2019 is already looking much brighter than 2018 has been for the MMORPG genre on PC. Fans of Western MMOs will have a handful of indie MMOs that have been in development for a long time to finally play and beta test. Publishers like Nexon and Kakao Games have good lineups of promising Eastern MMOs coming too!
Here is a list of the most anticipated upcoming PC MMOs to play or test in the coming new year. This list will be updated with new information such as release dates and schedules when they are revealed.
We are listing these games based on their titles in ascending order.
Buy-to-Play, abbreviated as B2P or BTP is a revenue model for games that can only be installed and played once purchased. Not to be confused with subscription-based games that limits access based on time, buy-to-play games can be accessed for an unlimited amount of time after purchasing. Some of the games listed below offer free trial periods.
Here is a list of the best buy-to-play MMOs of all time! This is an on-going list that will be updated over time.
To celebrate the month-long march to Halloween, ArtCraft Entertainment is releasing previews of the monster races and creatures that exist in Crowfall. Not just the beasts that players will encounter in the wild, but also playable Monster Races that includes the gun-wielding Guineceans, the noble Centaurs, the gracious Elken folks and the hulking minotaurs.
Action combat is a type of combat mode that allows players to manually utilize complex movements like dodging, evading and pointing to hit to their advantage in combat scenarios. As opposed to tab-target combat, action combat generally requires a players to trigger their skills within an opponent’s hit-box in order for attacks, buffs or heals to successfully land. It is also common for enemies to have advanced movements like flying, dashing, grabbing and jumping. Here is a list of the top MMORPGs with impressive action combat.
We are listing these games based on release dates in descending order. This is an on-going list that will be updated when a new impressive action combat MMORPG reveals itself.
European Beta: Live – March 2, 2018 Developer: Booming Games
Publisher: Netease Games Model:Free-to-play
PvP: Controlled Army Warfare, Castle sieges
Conqueror’s Blade is a sandbox MMO warfare game that combines action combat and tactical movements. Players control single commanders and give commands to their personal armies. The gameplay includes controllable medieval teams where players command dozens of powerful and varying troops in large-scale siege-like scenarios.
Western Release: Pre-alpha – January 24, 2018
Developer: ArtCraft
Publisher: ArtCraft Model:Buy-to-play
Crowfall is deemed as a “throne war” MMORPG with an open world setting played across campaigns where players fight in a large open-world arena for resources and bases. Skills are leveled over time, so players can create the builds they prefer without worry. Players can play any of the available characters at any time, which adds uniqueness to the exciting non-target action combat.
Western Release: Live – November 7, 2017
Developer: Naddic Games Publisher: En Masse Entertainment Model:Free-to-play
Closers is a side-scroll MMORPG where players battle interdimensional monsters as kinetically-powered teens known as “Closers”. Movement is done within 2.5D environments, dungeons and player hubs. Left and right are the main points of direction.
Western Release: Live – September 28, 2017
Developer: ALL-M Publisher: En Masse Entertainment Model:Free-to-play
Kritika Online is a dungeon crawler MMORPG with an extremely fast paced action combat. The game offers small scale PvP such as 1v1, 3v3 and other tiers for various arena modes. Each of its six starter class is vastly different from the others in terms of combat and even more so when they upgrade to one of over twenty different advanced classes. The wide variety of very different play-styles for each class and the speed of the combat make PvP encounters unique.
Release: Open Beta – March 6, 2017 Developer: NetEase
Publisher: My.com Model:Free-to-play
Revelation Online is a Wuxia-themed MMORPG set in a seamless open-world with flying beasts and dragons. The action combat features extend and make use of the game’s flight system. The open-world is open to punishable player killing, which from my experience may be too punishing. The battlegrounds and arena PvP are mostly objective based where teamwork is greatly rewarded.
Western Release: Live – June 8, 2016
Developer: Black Eye Games
Publisher: Black Eye Games Model:Buy-to-play
Gloria Victis is set in a medieval fantasy world where players fight for realistic goals like territory and resources. That means the PvP takes place in real-time in the open-world with no instances whatsoever. Players fight in lifelike scenarios with non-target combat, sandbox crafting and a player-driven economy.
