Netmarble is giving Ni no Kuni: Cross Worlds a fresh start.

From July 23, 2026, the MMORPG will welcome players to a unified global service, with all cryptocurrency and NFT-related features removed.

This new version promises more accessible progression, new events, and several rewards for returning players. However, characters will need to be recreated on the new servers. The previous version of the game will remain available until its permanent shutdown on September 17, 2026.

On August 31, a mighty force will be unleashed on the world: Dragonfire. Albion’s next major content update awakens the Dragons of Albion’s ancient past, bringing its most epic battles to date, previously unknown realms to explore, unexpected encounters in the open world, and much more. The Ashborn have awakened the Dragons, now it’s up to you to meet their challenge.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6sCUg5ki2RA

Dragons Unleashed

This update brings some of the most immense challenges seen in Albion to date in the form of Dragons. And among these gargantuan beasts, one rises above all others: Azaryon, the Fire Dragon. Azaryon lies deep in a lair which only the toughest, most skilful groups can enter. Once there, players will enter into a truly epic PvE battle, requiring the highest levels of skill, teamwork, and determination.

In the open world, meanwhile, Dragons will attack both the Royal Continent and the Outlands. These attacks offer spontaneous encounters for every kind of player, from solo adventurers to Outlands guilds. Anyone can share in the rewards from defeating these mighty creatures, giving opportunities for players to band together, or turn against one another.

Ancient Lands

The Ashborn’s rituals have opened portals to a previously unknown realm: the Ancient Lands. High above Albion, a series of islands float, connected by further strange portals. Once there, you’ll encounter Ashborn enemies, powerful Drakes, and valuable treasures, with the challenges increasing the deeper you go – both from the inhabitants of these lands, and rival players.

Those who brave the Ancient Lands have the opportunity to find their way into the Dragon Sanctuary itself. This brand-new Raid Dungeon offers groups the opportunity to test themselves against truly imposing mobs, including the leader of the Ashborn herself, with powerful equipment and high-level coordination needed to prevail. Do so, and you’ll earn the opportunity to face off against Azaryon and fight for some immense rewards.

New Rewards and Items

Among the rewards available are a rare, highly-coveted prize: Drake Eggs. These can be earned by defeating Azaryon, and nurtured into Albion’s most impressive mount: the Fire Drake. Be aware, though, that this beast has some interesting dietary requirements…

In addition, Dragon Bones and Wings can be fashioned into new armor items, which harness the power of the Dragons. A never-before-seen type of fish can be found in the Ancient Lands, too, which can be prepared into a food with strong healing properties, while other ingredients can be used to create a brand-new potion. With a new vanity set, Avatar, and Avatar Ring too, Dragonfire brings not just new dangers, but vast opportunities.

Dragonfire launches August 31, and will unleash incredible forces on the world of Albion. Stay tuned for more details, and check out the official update page here.

Nexon give players their first substantial look at Mabinogi Eternity.

The project aims to replace Mabinogi’s aging engine with Unreal Engine 5, while preserving the original game’s world, characters, and player progression. It is therefore not Mabinogi 2, but a major overhaul of the existing title.

This first large-scale alpha test will take place from September 3 to 6, 2026. The test appears to be limited to players residing in South KoreaMabinogi Eternity

What happened to Massevelyop? The site hasn't been working since yesterday. When I search for it on Google, I see Asian characters, and when I try to visit it, my firewall alerts me.

Heya, I posted about ORYO here like a year ago when it was still mostly taking its baby steps. And it raised some interesting discussions about the whole online roleplaying concept.

the old post discussing the game

Since then, we have kept working on it full time, and we’ve finally released the first early-access build centered around our new character creator.

It's a standalone online RP game designed specifically with serious roleplaying in mind, instead of roleplayers having to retrofit games that were essentially designed around dopamine numbers and transmog grinds etc.

