Nostalgia’s been the name of the game over the last few years, not just in games, but in all of media, and even fashion. For games, this has meant countless remasters and remakes from Crash Bandicoot to the amazing Resident Evil 2.
What about MMOs, though? We’ve had World of Warcraft Classic and a number of progression servers for various games appear over the years, but no full on remakes. The reason is obvious, hardly anyone is making MMOs anymore, and remaking an MMO would be an incredibly expensive endeavor. But that doesn’t have to stop us from dreaming up some possibilities. These are some of MMO remakes I’d like to see.
The Matrix Online
This one is such a sore spot for me in a number of ways. The Matrix and MMOs go together like peanut butter and jelly. Unfortunately, the sequels to the blockbuster original film arguably killed the IP. Issues with the game aside, when The Matrix Online launched in 2005, it didn’t do so into an audience chomping at the bit to jack in, but one that was apathetic at best.
To make matters worse, the game was simply an unfinished mess. The game was full of bugs and it lacked enough meaningful content to play through. Its novel Interlock combat system was better in concept than in practice. It was a compromise to create the sort of cinematic, action combat Matrix fans would expect in an era of MMOs where that wasn’t really feasible.
With a Matrix sequel (reboot?) on the way and action combat being the norm in MMOs these days, it would be the perfect time for another attempt at creating what I feel is the ultimate MMO world.
City of Heroes
I’ve written plenty about my love for City of Heroes. Even today, I can play on the private server and have a great time. The game still holds up for me, but I’d be lying if I said it wasn’t held back by its dated visuals, messy code, and fun but still slow combat by today’s standards. When I play CoH today, I just think of what could have been.
Had CoH come out around when the Marvel Cinematic Universe began to take off after 2008’s Iron Man, I feel it would have been much better positioned to achieve critical mass. And being a couple years out from its original launch date in 2004, its gameplay might have been considerably more modern.
In an ideal world, I’d love to see CoH remade with much of the same design concepts, just modernized. Champions Online made an effort to do this, but didn’t quite stick the landing. I feel the Paragon Studios team could pull it off. In my dream world, they’d be doing this remake with the Marvel license, which would make it a new game entirely, sure, but it would make for the perfect superhero MMO.
Star Wars: The Old Republic
I’ve been playing SWTOR off and on since beta, coming back for each new piece of story content. But the gameplay can’t hold me for long. It’s more fun than your typical tab target MMO combat affair, but at the end of the day, it’s still tab target MMO combat. Like CoH and MXO, this is another game that would truly benefit from being more of an action MMO. You can say that just about any MMO might be better served being an action MMO these days, but I feel these three examples feature IP or subject matter where action combat is really necessary to sell the fantasy.
Unfortunately, SWTOR came out just before action MMOs like TERA began to show up. Had SWTOR started development a bit later, we might have been playing an entirely different game when it comes to the moment to moment combat.
Which MMOs would you like to see remade and why? Tell us in the comments below!
