6 Upcoming Anime MMORPGs You Absolutely NEED To Play In 2021 And Beyond!

With 2020 rapidly coming to a close, and more and more Anime MMOs being announced, I felt as though it was time for this. Time to talk about upcoming Anime MMORPGs – MMOs that we can look forward to trying next year, in 2021, in some capacity.
I did a video like this at the beginning of 2018, and it went on to garner over 720,000 views which goes to show how thirsty we all are for new games, right? Right.

Before we go any further, though, I do want to really quickly preface this by stating that we’ve been streaming MMORPGs over on Twitch at twitch.tv/mmobyte, every Tuesday, Saturday and Sunday at 3PM EST. We’d love to have you come on over and join us there as we continue to play through all of these games together!

Now let’s not waste any more time here and just jump right in..

I’m gonna go ahead and start this off with Tower of Fantasy. Why? Because not only did I just do a video on it earlier this week, but after their most recent trailer, I’m hyped.
This is an absolutely beautiful looking Anime MMO that obviously takes some inspiration from the most recent Zelda game: Breath of the Wild. I know there were quite a few comments regarding this in the video I did and I know you guys can see it, too!
It’s like Breath of the Wild and Phantasy Star Online 2 had a child. This is an absolutely gorgeous looking title.
Not only do the character models look incredibly impressive – and yes, you can edit what’s important when creating your character, but the environments that make up the world look fantastic, and are actually completely open-world.
Yes, Tower of Fantasy is an open-world MMO, not an instanced MMO like Soul Worker or PSO2. It will also utilize full, complete action combat as is shown within the trailer.
It looks as though it will be a fairly story-driven MMO if the trailers I’ve seen are anything to go off of, which is perfect for me. I love a good story in an MMO – this is usually something that is sorely missing in games for me!

Gran Saga has had three trailers released for the game as of this moment, and we’ve been shown quite a bit of what the game looks like and plays like.
This is a very different looking game to Tower of Fantasy, as where Tower of Fantasy looks like a mixture of Breath of the Wild and PSO2, this looks much more like a Tales of game, Tales of Zestiria or Arise more specifically, and you know what?
That works for me, as I’m a huge Tales of fan. Symphonia, Vesperia, Phantasia. All 3 of them are some of my favorite JRPGs to date!
The game definitely looks impressive. It has high quality looking special effects, and the areas we’ve been shown actually look beautiful.
Gran Saga is planned to be a completely open-world MMORPG, much like Tower of Fantasy. At the same time, we’ve been shown that the game utilizes a form of “world map,” like you’d find in older JRPGs – which is something that does not in any way work with an “open-world.”
But there’s only been a single instance of that and it could’ve been a mini-game, fast travel or something completely different.
Combat is going to be complete action, which seems to be the direction the genre has shifted over the last couple years, and from what I’ve seen of the combat it looks very smooth, very high quality.
This is a title that was slated to release in 2020, but with what’s going on in the world right now it’s a safe bet to assume it might end up delayed into next year.

I did a video at the beginning of this year regarding Project BBQ, because Nexon, in their 4th Quarter 2019 financial report listed that the game would be launching in 2020 in some form. Alpha. Beta. Who knows.
While, once again, this has likely been delayed due to what’s going on in the world right now, I feel as though it’s the perfect opportunity to talk about it.
Project BBQ is a sequel to the Dungeon Fighter Online MMO but unlike Dungeon Fighter, which is an instanced dungeon-crawler, Project BBQ features a “large, seamless world” filled with “large, open-world maps and instanced dungeons.”
This is an interesting change of direction, especially considering the team behind Project BBQ are the very same people behind Dungeon Fighter, who have experience in this area. Graphically, the game looks stunning.
Seeing the character run through all of these different environments is a thrill for the eyes. It’s worth noting that what we’re seeing is likely dungeon content though as the areas feel fairly linear for an “open-world” game.
The combat, much like Dungeon Fighter, looks fast, smooth and flashy, and that’s what we want out of a game like this. We want a fast-paced open-world Dungeon Fighter MMO. And thankfully, it seems as though that’s what we’re going to get.

