory, but such complexity made it feel real if you were within its nebula. I don't think scoured another game's lore so heavily, piecing together the narrative or coming up with theories on the wider world. There was something deeply chilling about franchise baddie the Darkness when we knew nothing about it, and tracing its path through our enemy's history only added to that menace.

Similarly, the setting was a fascinating blend we hadn't really seen before. A post-apocalyptic sci-fi adventure with overtones of D&D and Saturday morning cartoons is a hell of a mix, one we should have been exploring for years to come. It was a rare beast that repositioned tropes into something familiar yet entirely alien. Destiny 2 built on that foundation: it did the unthinkable by destroying our home, the Last City, and forcing us to start over. It opened up new avenues and questions regarding our patron, the Traveller, and how benevolent it really was. It broadened those horizons.

Sure, I have quibbles about where the story went. I think some questions are best left unanswered to maintain an air of mystery, and much like Stranger Things' final season, Destiny may have tried to fill too many gaps. Not everything needs to be explained – your audience coming to their own conclusions keeps it alive. Yet even that doesn't dampen how thrilling those early years were, or how much potential the series still has.

For me, that's what I miss most - those open horizons, and the intoxicating sense of possibility. I don't know if we'll ever see something like that again… and if we do, it looks as though I'll be leaving my beloved Guardian behind.

Want to drown your sorrows in something new? Here are the best FPS games you can play in 2026.

The original Final Fantasy MMO – none other than Final Fantasy 11 – continues to go from strength to strength, and not even director and producer Yoji Fujito expected to be here.

Over the past year or so, Final Fantasy 11 has had to stop accepting new players to some of its most popular worlds because the servers clearly aren't currently built to handle that level of popularity. A nice problem to have, though not one the developers expected.

Speaking to Famitsu, Fujito reckons the surge in popularity is due to a Final Fantasy 14 crossover, free prize events, and a welcome-back campaign. I'd also float that Final Fantasy 14's less-than-popular Danwalker run might have sent a few grumpy Warriors of Light their way, but I digress.

Still, despite the surge in popularity, Fujito expected it all to calm down eventually. Expect it hasn't.

“Overall, the player count remained stable at a high level, and we never saw the kind of sharp decline we had anticipated, so honestly, the outcome exceeded our expectations and came as a surprise,” Fujito says, as translated by Automaton.

It's all rather nice, isn't it? As we previously reported, Square Enix considered winding down Final Fantasy 11 in 2024, but it's still drawing enough players to convince the powers that be to keep the good times rollin' on.

As for the future, Fujito says Final Fantasy 11 will live on. Major developments like a new world or story expansion, though, will prove tricky. There are technical limitations to overcome, and the team remains short-staffed.

Still, there's a desire on the team to overcome all of that, so Fujito would like you to think of the current moment as a preparatory phase where "we’re continuing to lay the groundwork for that sort of future development."

Final Fantasy 14 Evercold is the MMO's next big expansion, and it's coming early next year.

It's been a wild month for us Final Fantasy 14 stans, with the massive Fan Fest 2026 reveal of expansion Evercold and all of the changes coming with it – including two new jobs. Fast forward to today, and after enough sluething, plenty of fans reckon they've just about figured out what direction the new jobs are going in.

Every Fan Fest, it seems, director Naoki 'Yoshi-P' Yoshida dons a new shirt that teases the jobs Square Enix has in store for its next expansion. The recent event in Anaheim, California, offers no exception, as Yoshi-P drew attention to his top as usual.

After confirming that the two jobs coming with Evercold would be completely new to Final Fantasy 14 – "originals, as opposed to legacy Final Fantasy jobs" – he set the community ablaze with theories. The two new jobs – one tank and one DPS – could be anything, after all.

So, what exactly was on the director's shirt? None other than Rhitahtyn sas Arvina, an antagonist introduced with ye olde A Realm Reborn. The words above him were more curious, though, reading, "Guess who's back?" Presumably, the shirt hints at whatever tank class is underway, and fans have many thoughts.

