5 Upcoming Cross-Platform MMORPGs You Should Be Excited For!

As the years go by it’s becoming evident that there is a shift in the genre. The last decade we saw MMORPGs developed almost exclusively for the PC platform, with console gamers being an afterthought for developers.
However, towards the end of the 2010s we noticed more and more MMOs were being developed for Mobile devices, much to the disappointment of the community.
Now, half way through 2020 we have MMOs being announced completely cross-platform between all 3 major gaming platforms, and that’s something that’s kind of exciting. Maybe not to everyone, sure, but to someone who’s been in the MMO scene for over 20 years, I’m excited to see where this goes.

It is with that revelation that I wanted to discuss 5 upcoming cross-platform MMORPGs, and.. 1 non-MMO purely because I think the game is worth playing as a co-op RPG, that I believe you guys should all definitely be excited for.

Plenty of you have been eagerly anticipating Project TL for a while now. It was announced years ago – at the same time as Lost Ark, as a competitor to the MMO.
Since then, Lost Ark went on to release in various regions around the world and Project TL.. just kinda disappeared. According to NCSoft though, they’ve been hard at work on the game this entire time, completely overhauling the game over and over until they have a title they deem worthy of the Lineage IP.
Or that’s what I’d like to hope they’re doing, but in reality I’m assuming it’s because while Project TL was initially announced to be coming to PC, recently they announced that while the foundation of the game was already complete, and for the most part, the game was complete enough to release in some form this year within South Korea, they were also building in mobile compatibility, allowing players to play cross-platform between PC and mobile devices.
And you know what? That makes sense. Every Lineage game in this day and age is a mobile game and while I’m not overly fond of the Lineage mobile titles – in fact, I’ve disliked every one I played.
The fact remains that this is a PC project first and foremost with mobile compatibility being built into it to allow for a much larger return on investment.
Project TL is a beautiful looking game that is played from an isometric point of view, has fast action combat pretty akin to that of Lost Ark, and again, was scheduled to launch in some capacity within South Korea this year. Whether that’s still the case remains to be seen, but here’s hoping we get a more in-depth look at this soon.

I actually covered this a week or two ago, but I figured it was worth including because this is one of the most ambitious MMOs I’ve seen in a while. I know, I know. The trailer used is actually stock footage as opposed to footage acquired utilizing the in-game engine. I fully understand that.
However, trailers like this are how pretty much every single developer hypes up their games, right? So, Project Ragnarok is actually a AAA-budget MMORPG that is launching cross-platform between PC, Consoles and Mobile devices.
This is a rare case of an MMO being built for every gaming platform on the market, and I think is something we’re going to perhaps see more of as we continue moving into the future. Project Ragnarok, also referred to as “The Ragnarok” is a Norse-mythology themed MMO.
The game is going to be set in a completely open world, filled with large, interactible environments – allowing players to scale large mountains, creating a larger sense of satisfaction from exploration.
It’ll utilize full-action combat, and is expected to offer combat equal to if not better than other cross-platform titles, something I’m curious to see if they’re capable of pulling off.
While initially there was a full official trailer released, there was a follow-up trailer leaked showing some in-game gameplay footage and it looks pretty good.

Okay, just assume I’ve already covered each of these games at one time or another. If you want the full-length trailer for any of these, or you want in-depth discussions on them then I recommend navigating on over to the dedicated videos I did for them.
Regardless, Tower of Fantasy is a pretty sick looking upcoming Anime MMO.
We’re not 100% certain on the exact size of the game right now, where most MMOs relish in the opportunity to state “we have a ridiculously large open world that can hold a billion players,” Tower of Fantasy merely states that it has an open-world. That’s it.
An open-world MMO is what everyone is expecting, because that’s what the developers have hinted at, but at the same time there’s a small chance that that could end up changing somewhere down the line if they feel the game would either be easier to pursue as a co-operative action RPG instead.
Either way, right now, the game is expected to be an MMO and it looks fantastic. It’s set within an Anime inspired scifi world and has a bit of a futuristic setting.
The combat is going to be complete action, and we get a glimpse of that later on in the trailer – and admittedly, it actually looks pretty smooth. Granted, this is combat with the UI off so I can’t say how the game will ultimately look while engaged in combat but I’m not against what we can see.
Where both Project TL and Project Ragnarok are both going to have class systems, Tower of Fantasy won’t, instead, allowing players to swap their combat styles on the fly by changing the weapon they have equipped.
Additionally, there will be the ability to climb mountains, glide, interact and destroy parts of the environment and if the trailer is anything to go off of, have functional mounts.