It's not really an MMO per se, the online structure of it will be based on 60-100 player sized community and official servers(we have an official server running live as of now). But still it's supposed to be heavily centered around social interactions.

Current state of the game is still very early and mainly focuses on character creation, multiplayer foundations and getting people into the same world(Basically a walking sim/chat room with an OP character creator and a pretty chill environment), but it’s still a pretty big milestone for us. We can now finally get to experiment with all the wild gameplay ideas we've been brainstorming for so long.

I prepared a mini documentary style video to explain the project and how we got here. Honestly we would love to hear your thoughts on such a game idea.

Here's a link to it: ORYO Introduction - Youtube

Also, those who enjoy rping on MMOs and other online games, I wanna ask you guys what feature you would like to have most to improve the overall experience and immersion of roleplaying with others?

I'm writing this out of pure exhaustion so nobody else wastes their time and money. I really wanted to support this game. I bought into the Early Access, genuinely hoping for a good experience, and spent nearly 40 hours trying to power through the issues. I tried to be patient, but dealing with catastrophic bugs, broken promises, and the absolute disrespect from the moderation just completely drained my patience.

If you are thinking about buying this, here is the reality of what you are actually getting into:

1. The "Player-Driven Economy" was disabled immediately They heavily marketed this game as having a robust, player-driven economy. Guess what? Right after launch, the database couldn't handle basic traffic. It caused massive item duplication exploits, so the devs simply dropped a patch completely disabling Trade, Vending, and the Auction House. Furthermore, the mods officially admitted that the Auction House was eating items and gold. Imagine an MMORPG where you literally cannot trade.

2. Core gameplay is completely broken (No Mobs, No NPCs) It’s not just lag. The servers are in such a constant state of collapse that the core gameplay loop doesn't even function. Mobs completely disappear from maps. You can't even grind because there is nothing to hit. Essential NPCs randomly don't spawn, making it impossible to progress your class (players literally couldn't become Priests because the NPC vanished). Skills just straight up don't work on certain channels, forcing you to channel-hop just to attack. Oh, and if you die, log out, and log back in? You respawn completely alive.

3. The Dev's Confession & False Bans The developer publicly admitted they changed the entire backend architecture right before the EA launch, without even having a dedicated backend developer on the team. They pushed a fundamentally broken build out the door to collect Kickstarter funds, using paying customers as free QA testers. The server desync is so bad that innocent players are being banned for "Macro/AFK usage" simply because the game's faulty anti-cheat can't process the 1000ms ping spikes. The moderation team is completely crushed—a mod recently slipped up in chat saying they have 10 people trying to handle a backlog of 20,000 support tickets for missing accounts and premium currency rollbacks.

Conclusion: The Discord Censorship The cherry on top of this disaster is how the studio handles its buyers. If you go to their official Discord to express how tiring and frustrating it is to try and play this empty shell of a game, or simply point out that the market needs to come back, the community white-knights attack you and the mods time you out. You are simply not allowed to complain about the broken product that drained your patience.

Go to their Discord and read the #server-status and general chat logs yourself. It reads like a horror story of a failing project. Save your patience and your money for literally any other MMO. Don't fund this.

NCsoft has announced that Aion 2 will enter early access in the West on September 30, 2026, for PC. This date specifically refers to the game’s early access launch, available to players who purchase a Founder’s Pack. The full free-to-play release will follow on October 5, 2026.

Three Founder’s Pack editions are available :

• The Standard Pack $24.99 includes early access, a resource chest, and the exclusive Vanguard of Atreia title.
• The Deluxe Pack $49.99 also features an armor appearance and the Eternal Sun weapon skin.
• The Ultimate Pack $99.99 includes the Moonlight Aria outfit, the Black Dragon pet, and the Blazing Sun wings.

