New MMORPGs Of 2018 That Are Actually Coming Out

So a lot of people, myself included, are guilty of listing- or, claiming, rather, that specific MMORPGs are releasing in 2018.
I’m not going to say the MMORPG genre is dying, because it’s not. Not with games like Elder Scrolls Online, Guild Wars 2, Final Fantasy XIV, Black Desert Online and World of Warcraft remaining as popular as they are.
The genre is just growing.. stale. With so little variety for those of you that aren’t into any of the aforementioned games, you’re left wondering what exactly there is left to look forward to.
And I get that. In 2017 we had a handful of MMORPGs release: Revelation Online, MU Legend, and Albion Online.
Revelation Online was dead before the first month of the launch had passed, MU Legend just didn’t appeal to many people, and Albion Online spent too long in its testing phase that when it finally launched, people had lost interest.

We’re already half way through the year and as such, have had countless games release thus far. Allow me to quickly cover those before getting to what we have left.

Released February 6, 2018, Closers is an instanced, Anime inspired action brawler MMORPG reminiscent of Dungeon Fighter Online, published by En Masse Entertainment, the people behind TERA.
Although the game never really “took off”, having an all time peak of 2,000 concurrent players, and averaging 700 players playing at any given time, the game remains actively updated and worked on.
As the description implied, the game is completely instanced. You have a quest hub that you share with a large group of other players. You party together and you run instances.
I’ve been a fan of Closers for over a year now, playing pretty much exclusively on private servers where the population is higher and things are made much more readily available to players without paying.
But that’s me.

Released shortly after Closers, on February 26, 2018, Soul Worker Online is once again, an instanced, Anime inspired action brawler MMORPG more like Vindictus or Kritika Online than Closers or Dungeon Fighter Online, published by Gameforge, the team behind some of the worst pay to win garbage you’ll find online.
Soul Worker Online was notably more anticipated than Closers, having a peak of almost 11,000 players concurrently at launch, and to this day peaking at almost 2,500 players online at any given time.
Unfortunately for players, Soul Worker is definitely not as actively worked on Closers, nor is the game as well published.
Soul Worker, like Closers, Kritika and the like is another hub-based MMORPG where players take quests from a central “hub” – then proceed into dungeons to complete each mission.
Gameforge upped the difficulty significantly however, making it much more difficult to play for players that don’t pay – creating a large focus on the cash shop, much to the dismay of the populace.
I love Soul Worker, and I was absolutely appauled when I saw that this is what the official release looked like.. thus, like Closers, I moved on to a private server that wasn’t repugnantly altered to increase purchases made in-game.
You probably shouldn’t support a company like Gameforge that turns good games like this into a game that revolves around a cash shop.
I’m all for supporting games and their publishers, as I’ve had active subs for Final Fantasy XIV and WoW for years now, but.. Gameforge is a joke.

Released March 13, 2018, Project Gorgon is an open world tab-target MMORPG from the people behond Asheron’s Call and EverQuest II, published by Elder Game.
Project: Gorgon is a very, very traditional MMORPG, and as such it doesn’t have the appeal that games like Blade and Soul or Black Desert do to this generation of gamers.
Thus, the game launched to a very mediocre 650 concurrent player launch, simmering down to 300 people online at any given time as of this video. However, seeing the game drop down to an average of 200 players is quite disheartening.
Especially when the game has received such an overwhelmingly positive response from players.
The game features a completely classless system void of levels. You’re instead given the freedom to just.. be and do whatever you want. There are hundreds of skills to discover and learn, so you can craft your character in whatever way you want to.
This adds depth to the genre you don’t normally see. But.. if I’m being honest here, if this is the reception we see from games trying to stand out and be different.. it might be better not to.

Released March 27, 2018, Shroud of the Avatar is a traditional open world MMORPG considered to be the spiritual successor to the Ultima series, published by Portalarium.
Shroud of the Avatar, unlike both Closers and Soul Worker which were met with mostly positive launches, was met with a fairly mixed response upon its launch.
Unfortunately, the game is playable both through Steam and through the games own launcher, meaning it isn’t possible to get an accurate gauge of its population currently.
However, I can say for certain that there weren’t all that many people running around in-game, and it definitely felt barren.
The game was kickstarter funded, and had a significant amount of hype surrounding it.. until they stopped listening to feedback from their supporters and ultimately sent the game into the downward spiral it has yet to recover from.
That is quite a shame as the game held a lot of promise.

What could have potentially been the “next big thing”, yet ended up conclusively being the “next big flop”, Bless Online was released on May 30, 2018. Bless is an open world tab-target fantasy MMORPG published by Neowiz.
There was always the prospect of the game failing, naturally. Every MMORPG, or even game for that matter faces the odds of it doing poorly. However, Bless Online launched to almost 35,000 concurrent players online at the same time.
This was much higher than they had anticipated.
Had they handled the release better, they may not have had the negative reaction they did; regardless, less than a month after launching, the game is down to a mere 5,700 players playing simultaneously at any given time, with the population dropping seemingly almost daily.
Bless is completely open world, taking pride in its open world PvP system, and having a unique monster-taming feature, allowing players to tame almost anything you see.. minus the people. Although there might be some into that, I dunno. I’m not judging them.
I had high hopes for Bless, but it ended up just being another Revelation Online.

Now, my goal here isn’t to spend a large amount of time covering the MMORPGs coming out after this point in the year. Instead, I’m going to just cover each rather quickly to give you a gist of what to expect.
I do plan on doing impressions videos for each of these games as they come out, and hopefully progressing through them to a degree, but until then..

