Following yesterday’s list, today I wanted to continue to look ahead at upcoming MMOs that have piqued my interest. The six that I’m going to list here are anything but sure bets (even in this industry). They have weird concepts, unproven dev teams, or might not end up being my type of game when I actually do play them. But here we go with 6 dark horse MMO candidates!
1. Identity
I’m probably one of the few people in the world that follow this project regularly, but that’s because I really do appreciate the ambition of bringing an MMO “life simulator” to bear. Might just be bland PvP in a modern setting, but I think there’s a lot of potential for a contemporary MMO that allows you to live out different virtual lives.
2. Harry Potter: Wizards Unite
This may well be the closest we’ll ever come to an actual Harry Potter MMORPG, and the whole mobile ARG angle seems like it could work. But I wasn’t that bowled over by Pokemon Go, and I don’t know if I’ll have the time or interest to putter around the town waving my phone at other people. Plus, we haven’t heard a peep out of this project since last November.
3. Pantheon
In my opinion, too many of these upcoming MMOs are leaning hard on the crutch of PvP to fill content gaps, so any title that makes PvE a priority has my attention. I haven’t held the greatest respect for this project over the last few years, but the team has stuck with it and is starting to produce an actual playable MMO. Maybe it’ll be worth checking out? It’s gone from a no-prospect to a possibility in my view.
4. Legends of Aria
Aria gets points in my book for making the move MORE toward an MMO over the course of its development and for a charming stylized look. Plus I’m kind of cheering on this small and scrappy team. On the minus side, lots of PvP and no huge word-of-mouth recommendations as of yet.
5. Amazon’s New World
Is New World still a thing? Will this be so PvP that I might as well bury my carebear nose back in World of Warcraft? We’re hearing rumblings that Amazon might be talking about this game soon, and the combination of an alternative history setting and Amazon’s deep pockets and desire to prove itself could result in something worth playing. I’m very uncertain on it right now, however.
6. Chronicles of Elyria
I cannot tell you how torn I am on this project. Almost daily I go from being absolutely convinced that we’re seeing a trainwreck in the making to nursing a grudging respect for the sheer vision that’s at work here. In short, I like a lot of the ideas that this studio has put forth, and I also hate a lot of its ideas and think that they’ll really work against the game’s favor (especially selling nobility packages and putting a huge emphasis on PvP). But we haven’t ever seen a development process quite like this, including creating a visual MUD to test out the core gameplay systems before the graphics are created and instituted. I don’t know. I really don’t know. But I’m following it.
Bio Break 
Pantheon is my #1 prospect and the only MMORPG in development I can imagine playing as my main MMO for a prolonged period.Based on the videos i’ve watched, I’d play it now if there was a buy-in for $100 rather than $1000.
New World could be interesting but who knows? The others I can skip.
Pantheon just might surprise the doubtfull. I would be willing to try it. Dual Universe looks interesting but not sure I would be able to commit the time it would deserve.
I’ve funded (at the minimum level) CoE and Aria. I don’t play Aria but I had fun testing it. I’ve been watching CoE and agree with Syp’s opinions. I regularly read the CoE Discords to get an idea how the community thinks.
I am pretty sure New World is in limbo….although their site keeps popping up the disappears…then appears again (http://massivelyop.com/2018/01/16/amazons-new-world-page-is-back-again/). I don’t see it coming out, if it does, until 2021.
TQQdles™
Reblogged this on DDOCentral.
I really want A:IR to be good. Not sure it fits as a dark horse, but its the only thing I’m watching right now.