Everyone has a fighting chance
The new year is upon us, and that can only mean one thing. Time for us to look back at the year that was while bracing for the year ahead and recount the best (and worst) games we played during the last twelve months. The entire writing staff of MMORPG.com was polled for this year’s awards, and each game that won had a majority vote in its favor.
RuneScape is celebrating its 18th anniversary with the big news that more people are playing series games than ever before. The explosive growth in the RuneScape’s player numbers has been driven in large part by the release of Old School RuneScape on mobile devices in late 2018. Hand-in-hand with the OSR mobile release, Jagex revealed that more players than ever before are taking advantage of the subscriber option across all games.
The first Legends of Aria developer update has been published and, while brief, it does offer a bit of information about upcoming additions to the game as well as an explanation for the release date change for Steam Early Access. At the moment, the release date sits at January 18th. However, this may change. The letter states, “We only did this because the date was looming & we have not settled on a final date for the ‘real’ Steam Store launch” but that more info will be forthcoming.
From today through January 31st, Diablo 3 players can take part in the game’s anniversary event called The Darkening of Tristram. The event pays homage to Diablo 1 by presenting players with a retro look and loot that is a fond callback to the original game. This includes the Godly Plate of the Whale and music from D1 that can still raise the hairs on the back of your neck.
Late last week, it was announced that Activision Chief Financial Officer Spencer Neumann was leaving, or was fired, to take a new position at Netflix, it has come to light that Blizzard’s CFO Amrita Ahuja has also departed ATVI after eight years. She has left Blizzard in order to join mobile payment organization, “Square”.
Bethesda and Behaviour Interactive have announced that an amicable resolution has been reached in the lawsuit between the two. The suit was filed in June 2018 regarding alleged similarities between Bethesda’s Fallout Shelter game and Behaviour’s Westworld game. Behaviour had previously worked on Fallout Shelter and Bethesda alleged that some of that code was used in the Westworld mobile game developed by Behaviour at a later date for Warner Bros. Interactive.
The Ship of Heroes site has been updated with a post to take a look back at the development accomplishments during 2018 and to provide the community with a peek ahead at 2019. Players can look forward to upcoming events including one featuring the upgraded character creator and a possible raid test later in the year.
On January 10th, Nexon will be launching the second phase of the MapleStory 2 Skybound expansion. Players will find new epic quests, the Lunar New Year event, the Fortress Rumble Dungeon and the Sky Fortress area to explore. Players who earn the “Trusted” reputation can take part in the Fortress Rumble Dungeon with five types of single-player activities. Doing so can earn Legendary weapons and armor through rank rewards.
The World of Warcraft site has been updated to provide players with a preview of the upcoming Battle of Dazar’alor raid. The raid is set to open on Normal and Heroic difficulties on January 22nd, with Mythic and LFR Wing 1 opening on January 29th. The LFR version will see Wing 2 open on February 12th and Wing 3 on February 26th. The experience is a first-of-its kind as Horde and Alliance will begin at different spots with different objectives.
Former Hearthstone Executive Producer Ben Brode has resurfaced with a huge announcement today. Brode and Hamilton Chu (also former Hearthstone) formed Second Dinner in late 2018 but have been cagey about what they were up to…until today. The pair have revealed a $30M minority investment from NetEase and a deal with Marvel for an as-yet-unannounced mobile game.