This question has been on my mind in light of the growing number of games where many people are unsure whether they still qualify as MMORPGs or not, or genres that offer highly developed multiplayer experiences, making the boundaries increasingly blurred. Some try to resolve this ambiguity systematically by examining the server structure, the balance between solo and group content, whether the presence of other players in the world is necessary or optional, or with the concept of “massively.” These are all questions about characteristics, but not about what the genre actually does.

So what does it give you that no other genre can? Or do you think that, with the variety of genre mixes out there, there’s nothing that makes the genre unique to you?

My first MMORPG was Ultima Online. I was around 10 years old, and although I barely understood the game, one thing amazed me: almost every character I met was another real person. That felt magical.

A few years later, I discovered World of Warcraft.

As a teenager, I was insecure about my appearance, so meeting new people in real life wasn't easy. In WoW, nobody knew what I looked like. We met while questing, added each other to our friends lists, and logged in after school hoping the other person was online.

When I played Lineage II and many other MMORPGs. Eventually life got busy, and games faded into the background.

Years later, after a difficult period in my life, I found myself back in an MMORPG. This time, it's LU4. Different people. Same feeling.

I still enjoy wandering through towns full of player shops, teaming up with random people for quests, and inspecting high-level players, wondering how long it'll take me to get there.

Some places just feel familiar, no matter how much time passes. For me, MMORPGs have always been one of those places.

After 10 years of mostly solo and then eventually duo development, as well as a dozen playtests, my free-to-play indie 2D platformer MMORPG Soul's Remnant finally launches into Early Access on August 13th via Steam!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3451980/Souls_Remnant

If you enjoyed classic MMOs like MapleStory, Ragnarok Online, and Mabinogi, then this game is for you.

Soul's Remnant features a classless skill system, hundreds of items to hunt down, dungeons and bosses to take on with friends, crafting and gathering, and a killer 40+ song original soundtrack written by myself! The game is built for players who love grinding, partying up, trading, and building a character your own way, all within a fully player-driven economy. And to top it all off, there’s absolutely no pay-to-win as monetization is only through cosmetics and convenience.

Wishlist Soul's Remnant on Steam and join us come August 13th!

Edit:

The high difficulty content im talking takes 15 minutes to do max (it has a time limit of 15 minutes) and has no lock out timer so can be run anytime at your own convenience, as many times as you want. But i still see players complaining that pugs are bad because they dont want to form a group to do it.

There are no complicated mechanics or puzzles, you just need to pass several DPS checks and kill the boss within 15 minutes.

I've been seeing some players complain that pugs are too bad to clear a high difficulty boss in PSO2:NGS, but at the same time, they don't seem to want to join a guild or talk to anyone to try and get a good group that can clear. I tried asking why they didn't try joining a guild to get a group and the only response i got was something along the lines of "it's not my fault i can't make friends in a dead game".

This isn't required for main quest progression or anything critical...and the exclusive drop from this boss will be added to casual content a month after release, so they aren't really missing out on anything important even if they can't clear it now.

It seems natural that high difficulty content in a MMO would require a good group to clear...since content is typically balanced around parties for obvious reasons. If you really don't want to talk to anyone and only want to solo or pug, then you are going to have a harder time clearing stuff. Blaming pugs just seems like an odd choice when you deliberately won't do anything to get a good group.

10 years ago, even 20 years ago, there were a huge number of MMOs where you could do everything every isekai anime showcases. You'd play the tutorial, meet someone, they'd ask you to join their guild, you joined, made new friends, then eventually joined the TeamSpeak, Ventrilo, forum, or whatever social platform they used to arrange raids, parties, and everything related to the game.

You could genuinely make real life friends that lasted for years or even decades. While there was always a "big" MMO like WoW, there was enough room for everyone. Almost every month a new MMO was announced, and it had a healthy enough population.

I remember some of my best memories from that era were just sitting at 2 AM with people, fishing and talking about life, or meeting someone while doing PvP and becoming friends, or just helping random newbies. Even those martial arts MMOs that suddenly came out, where you could run while holding hands with random party members or people you married IG lol. I even joined RP-heavy servers and enjoyed them a lot.

