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I’m usually late to the party with most games, and Shadowrun Returns hasn’t bucked that trend. I’ve just completed the initial campaign for Harebrained Schemes’ isometric single-player RPG, and enjoyed several aspects of it that are great models for most roleplaying games moving forward. Here are three that stand out most prominently!

In the same vein, we’re going to piggyback on last week’s List of the Five Best MMOs for New Players and suggest five more MMORPGs that you should at least give a try if you’re looking for a new game. And next week, we’ll take it a step further and recommend five “deep cuts” for the hardcore crowd!

A couple of weeks ago, we looked at some different types of endgame, including PvP as one of the principal activities available in an MMORPG once you hit the level cap. Of course, many modern MMOs offer some kind of player-versus-player interaction throughout the leveling process, even going as far as to incentivize low- and mid-level arenas through XP gain and gear rewards. PvP is one of my favorite diversions in an online game, both while leveling and as part of the endgame.

Jumping into a new MMO can be an intimidating experience for even the most seasoned players, especially those who have little familiarity with MMORPGs in general. Most of us on the site play MMOs like doing so is our job, and yet there are still some times when I start up a new game, or an existing one that I haven’t touched in a while, and feel the familiar sense of panic when I see how many skills or activities are available.

It may seem at odds to use the words “epic” and “accessible” in the same sentence, but Bioware and EA’s upcoming expansion to Star Wars: The Old Republic seeks to embody both of those terms in equal measure. If the entirety of Knights of the Fallen Empire (KotFE) is matched by the brief playthrough that I was privy to at an offsite preview yesterday, the expansion is going to pack quite a bit of a punch, while still being inviting to newer players.

Some time ago, I wrote a piece about whether Heroes of the Storm could achieve the same casual success as Hearthstone, comparing Blizzard’s two new entries to the MOBA and online TCG genres, respectively. It’s difficult to determine just yet how financially profitable is HotS after its official release in June, but it anecdotally seems to have engendered a great amount of critical and community acclaim.

It’s often said that in level-based MMORPGs, the endgame represents a completely different gameplay experience than that which precedes it. Some developers have gone as far as to say that it’s at the level cap where the game actually starts - which is ludicrous if you’ve spent over a hundred hours grinding through content just to make it there.

There are two things that I really like about Destiny: its tried and true Bungie combat, and its phenomenal vistas. As I’ve written about in the past, I find the FPS gameplay in Destiny to be engaging enough, and I really enjoy the game’s visuals, but have been unimpressed by its overall approach to content and lack of streamlining.

At PAX Prime 2015, ArenaNet finally let the release date for Heart of Thorns out of the bag, giving us about a month and a half to prepare for Guild Wars 2’s first official expansion. If you’re like me, you’ll be scrambling to finish the current Living World content and level your alts by October 23. Here are five ways that you can prepare for Heart of Thorns!

Conventions are always a great time for developers to spill the beans about what’s next for their most anticipated titles, and PAX is a Prime venue (you’re welcome) for big announcements. Our staff was on the ground for all things related to MMOs and RPGs at PAX Prime 2015. Here are five of the most interesting stories from last week’s conference!

I like to think of myself as fluent with the most up-to-date discussions about all manner of video games, but I always seem to find myself playing titles from a generation behind the curve. I know I’m not the only one out there who hasn’t yet played Mass Effect 3, but by golly, it’s on my shelf of 360 games, and I’ll get to it.

Hey folks! If you’ve been with us here at MMORPG.com for a while, you’ll already know that we run this weekly feature called The List for everything related to MMOs and RPGs - because who doesn’t like itemizing things?! For the past while, David Jagneaux has been penning the column, and he’s done a spectacular job with it.

Games like EverQuest and World of Warcraft have given us so much, providing the conceptual framework for the majority of MMOs that have been released over the past decade plus. Most contemporary MMORPGs, although distinct in their own right, emulate one or more tropes from their predecessors, which in turn were inspired by other video games and pen-and-paper RPGs.

The release process of modern MMOs seems to have settled into a normative pattern: Game X gets announced, pre-purchase packs go on sale, closed betas are marketed, and open beta marks the informal launch. These phases are followed by a more official kickoff down the road, which may or may not include a rebranding as free-to-play after a certain amount of time.

Like a lot of our readers, I was raised on PC gaming, with an equal interest in consoles. The disparate platforms represent different experiences for me, in that my desktop has always been an MMO, RPG, and general Steam machine, while my PS4 and other consoles have been gateways to first-party content and other games not available (or runnable) on my PC.