The MMORPG landscape has grown significantly over the past three decades, bringing us countless fantastic franchises. However, with growth comes an increasingly saturated genre, where games such as EverQuest and RuneScape linger on, constantly iterating and reinventing themselves into sequels, while keeping their legacy games alive. The question is whether these long-standing games, in their fragmented, overlapping incarnations, are doing more harm than good for the genre.
Take EverQuest, for example, which not only refuses to die but has two major versions running simultaneously. With rumblings of yet another Everquest on the horizon, catering to the older crowd almost feels like it's poisoning any future version, as players may not want to leave the nostalgia of 20 or so years to take a chance on an untested iteration of the game. Meanwhile, RuneScape has Old School and Modern editions, each attracting a loyal following. This approach of keeping multiple versions alive seems to be common, and not just with MMORPGs on PC. Publishers are releasing mobile versions that diverge dramatically from the main game, as with Black Desert, or the upcoming mobile port of Final Fantasy XIV, which will be a rebooted version of the game, devoid of expansions and with an entirely separate player base.
All these sequels and fragmented versions undoubtedly appeal to different types of players, but at what cost? Are these iterations the reason why modern MMOs struggle to maintain their player bases? By constantly splintering the community, keeping different versions alive or failing to embrace cross-play, developers might be undermining their ability to build and sustain a thriving MMO audience.
Take Final Fantasy XIV as an example. After a decade of success, and with the game already available on multiple platforms, it's questionable if a mobile-only version will bring in a fresh audience. More likely, this new version will cannibalize existing players who might just be looking for a different way to engage with the game they already love. The risk is that instead of expanding the community, we might end up seeing its fragmentation.
Similarly, the ongoing whispers of yet another EverQuest sequel pose a tough question: does it make sense to introduce yet another version, when two are already running, each with players who have spent decades investing in their characters? Will those players abandon all they've built if they're not given a compelling reason to move on?
It’s worth considering if the magic of these older MMOs, their depth, their community, and the feeling of a world that grows and changes with the player, is lost with each new iteration. Instead of expanding on the foundations they’ve laid, developers seem increasingly focused on launching new titles or ports that end up dividing the player base, saturating the genre even further, and confusing potential players who are left unsure where to start or whether it’s worth jumping to a new version at all.
Would new MMORPGs be more successful if the legacy versions gracefully bowed out? Should developers think twice before launching spin-off mobile versions that seem to fragment rather than expand their communities? At the heart of it, MMOs were always meant to be about living worlds that grow with us. By constantly fracturing that journey, perhaps we’re missing out on what made them so special in the first place. What do you think? Would you like to see older versions of games sunset as new versions begin to rise? Or do you believe all games should be accessible for everyone, even if that means that new games will continue to struggle to find a foothold in the genre? Jump into the comments, and let us know what you think.