Over on Reddit, the conversation has been ongoing for weeks.

One fan asks, "The obvious line of thinking is that this new tank will be a gunshield user of some kind, right?" They then go on to theorize it'll actually be the return of 1.0 classes: the Sentinel and the Musketeer. To them, "original" isn't a word we are supposed to take literally.

Comments see folks agreeing with the Sentinel presumption, with one pointing toward the Evercold trailer seemingly utilizing the word "sentinel" as another reason.

That's just one theory, however. A separate thread dives even deeper into Yoshi-P's tee, even tapping into the Norse themes that Evercold is rooted in.

"Yoshi-P wore a shirt featuring Ritahtyn sas Arvina," reads a reply. "You fight him in Cape Westwind. Capes are a garment worn on your back normally, BUT Mr. Ritahtyn has armor shaped to make him look like a Minotaur. And Minotaurs have a bull's head. Now, who fights Bulls and uses a Cape?"

Their conclusion? "New job is Matador." Another – which honestly has me convinced – is the one that touches on the Norse mythology specifically: "Mjolnir. That hammer is what's coming back. That's my random take."

Responses support this idea, with a fan bringing up the fact that Ritahtyn sas Arvina's name supposedly translates to "judge" in the Roegadyn language. "Judges have hammers. Norse expansion. It's coming back."

"Hammer has been a popular request," adds another player. "It could definitely happen." An older post regarding the new Evercold jobs and Yoshi-P's shirt features similar theories – the hammer is a popular one, it seems.

"'Ahtyn' is Roegadyn for 'Judge,'" exclaims a fan. "Judges have hammers. The new tank is going to wield a hammer." Phew, all this talk of hammers and tanks… but what of the new DPS job?

"Dumb theory for the DPS job that can go a few ways," somebody ponders. "'Guess who's back?' What comes back when you throw it? Yo-yos. Dude with two shields as a weapon? So, a shield-based weapon that comes back when you throw it?"

That certainly would be interesting – although I'm still personally holding out for a ranged whip class of sorts. I was in the crowd when Yoshi-P was showing off his shirt, so I know I'm not alone there.

As people screamed "whip" and "hammer" and other guesses, Yoshi-P confirmed that there were already correct theories shouted his way – so, who really knows?

Final Fantasy 14 players demand minion of chonky patch 7.5 dungeon boss "immediately," and there's hope as Square Enix joins in: "Chort"

One of your biggest breaks could come from the most unexpected of places. As is the case of a tenured developer at BioWare, who found himself leading the development of successful MMO Star Wars: The Old Republic despite disliking the genre wholesale.

For a number years, James Ohlen was a prominent designer at BioWare, working on the likes of Baldur's Gate, Dragon Age: Origins, Mass Effect, and the first Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic. Then, he had a fateful meeting with studio co-founders Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk about venturing further into a galaxy far, far away, and directing The Old Republic in Austin.

"And I was like, 'I hate massive multiplayer games. But all right, I'll do it,'" Ohlen explains to PCGamer. "It took me a day, I talked to my wife and said, 'It'll be an adventure, we'll only be there for a year.' I'm still here. Maybe I should have known better."

The project was on a scale different to what Ohlen was used to, to say the least. Though exact figures are uncertain, reports place The Old Republic's overall budget at over $200 million, making it one of the priciest games ever made.

Ohlen describes his role on the game as something of a cat wrangler who had to guide the "big ego designers" and make sure they "didn't kill each other." In 2018, seven years after the MMO from a long, long time ago launched, he departed BioWare. By the end, Ohlen says, he was just absorbing a nice salary, describing himself as a "highly paid, completely useless person."

Star Wars: The Old Republic is still running, though now it's supported by Broadsword Online Games. Ohlen was recently working on upcoming sci-fi RPG Exodus at Archetype Entertainment before stepping away from the team in late 2025.

Mass Effect hasn't been great in "a long time," but "D&D in space" RPG Exodus can fill the gap according to Hasbro's CEO.