Every year the number of MMO releases gets bigger and bigger. It’s a genre developers are rushing to capitalise on, so to ensure you don’t get lost in the proceeding release scramble, we’ve put together a list detailing what titles you need to keep a keen eye on over the coming 12 months. Some have yet to be released, others could be callously described as old but we’ve scoured the entire Internet to find games which should attract the greatest level of interest.
10. Lord of the Rings Online
Turbine’s effort from 2007 has snuck into this list simply because its central story arc has finally gotten to the good stuff, namely fighting lots and lots of Orcs with encounters with Saruman himself. In 2012 the ageing yet beautiful MMO will finally begin to emulate the key events centring around the race of men falling to the forces of Sauron. How exactly the developers plan to do this using such ‘established’ tech remains to be seen, but we have no doubt this is one of the big free-to-play titles to keep an eye on this year. If only to see what death and destruction awaits?
9. World of Warcraft: Mists of Panderia
What do you add to the MMO that has everything? Why Pantera of course! The hardcore metal band is exactly what the world’s most profitable MMO needs in order to revitalise its appeal. What’s that? The forthcoming expansion actually revolves around the fluffy Pandaren race instead and has nothing to do with air riffs? Well, you can’t have it all. In truth though, we’re still excited about the next and potentially last substantial content update for World of Warcraft.
Wandering around the Oriental-inspired region of Panderia and rolling a character as a kick-ass Monk should no doubt prompt millions of players to return to Blizzard’s world-owning MMO, if only to sample the new content. However the biggest reason to keep track of WoW is to see how Blizzard plan to challenge the big budget rivals that have stolen substantial sways of its userbase. WoW could
be a very different gaming experience come 2013.
8. Planetside 2
2003′s Planetside was a game that was really ahead of its time, and when SOE announced they were bringing it back last year we were absolutely delighted. This MMOFPS will feature all the visual bells and whistles you’d expect from a modern title, including HDR lighting, real-time reflections and accurate physics, as well as the stimulating combat this franchise is known for. Additionally the world is entirely persistent, with different factions able to battle it out for ownership of certain quadrants which offer up unique unlocks in each character’s dedicated and lengthy skill tree.
All of this will sound very familiar to those who played the original, but we’re very intrigued to see how it all works in an era when most developers and gamers can take advantage of high-speed broadband. Fingers crossed Sony stay away from the pay-to-win elements as much as possible because if they do, this could be one of the best competitive online shooters to arrive for absolutely ages.
Knowing the way that Blizzard work, there’s no way that Titan will be released this year, but at the very least we should see some gameplay footage to let everyone know what the hell the gargantuan developer has been up to. What interests us the most is that the core team who originally gave birth to World of Warcraft has been working on this endeavour since at least February 2011, so surely it has to be something truly special.
Industry chatter suggests a space-themed MMO with FPS elements, so anything associated with StarCraft or Warcraft is definitely out. All signs point to this being an entirely new franchise, and from such a talented studio that’s an immensely exciting proposition – albeit a frustratingly mysterious one, but hopefully 2012 will change that.
As we write this players from all around the world are already blowing each others’ forces to smithereens on a giant persistent map which allows every province to be fought over, yet we can’t talk about End of Nations in detail quite yet. Nevertheless we can tell you that Petroglyph Games, made up of former C&C developers, has already done a great job of attracting and cultivating a fantastic war-obsessed community. Tanks rushing enemies single-handedly or teaming up with a handful of other commanders to win a match by just a handful of points is the sort of stuff gaming legends are made of, and we can’t wait to see how this MMORTS evolves over time.
Will End of Nations be the sort of game everybody falls in love with? Probably not, but if you have any sort of fondness for the old-school Command & Conquer games then this should definitely be on your radar.
Tomorrow we’ll review entries five through three, so be sure to check back then.
Tags: End of Nations, Lord of the Rings, PlanetSide, Project Titan, World of Warcraft Pandaria
TERA, Guild Wars 2, Dust 514 and Defiance previews plus a review for Tribes: Ascend and an exclusive interview for Star Wars: The Old Republic.
Download Now!