Warlords Awakening.. is actually not a new title. Instead, it appears as though the game is just a relaunch of an older MMORPG, Elite Lords of Alliance.
Yes, the game is expected to launch next month in July, and yes I’m adding it as an MMORPG launching in 2018.. but I want to be clear that although it’s technically “launching” in July, I don’t believe much has been done to justify a relaunch.
Other than the fact that the publisher has changed, there aren’t really any updates or changes to the core of the game overall to warrant it relaunching under another name, and admittedly, I don’t see a reason why this won’t do equally as bad as both attempts made prior.
The game takes a kind of isometric approach – with fast, fairly flashy action combat and has a large, open world players can group together to explore, participate in dungeons and raids with, and.. you know. The norm.
If you’ve ever played MU Legend, Diablo, Path of Exile.. then you’ve played Warlords Awakening.
We played Elite Lords of Alliance when it was still under that name, and although we found it highly entertaining.. like MU Legend, the game is destined for a similar fate as its predecessors.

Let me preface this by saying that the second closed beta for MapleStory 2 will be taking place on July 18, 2018. We have been hand-picked to offer beta key giveaways and other goodies that will be done in a giveaway on the channel.
So if you’re interested in getting one.. all you gotta do is be subscribed to our channel, leave a comment in this video and head on over to our website via the link in the description, and let us know you want a key! It’s that simple.
People will be chosen randomly – so make sure to leave a comment in both areas to double your chances to get in!
Now, with that out of the way..
MapleStory 2, much like MapleStory, is an Anime inspired MMORPG set in the same world – featuring some of the same characters, but adopting an entirely new graphical style.
Instead of remaining a side-scrolling action MMO, the game now includes both side-scrolling and the ability to run around a 3-dimensional world, adding new layers to the game.
While keeping to its quirky, cutscene-heavy, fast paced action roots, the game manages to somehow reinvigorate a stale genre, by providing a game that is actually fun to play.. and could potentially hold a decent sized population.
You know.. if Nexon doesn’t ruin the game by making it pay to win. Which is a possibility.. but not a certainty.
Like MapleStory, the game has instanced off zones, similarly to Blade and Soul, providing access to each zone through loading screens, helping to keep lag under control.

Now, a couple of mentions here real quick on two games people were under the impression (myself included) were coming out this year.

I know a lot of people were highly anticipating Crowfall this year, but by the looks of things.. it doesn’t look like it is within the realm of possibility.
The Crowfall team recently released a “Mid-Year Checkpoint” blog in the middle of June and in that blog went on to mention that they are still in the process of making changes to “core systems”, and that “As a result, I think it’s clear that our soft launch is not going to happen by the end of the year.”
That’s a little disappointing, but regardless.. I’m glad to see them still actively working on it.

Although never slated for an actual release this year, I do want to just add on that the beta for A:IR will ba happening at the end of this year.
For those of you interested in trying the beta out, head on over to the official website and register for the beta now before it’s too late!

Do note real quick that this list is aimed specifically at PC MMORPGs, not console MMORPGs or Mobile MMORPGs.
The market right now has a.. let’s go ahead and call it an obsession, I guess, at this point, with re-releasing MMORPGs on other devices. Especially mobile.
We have games like Mabinogi M, MapleStory M, Black Desert Online Mobile, Blade and Soul Mobile, and.. the list just goes on and on.
While it seems as though mobile ports are now the way to go, and Mobile MMORPGs are growing in popularity with every passing month, most of us are still deeply invested in PC MMORPGs.
Therefore mobile ports don’t affect nor interest us.
Now don’t get me wrong – I’m not saying they won’t be successful. I’m not shaming them by saying they’re inferior, especially when looking at Blade and Soul’s mobile port or TERA’s re-release onto consoles.
Both of which look amazing – and Black Desert? Holy! That game looks better than most PC MMORPGs and it’s on mobile!
So while I am very aware those games amongst many others are releasing over the remainder of the year, I opted not to include them, or any others, preferring to make a separate list if you’re all interested in that.

Now, to end the video, I’d like to just point out that 2018 hasn’t been that great of a year for the genre. 2017 was pretty bad, and with the amount of games released thus far, and the success or lack thereof each of them have had..
Well, if 2019 – which I am titling “The year of crowdfunding”, fails to release anything noteworthy, then I feel as though we’ll be left with what we already have.
And without new interest being made in the genre, even the remainder of MMOs we have to play will slowly dwindle.

With that in mind, I would like to urge people to check out one of my other videos if you’re left.. wanting, wondering what to play in the meantime. Bored with what you’re playing – unsure of what there is left to do while waiting.
In my “Top 10 Most Played MMORPGs in 2018” video I list the 10 most populated MMORPGs if you’re interested in playing something with a good playerbase – something that won’t just.. up and die on you.
Something to hold you over until something perhaps catches your interest.
There are great MMORPGs out there. With how little we have to play right now.. maybe it’s time to boot one up that you haven’t played in a while and see why they’re as highly rated as they are, yeah?

With all of that being said and done, I do think the MMORPG genre has the potential to continue growing, especially with how many people are looking forward to games slated for 2019 releases, and WoW Classic.
So, hopefully I’ll see you all in one of the games I’m playing, private servers I’m enjoying, or.. on Twitter, if you follow me and just wanna chat.
Thank you all for watching, and I’ll see you all next time.