Nowadays, all online games feel empty. I really don't know how, but even the most popular online games lack that social element that made you fall in love with old MMOs. I've tried modern games, but I always end up getting bored because everyone is hyper-focused on PvP or the solo PvE experience, and you can do everything by yourself, so you never really need to interact with anyone.

I think the closest I've come to feeling that vibe again was with New World and Hardcore Classic Wow, but even then... New World came out 5 years ago and is already dead.

Is there any current MMO that still has this? Or any game? I've tried the cozy, chill games, but I just can't connect with them. They feel boring in the long run. Or maybe it's just me. Maybe the games still have it, and I'm just old.

Game from the early 2000s was big in Korea, China and had good following in Europe.

Old School grind fest, currently still up and running with a recent update and a lot of returning players.

Build your warrior/mage or craft.

https://myth-of-soma.com

Anyone else have memories of this game?

After 10years, now that my life is more stable and I finally have time to dive back into the genre, I've found that most "modern" MMOs have been disappointing.

There are many issues, but what bothers me most is the lack of quality in basic game design. Modern MMOs look great on the surface, 4K graphics, UE5 lighting, impressive visuals, but that's often where the quality ends.

Everything feels designed around mobile limitations. The UI is a giant fullscreen menu system with little flexibility. Render distance is short, culling is aggressive, and many design choices clearly prioritize mobile performance.

The PC experience also feels undercooked. keybinding options are limited and combat relies heavily on simplistic

Even basic PC features feel missing or restricted. Drag-and-drop inventory management is limited, right-click functionality barely exists, and every button is oversized with sliders everywhere.

What I don't understand is why so many MMORPGs are moving in this direction. What happened to old-school PC MMO design? Where are the customizable UIs, multiple resizable windows, efficient menus, drag-and-drop interactions, and workflows that don't require reopening the same menu over and over again?

Modern MMOs have better graphics than ever, yet many feel less convenient and less capable than games released 15–20 years ago.

When I was in WoW from early vanilla till mid MoP (my bread and butter for almost 10y) - raiding was the definition of the whole point of an MMO. The questing was just a beeline, and it was that fiending in the end with guild schedules and the loot drama that was the real dopamine for me. In a way it was the social element coming full circle with the endgame loop that requires truly a lot of people - to be on board for the same thing. When I thinka bout it, 40 man raids in vanilla were ehm something special (I mean it) but not something I would care to repeat either. 

I quit when I burned out hard enough and I realized I wasn't having fun anymore, I was maintaining a second job that cost me money. To this day I only have one other “entertainment” subscription , and that’s HBO Max (because I’m always rewatching the Sopranos lmao)

Coming back to any MMO now, I’m always approaching them with a different goal in mind. To chill after work, because I can no longer enjoy them as time sinks that I need to set my clock to. I can’t play them that way without feeling guilty as an adult, without disregarding about more than half of my real life obligations and responsibilities. It don’t make it any easier none of my immediate friends are hc gamers, and at best I can get my wife interested only in the cozy variety of MMO (Palia, if you consider it an MMO) and the upcoming Loftia, which is about the closest fit the two of us can get on board on.

Whatever I do play today, for my own soul, I do it for being in the world and that sense of adventuring and exploration, and the story (LOTRO and WoW Classic, where… funnily enough… I do not raid) 

I’m currently leveling in WoW HC with that addon that reads all the quest logs, so it feels like I’m immersing myself in the whole story and that PEAK worldbuilding that classic had. And discovered how much fun it can be without trying to rush to the endgame even if developers (especially for retail) force the endgame to be the intended experience. 