I mean obviously I couldn’t go without including this here, as this is by far the most anticipated Anime MMORPG I’ve pretty much ever seen, and is perhaps the most anticipated MMO of 2020 and 2021.
My Blue Protocol videos have gone on to garner millions of views total, after all. If that isn’t a sign that we’re ready for the game.. I don’t know what is.
Blue Protocol is an open-world MMORPG just like Final Fantasy XIV, Guild Wars 2 and Blade & Soul. It utilizes segregated zones, with small loading screens between the large environments – and the areas we visited during the Closed Beta looked incredible.
I haven’t seen an Anime MMO like that ever. It reminded me of the Xenosaga RPGs – and I was in awe every time I made it to a new area.
The combat in the game was complete action, with some abilities looking absolutely incredible. For the Mage, anyway. Everyone during the stream had me go Archer, which was the most boring class in the game, knowing full well I main Mages in my MMOs.
And Mages had some of the most amazing looking abilities – giant meteors falling directly from the sky, swallowing everything on the ground whole.
And like Tower of Fantasy.. yes, yes you can edit your characters’ assets in character creation, which is actually quite detailed!

Here’s one none of us ever saw coming: Phantasy Star Online 2: New Genesis. With the recent release of Episode 4 and the Steam launch of PSO2 onto Steam, we were given both the announcement, and the trailer for PSO2: New Genesis, a brand new MMORPG set within the PSO2-verse.
While PSO2 is a hub-based MMO, having hundreds of players occupy the hub in space and depart on missions together, New Genesis is going to offer large, open areas for players to explore – with larger parties and significantly more players allowed in each area.
And the areas look so damn good. Especially when you compare it to the dated visuals of PSO2 which, while they still hold up pretty well in 2020, has been a large turn-off for a lot of potential players.
New Genesis is a departure from the look and feel of PSO2, with both PSO2 and New Genesis getting a complete graphical overhaul, taking the game in a very different direction to the base PSO2 game.
The combat is also getting overhauled, and let me tell you, the trailer makes the combat look and feel absolutely fantastic. I’ve always thought PSO2 both looked and played well, but knowing this is what the game COULD look and play like.. yeah, I’m excited.
The game will have an emphasis on story still, different characters, will have a different focus and.. well, it’s a whole new game. What’s there to not be excited about?

I was tempted to mention Temtem in this list as technically the game is still in Early Access, but let’s be real here.. Early Access is essentially the equivalent of an “incomplete, buggy launch” but it is, still, in essence, a launched game, and thus doesn’t belong in this list.
You know what does, though? Its main competitor: DokeV. While we haven’t heard much in the way of.. well, anything really, I do want to note that both DokeV and Crimson Desert are in development, with DokeV being scheduled to release in some form next year.
DokeV takes heavy inspiration from Yo-Kai Watch – if you’ve either watched the Anime or played through the games. While both are technically rip-offs of Pokemon, they both have their place and both have enough unique aspects to make them their own game, completely independant of Pokemon.
In DokeV, you take on the role of a.. Master? Tamer? Collector? Who goes about collecting “Dokebi” – little creatures each with their own unique, special abilities, and.. yeah, well, we take them into battle and make them fight one another, aiding in the further capturing of and enslavement of.. well, us, after being sucked up into our.. spirit-vacuum.
Yes, no Pokeballs. No Temcards. It’s Luigi’s vacuum. We don’t really have much else in the way of information right now.
Is it going to be an open-world MMORPG? Will the combat be tab-target or will we possess the Dokebi ourselves? How many Dokebi will there be?
DokeV is scheduled to enter Beta testing this year – in 2020, but again, like every other game, it was likely delayed into next year, with a release coming a little ways after the Beta tests are over. This is an MMO that will be launching Globally, and I’m very excited to see another creature collecting MMO!

And there we have it. These are 6 upcoming Anime MMORPGs that I think are going to definitely require our attention next year.
Yes, some of these might only be available within their country of origin for the time being, an example being Bandai Namco having announced that while they’re definitely interested in a Global release, Japan comes first.
But that doesn’t mean we won’t be able to access them and play them until they inevitably come on over to the West.
And yes, with Project BBQ being the only exception to a “confirmed Western release,” every other MMO is going to be released Globally at one point or another.
This year has proven to be a very promising, very hopeful year for Anime fans. We’ve had several announcements made that all look very, very exciting, and that’s disregarding other single-player Anime RPGs and co-op Anime games – of which there look to be plenty.

Yup, the future’s looking bright right now and I couldn’t be more excited to tackle next year.
What Anime MMORPG are you most looking forward to playing next year? Let me know down in the comments below, and let’s talk about it!