The MMO has come a long way. There have been many iterations over the years and there is no denying the huge influence our genre has had on the industry as a whole. In the early days of trying to build out games like Star Wars Galaxies and City of Heroes, we laid the groundwork for the idea that every game will eventually be an MMO. These talks were given as far back as 2006 or 2007. Now here we are in 2018 and E3 showed us that all games will be MMOs.
Fallout 76
Fallout 76 will be the online version of Fallout we all wanted. It takes what was best in Fallout 4 and brings it into a new map and a new world and lets you play online with your friends. Now, don’t expect huge numbers milling about in the town square trading for power armor. That is not what Fallout is anyway. It will be more survival style yet will keep with what is best in the game. Also playing online will add to groups, guilds, boss fights, and everything we have wanted to do with Fallout since the beginning. Lastly, you can play alone which makes for a great experience as well.
MMOs in recent years have added a lot of solo-ability for players who prefer to play that way. As much as guilds have ruled games like Warcraft and EVE Online, there is still something great about entering a world on your own. Fallout has always been a solo game so it may be hard to break that tradition in the beginning. However, once everything gets moving, you will have a lot of reasons team up about and there will be those quiet crafting times that many players will take advantage of to build out their gear.
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Fallout 76 gives us a bright future for the MMO genre. It will bring millions of fans into online gaming that may have only experienced single player games in the past. Being able to work together will lead to more worlds being built.
Similar to the success of World of Warcraft in the last decade, you will start to see a lot of companies bring more of their games online. Grand Theft Auto Online is one of the prime examples of a game that has grown and now maintains a strong player base. With Fallout leading the charge to the new decade, new doors will open for MMOs.
New Games to Look For
As our genre grows you nearly can't call it a genre anymore. It is not like fantasy or cyberpunk. It is more like a game mechanic that has manifested itself into everything. One of the games which may build on this mechanic are Cyberpunk 2077 which is rumored to have multiplayer aspects to it. If games of this level begin operating online then you will see the blend of MMOs and top-level RPGs work into the world together.
After Fortnite’s success who knows what EPIC Games will be working on next. How can they take all that success and build a new product? It will be interesting to see what they create. EPIC has always been about gamers directly and their titles over the years whether hit or miss seem to still strike at the hardcore players. Their next game will be fun to watch.
The New Era of Fantasy
As a Dungeons & Dragons fan, I believe there need to be more fantasy games on the market. There is a tendency to go for old tropes and genre staples before building something new. The lack of fantasy entertainment may be ending soon though as Game of Thrones has driven fantasy entertainment for the past seven years. Amazon is putting together their billion dollar Lord of the Rings show which could raise the bar or lower it in terms of offerings. However, in the game world Elder Scrolls 6 is on the horizon, but likely not for a while. How it will shape the next ten years of gaming could be very interesting.
For now, there are a lot of MMOs on the market. Find the one you like and play.