Western Release: Live – March 3, 2016
Developer: Pearl Abyss
Publisher: Kakao Games Model:Buy-to-play
Black Desert Online is a sandbox MMORPG with a flashy and fast-paced action combat. To progress and level up, players must grind by defeating creatures in the seamless open-world. Perfecting one’s combat style allows players to be one step ahead of others in PvP and PvE progression.
Western Release: Live – January 19, 2016
Developer: Team Bloodlust (NCsoft Developer Division)
Publisher: NCSoft Model:Free-to-play
Blade and Soul offers a skill-based action combat system using the player’s ability to properly time attacks and adapt to situations with the use of limited dodges and blocks. Small-scale arenas, especially 1v1s, test the player’s skills and judgement with invulnerability frames and critically timed abilities.
Western Release: Live – April 4, 2014
Developer: ZeniMax Online Studios
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks Model:Buy-to-play
Elder Scrolls Online is a fantasy MMORPG based on the Elder Scrolls series. The game offers an extensive action combat system, public dungeons, player factions, various fields of PvP and more.
Western Release: Live – September 2011 Developer: Eyedentity Games Publisher: Previously Nexon, currently Eyedentity Games Model:Free-to-play
RaiderZ offers a complex and impressive combat system that was ahead of its time. Characters have the ability to dodge, aim, and make decisive combat movements while enemies have advanced skills like dashing, jumping, biting and flying around.
Western Release: Live – September 2011 Developer: Eyedentity Games Publisher: Previously Nexon, currently Eyedentity Games Model:Free-to-play
Dragon Nest incorporates a non-target action combat system and highly customizable skill sets to provide fast-paced battles. Player vs. player combat is skill based in nature. Player interactions are tailored for balancing purposes, with different cooldowns and rules for skills in PvP and PvE. Dragon Nest is a fantasy MMORPG set in the beautiful world of Alteia, created by the goddess Altea. The game’s story incorporates the history of Alteia and the dragon slayer heroes.
Western Release: Live – October 2010 Developer: devCAT Publisher: Nexon, Tian City, Garena Model:Free-to-play
Vindictus is a prequel to the popular MMORPG Mabinogi and is referred to as Mabinogi Heroes in Asia. Vindictus takes place several hundred years prior to Mabinogi in a time of great hatred and war. The world consists of instanced zones with some open areas.
ArtCraft Entertainment has posted their mid-year checkpoint update for Crowfall which highlights the game’s progress so far in the first half of the year and announces content and dates that will come in the second half of the year and beyond. The post states that it’s clear that “the soft launch is not going to happen by the end of the year” as a result of more needed changes to core systems.
The team anticipates kicking off alpha testing at the end of the summer of 2018. After that, their march towards a beta phase will start.
Crowfall’s upcoming Pre-Alpha 5.6 play test will allow backers to play as a male or female High-Elf. As a teaser, ArtCraft Entertainment’s Art Director Mellisa Preston has revealed one of the armor designs for the upcoming playable race as well as the visual direction behind it.
The High-Elves in Crowfallwere designed with “many of the classic fantasy elements that players expect in an Elf race” in mind, especially their appreciation for art, detail, design and aesthetics. The armor design for them highlight the defined upper body and slim build of the High-elven race without relying on a push-up bra chest plate armor.
ArtCraft is showing off lots of new exciting features and content for Crowfall focused on exploring the newly finished map, Wrath. Wrath’s landscape is diverse and is the first map to feature new PvE areas called “Adventure Zones” like the Spider Canyon where players can hunt giant spiders and face a world boss for valuable loot.
A new system for player death and recovery was put in place. If a vessel’s health reaches zero, it is knocked unconscious. Players can be resurrected by a Cleric, Druid or Templar or be finished off with a killing blow.
We’re just one month over three years since Crowfall, the PvP focused MMORPG was initially crowdfunded on kickstarter and today the developers have answered development related questions and respond to feedback from their ACE dev partners. Thomas Blair (Design Lead) and Mark Halash (Senior Game Designer) go through important development information involving the game’s Eternal Kingdoms, movement speed increase when flying back to your corpse, new maps and more.
