Every New MMO Still Coming in 2022

Have you been wandering aimlessly amidst the barren wasteland of failed, horrendously trash MMOs? It’s okay to admit it. We’re all friends here.
New MMOs get announced periodically throughout the year, but very few of them ever seem to launch, and even less acquire any type of long-term success. Which, in turn, has left you bored, frustrated, repeating the same content in the same MMOs month after month.
That’s where I come in. The MMOs still slated for a full release before the years’ end. And unfortunately, both Blue Protocol and Throne and Liberty were delayed. Blue Protocol to potentially 2023 or 2024, and Throne and Liberty to somewhere in the first half of 2023.

Ares: Rise of Guardians is a brand new PC exclusive MMO from Kakao – the very same people that published Black Desert for years, and more recently, published the failed Elyon. I’m aware this isn’t the most.. appealing track record. Especially considering what they did to ArcheAge in the last year.
Nevertheless, Kakao confirmed out of nowhere earlier this year, that Ares is a brand new scifi MMO. A Korean take on something like The Old Republic or Star Trek Online. Meaning hot Waifu’s, great action combat, amazing graphics, but terrible story, a bland world, and horrendous optimization.
Ares was announced in March of 2022, accompanied by a 30-second teaser and a confirmation that the game is launching on PC in 2022. Almost 6 months later, we have no new footage, no new information, but a release date inching ever closer.
Which has me a little concerned that they’re either going to rush the Global release – as this is confirmed to be releasing Globally, or they’ll delay it into 2023.

Arthdal Chronicles is a brand new cross-platform MMORPG in development from Netmarble, the very same people behind the critically.. I wanna say acclaimed here, but that’d be a lie, “critical failure” would be a more apt description, MMO, Ni no Kuni Cross Worlds.
But they’re also working on several other hotly anticipated games – The Seven Deadly Sins: Origin and SOLO Leveling specifically. Both of which look incredible. Whether they live up to our standards for good games is another story all together, though.
Regardless, Arthdal Chronicles was announced in February this year. It was revealed that the MMO would be accompanying a new season of the hit TV series this game is based off of, using games, TV and movies to attempt to expand Arthdal Chronicles into its own Global intellectual property, spanning every type of media available.
They claim it’ll feature an action combat system, have a large open world for players to explore, a multi-tribe system functioning similarly to factions in World of Warcraft or Aion. Large-scale world PvP. It’s also confirmed to have a simultaneous Global launch, with the launch in question coming some time in 2022.
I haven’t heard any news on the game since it was announced in February though, so.. yeah. I dunno. They might surprise us, though, as it hasn’t officially been canceled or delayed yet.. haha.

Chrono Odyssey is a Korean MMO announced back in December 2020. Almost 2 years ago. However, development actually began the year prior – in 2019. It is being developed by NPIXEL, the same studio behind GRAN SAGA, a fairly successful cross-platform Anime MMO that made over $100 million dollars within its first month.
Honestly, very little has been revealed about the game currently. It’s supposed to feature a “space-time epic fantasy adventure,” with massive realm vs realm battles like those found in Guild Wars 2. They claim it will utilize an action combat system, to make battles more exciting.
It also seems as though Chrono Odyssey is being developed cross-platform on PC, Console and Mobile, but every platform is going to have a completely separate UI, something most cross-platform MMOs these days could learn from.
I’m just hoping mobile isn’t the priority. Given we haven’t heard anything about a delay.. it’s still possible we’re going to receive the game this year. I’m concerned we won’t – but they might pull out a release date last minute. And yes, this is launching Globally.

Justice Online is a Wuxia MMORPG developed by Netease, that not only looks better but also plays a lot better than the failed Swords of Legends MMO we were all excited about last year. Much like SOLO, Justice Online features a gorgeous open-world landscape for players to explore.
Arguably one of the largest I’ve ever seen. It has fast, fluid hybrid action combat, a plethora of different classes – all inspired by various different weapon and martial arts styles.
However it doesn’t feature a high-fantasy setting, meaning every NPC, every enemy, even you, yourself, all look relatively the same: It’s set within China, and thus has a very old-Chinese aesthetic. Which works for me – I love Wuxia and Xianxia. But I’m aware it doesn’t appeal to everyone.
Now, Justice Online was confirmed to be receiving a Global release earlier this year, however since its announcement the devs have gone silent. Until recently, when I received an email from them stating that it is still coming in 2022. And maybe sooner than we thought. Let’s hope they can stick to that schedule and it doesn’t end up delayed.

ODIN: Valhalla Rising is an MMO developed by Lionheart Studio, and is arguably one of, if not the highest quality cross-platform MMO available right now. In Korea. It isn’t available Globally yet, but it will be, as it was confirmed in a Q&A in November last year that the game would be launching around the world this year, in 2022.
The most interesting part of the Q&A was when they stated they’re aware auto-play is present in the Korean version of the game, but that Western players loathe auto-play mechanics, and thus, have opted to remove the auto-play elements from the game all together. Something I genuinely never expected to see.
ODIN features a Norse-setting, with Gods like Thor, Loki, Freya and more. It is set in several large, open worlds, allowing for travel between each of the Realms. And, if what they claim is to be believed.. will feature actual, non auto-play action combat.
Given ODIN: Valhalla Rising is one of the highest grossing cross-platform MMOs in Korea, earning over $100 million dollars in its first month, it’s safe to say with a focus on manual-play, this could be a massive hit. Bigger than Tower of Fantasy and GRAN SAGA, easily.

And those are the 5 MMOs still slated to release in 2022. They might not necessarily be what we want, but they’re the only games we’re likely to get until 2023.
We’ve had some solid releases this year. Lost Ark was fun. Tower of Fantasy was fun. I laughed at how bad Noah’s Heart was. Guild Wars 2 released End of Dragons, which was an incredible expansion, WoW is releasing Dragonflight, which may or may not be good.
But at least we have MMOs to look forward to over the next few months, right?