I’ve done multiple videos on Gran Saga over the last year of its announcement. It was probably the first cross-platform MMO I actually ever did a video on and admittedly, NPIXEL, the team behind the game have only released 2 trailers for it.
That’s been it up until this point, and that’s a little unsettling, considering we’re half way through July and we were supposed to have a testable version of the game this year. In some form at least. Beta, Alpha, Pre-Alpha.
Regardless, Gran Saga is probably the most Anime-esque of all the cross-platform MMOs on the horizon – not as Anime-esque as Blue Protocol, but Blue Protocol is built for PC exclusively.
Gran Saga looks to be built for PC with cross-play being added in for mobile devices after the fact, which is evident by the graphics, much like Genshin Impact.
Supposedly, the game is going to be completely open-world, and we’ve seen these zones, they look enormous. If they’re that large, I cannot imagine how fun it would be exploring them with other players.
Yet at the same time I see in their trailer a little sprite version of yourself navigating an overworld map like you did in old Tales of and Final Fantasy JRPGs.
This has me concerned as I’m not sure specifically what kind of world or the kind of exploration we’ll have access to. The combat is going to be complete action – which seems to be the theme of every cross-platform MMO actually. There hasn’t been a single one included thus far that was tab-target.

You know what, the graphical style of ODIN: Valhalla Rising is probably my favorite of all the titles included in this list. Okay, maybe Tower of Fantasy will give it a run for its money as I’m a huge fan of Anime games but my god this game looks amazing.
The trailer shows us what seems to be a very Black Desert inspired world, with very Black Desert inspired characters. And that’s good – BDO’s a good game to take inspiration from.
At its core it’s a fun game, it just has some fundamental issues that prevent a lot of players from really enjoying it, but there are also hundreds of thousands of players that do.
Regardless, I think it’s worth kind of prefacing this with the reveal that ODIN is actually launching this year – yeah, no joke. The game is actually scheduled for a 2020 release within South Korea.
This will be another completely open-world MMORPG, with the devs promising there won’t be a single loading screen while out traversing the world.
Granted, considering there are going to be dungeons for players to participate in, it’s likely there’ll be loading screens separating those, but this is promising news.
The game is going to be fantasy-themed and also have interactible environments – scaling mountains, cliffs, buildings. It seems like this is likely going to be the norm with regards to features.
Like Project Ragnarok, ODIN: Valhalla Rising is going to be Norse-mythology themed, so we can expect multiple iterations of our favorite Asgardians spanning multiple upcoming MMOs!
The combat is also going to be action combat, but from what we can see from the trailer, although graphically it takes inspiration from Black Desert, the combat does not. But this is just a pre-release trailer after all, there’s a lot of work still yet to be done!

Okay, I know Genshin Impact isn’t an MMORPG, or, heck, even just an MMO. But I mentioned earlier that there would be a non-MMO, remember? That’s because Mrs Stix and I got to play Genshin Impact during its final Closed Beta and we’re in love with the game.
It’s set in a giant open-world that is explorable at your own pace – scaling anything and everything you see and interacting with various monsters, bosses, and NPCs found just.. out there because reasons.
It’s got a gorgeous Anime setting that really captures the bright and lively setting that Breath of the Wild did, and although it looks quite similar aesthetically, it’s quite a bit different to the Zelda title, despite people’s initial opinion.
The combat, and use of 4-character parties is fast, it’s responsive – heck, the entire game is responsive. This isn’t a game that you’d think was built with mobile compatibility in mind.
Granted, we only participated in the PC test so we can only talk about our experience with that platform, the game is also releasing onto mobile devices and the PS4. Yup, every major gaming platform: PC, console and mobile.
Unfortunately the multiplayer does seem limiting. There are some aspects of the game – specifically chests with loot that can only be looted by the game owner, and quests only progress for the owner of the game meaning that other players are forced to re-play through that content on their own save game.
This is an issue I see becoming very tiresome to newer, lower level players but I doubt will be an issue for players that are further through the game and story.

All in all, the genre is in a weird state right now.
Yes, we have upcoming MMOs like Ashes of Creation, New World, Blue Protocol, Project BBQ, and other titles all on the horizon. They’re all in development and we’re all eagerly anticipating them. However at the same time, there’s also a different type of MMO rising in popularity, and that’s the cross-platform variety.
I know that the thought of a mobile title is disgusting to some of you, but remember this: It isn’t whether the game is available on mobile that is of concern. It’s whether the game is built for mobile.
If the game is built for PC gamers and ported to mobile devices, then the game will look and feel like a PC MMO, much like Genshin Impact. However the opposite is true, and that is evident from the likes of cross-platform MMOs like Talion.
I’m excited for each and every one of these games. There’s a lot to look forward to over the course of the 2020-2021 period.