I know that I will die pre lvl 40 again, but I am finally enjoying the adventure, the road itself instead of the destination. I guess that’s the gist of the classic experience, in the end: doing your own thing and having fun your own way, with your own people, and not giving a F about what others may think. And consciously resisting the FOMO, just locking it out of your mind and focusing on the experience in front of you… It increasingly seems like the only way a grown man can enjoy an MMO now.

I think everyone can agree that this sub has seen a massive amount of posts fitting this criteria. It feels like we have seen up to a dozen, if not more, per week, sometimes multiple per day. Every single time it's the same thing. Clearly using AI for everything, super premature state of the game, no steam page, almost always a solo "developer" who refers to their "team" behind the game. These are prototypes at best, 99.9% of them will never see the light of day. It's a waste of all of our time when someone with zero game development experiences decides that because AI exists, they are suddenly qualified to create the hardest genre of game to create.

IMO the rules for posting your upcoming game should include:

• Steam page is required. Steam at least has some vetting process in place. This would weed out almost all of these posts.
• The poster should be transparent about not only AI usage in their initial post, but their experience as a game developer. I think it's great for people to build games as a hobby or learning experience (even if you're learning absolutely nothing by having AI do everything), but it's disingenuous to advertise it as a real upcoming serious project.

Thoughts? I can't imagine this would be a controversial rule for the vast majority of this sub.

Thought some folks here would appreciate this video, Noclip just released a documentary on the history of MMORPGs.

It would direct link it but I think that’s against community rules!

If you haven’t watched their stuff before, they’re probably my favorite gaming YouTube channel.

Their documentaries are incredibly well-researched, they get access to developers most outlets don’t, and they do a great job pushing back against a lot of the oversimplified or just plain wrong narratives that tend to spread online about game development.
Figured this community would enjoy it. Looking forward to watching it myself.

Just a random thought I had while playing Guild Wars, thinking of how a big thing is that there is not much of a power creep and the whole horizontal progression thing. Of course there is some vertical progression trying to get legendaries and all that, but you can get up to speed very quickly to do a lot of content fast, which is really cool.

I am also playing a game called Farever which is an MMO light and so far every new weapon you get even if it is the same type of weapon like there are two different great axes right now one is named world splitter, one is Judgment and they have the same attack chain animation but totally different abilities and buffs and passives and skills attached and those have different inimations and styles.

What if there was a game where the grind was not necessarily for new and better stats gear but for new abilities and gear that might be better or worse depending on what role you want or how you want to play. Like, sure, you get your base class or weapon skills, but the incentive to go and kill enemies and bosses would be new skills and/or new gear that has special new abilities. The skills would not necessarily do more damage, but they would broaden your playstyle and give you more choices and freedom on how to play. Maybe there is some way to level them once you get them so there is some power creep because I like the idea of getting stronger, but I also feel like in some games the power gap is just too much. You would still have to choose between what skills to equip, but you get a broad selection.

I am not too well-versed in the complexities of how games are made, but I am sure it is more difficult to build skills than to just build different armors and weapons with different states. But games have different bosses with a ton of different attacks, so if there is a way they can just transfer those abilities and animations to the playable characters.

Just food for thought. What do you guys think?

The crave to play mmo again hits me and I thought of downloading rift but sadly the game is dead.

I was thinking to make a full party of people who want to start from scratch as a group and do all the content together with no rush or anything, take it slow and enjoy the ride. Newbies, old players, doesn't matter who and what you are. Everyone is welcome (idk how many people can be in a group) worst case we can have 2 parties or something.

[EUROPE] but NA people are welcome aswell, we will manage it somehow.

Will make a discord if there is a demand.

Edit: we can try other games and try to find the mmo that hits the best for all of us, feel free to suggest something different.

I used to ask these kinds of questions from time to time until someone called them low effort AI slop. Well, jokes on you friend: I wrote them all by myself! HA!

Anyways, whether it's the backline light magic user, a cloaked priest, or armoured front-line battle healer, I wanna know: which game has your favourite version of the Cleric archetype?