Coming In In All Directions...

Considering how badly most new MMORPGs seem to do when they hit Early Access or even launch, it's surprising how many keep getting made. Sometimes it feels like there are more of the things coming out now than back in the heat of the boom after World of Warcraft changed the rules. Or, rather, after a lot of people mistakenly believed it had.

For a long time, I made it my business at least to take a look at every new entry to the genre I heard about. I was willing - happy, even - to go to a good deal of trouble just to get my hands on any new MMORPG. I'd apply for testing, fill out applications, make accounts, download launchers and generally do whatever was necessary to get onto the servers. I even paid money, sometimes.

That behavior pre-dated my entry into into blogging by some years so I couldn't even claim, as I went on to say many times later on, that my real motivation was to have something new to write about. No, I just wanted to try out every possible variation on the already well-established format, not so much in the hope of finding something different as in getting another fix of the familiar.

I'm not sure when that urge started to fade but it's been quite a while since I felt the need to grab onto any and every proto-MMORPG that stumbles into open alpha, as if to miss even one would be some kind of sin of omission. I think my first sign of recovery was an increasing reluctance to fill out any more damn forms or make any more accounts.

These days, if getting a look at a new game requires anything more from me than an email address, chances are I'm going to pass. It has to be something I'm really excited about (Looking at you, Neverness to Everness. Not that you ever look back at me...) to make me start handing out personal details and completing questionnaires.

There's certainly no shortage of options, though. I must have skipped a dozen new MMORPGs in the last year alone. It's like a cult. Who are they all supposed to be for? Why do developers insist on making them? 

 

I can't answer that but I can say that the ones that stand out are the handful of exceptions, the oddities aimed at a very specific audience rather than some notional, generic-fantasy-loving demographic that never seems to turn up when the doors open. Even more common but significantly more likely to be successful are the MMO-adjacent survival or creature-catcher knock-offs that never seem to stop coming. 

There's another of those on the way that I'll get to, briefly, later on. First, though, something genuinely original, although not necessarily any more likely to find an audience of any significant size.  

I posted about the "horse mystery" game, Equinox Homecoming, back in May of last year, when it was just going into Early Access on Steam. It ticked all the boxes necessary to make me think it might be worth a look. 

The game has a very unusual and original, not to say bizarre, premise: you ride around the countryside on horseback, solving mysteries like you're in some YA novel from the 1970s. And when you're done you go back to the stable and tend to your horse.

Looking back at that post, apparently I was willing to spend $25 for the privilege of playing a buggy, content-lite version of a game clearly not meant for me. The only thing that stopped me were the minimum specs, which looked like they were out of my reach.

Luckily for me, I've upgraded my PC since then and now there's a demo, which I'm downloading as I type, which means I can take a look for free. The demo's been released as part of the Steam Horse Fest, which is running from now right through until Next Fest takes over on the 23rd.

Did you know there was a Steam Horse Fest? I bet you didn't. (Unless your name is Aywren, in which case you're most probably putting a post together about it right now.) Steam runs an almost never-ending series of events promoting various genres and types of games, almost none of which ever seem to get a mention on any of the gaming sites I follow. Next Fest is very much the exception.

Speaking of Next Fest, it looks as if the upcoming Winter edition (It is Winter, isn't it? They're not going to pretend February is Spring, are they?) looks like it's going to be a good one for MMO fans. I've already spotted a few new-to-me MMORPGs, or games that might at least be genre-adjacent, that either have demos available or will, when the festival begins.

Probably the most interesting is Outbound, a multiplayer "cozy open-world exploration game set in a utopian near future" in which you roam around in what looks suspiciously like a VW Microbus, solving mysteries and exposing fake ghosts scavenging materials to pimp your retro ride. I'd like me some of that action.

Less interesting to me but maybe of interest to someone reading this is the creature-catching survival game Guardians of the Wild Sky. It looks slick, I'll say that for it. I'll probably skip that one, just like I already skipped the solo (Not solo player - solo developer.) Faehnor Online. 

I took a look at that last one after I read about it on MassivelyOP today. Well, I took a look at the screenshots on the Steam Store page, anyway. 

A few years ago I'd have downloaded it without a second thought but this time I read the reviews and decided life's too short, especially at my age. It doesn't look at all bad for a game in early development with just one person working on it but what would be the point? I'm never going to play it and it's not going to be anything I haven't seen before.

Then again, it is in French, which is new. It also has some form of PvP that's not explained on the Store page. I can read French well enough but I don't fancy my chances of following French voice acting, which apparently the game has, particularly when someone is trying to hack my head off. (Edit - Apparently there is  now also a PVE server...)

How it can be fully voiced with just one developer is a curious question, too. Does he do all the voices himself? That would actually make me a bit more interested. But no. I'll still pass.

As for Next Fest, I'm really looking forward to It. I always enjoy it but this time I'm really in the mood for some video-game tapas. Should make for a nice palate-cleanser after my heavy diet of BG3. I will try the MMORPGs I've mentioned but MMO demos always take far longer than any other genre so if any more  turn up I might have to pass. 

Or I might not be able to resist. It's a one day at a time recovery I'm enjoying, not a full cure. A relapse is always on the cards.