Although New World has gotten the majority of the MMO spotlight this week, there’s still a lot going on in the indie scene. In fact, with twenty entries, this is the largest Indie MMO Spotlight to date. This week’s Spotlight includes two brand-new games. So let’s turn on the light and get this week’s Indie MMO Spotlight started.
Archewood
Just in time for the weekend, the 2D MMORPG Archewood received a new update. The new Alpha release v0.0.6.0 includes a new tileset and Forest map, as well as a monster AI update. There’s also a new camp system and a few other minor tweaks.
Corepunk
Artificial Core, the developer of Corepunk, hasn’t been heard from in a long time. This week, a quick post on the Corepunk forums hinted at a new gameplay video on the way. The video, which is set to be released on October 12th, will give us a new look at the combat in Corepunk.
The Cycle: Frontier
I usually save any minor news from previous weeks for the Loose Ends section at the end of the Spotlight, but I missed YAGER Development’s big announcement last week. This is being done in order for the team to concentrate solely on the Closed Beta, which began on Thursday.
The Next Day
September has passed, and the Mega Event that Fntastic hinted at at the start of the month has yet to happen. I’m not sure if that’s some sort of secret code or just a way of making light of the situation, but either way, the teaser was a little disappointing.
Dual Universes
Dual Universe’s Ares update has been live for almost two weeks, giving players ample opportunity to try out the new PvP changes and additions. Novaquark has opened a thread on the DU forum where players can submit questions for an upcoming Q&A session regarding the Ares update as well as the previous Apollo update from August.
EmberSword
On September 30th, applicants were supposed to be able to finally purchase their EmberSword plot of land. The purchase date has been pushed back two weeks to October 14 due to a security issue.
Fractured
This week saw the release of the final video in the Fractured Fall Alpha Spotlight. The video covers alignments, the tech tree, and world events, among other things. Another patch was released this week, bringing sleeping monster optimizations as well as a slew of bug fixes.
Gloria Victis
With their weekly updates, the GV team is back on track. It was also a significant update, with the addition of the Equipment progression trees dominating the conversation.
Hordes.io
I’ve mentioned it before, but Hordes.io hosts a GM Event every Friday. Ground War, Sky Arena, and Mount Race are the three parts of the event. It all kicks off at 9 p.m. GMT.
Ilysia
They also announced that they had received a second round of funding and that a Community Manager position would be posted soon.
OrbusVR: A New Beginning
Patreayl’s annual Fall Festival has returned. The Fall Festival quests (same quests as last year but with some new rewards) can be started by talking to Festival Glodgoren outside the Highsteppe Gate near Randel and the Festival Farmer outside the Critter Capture shop, both of which are part of the most recent patch that also contained the Character Update we mentioned a few weeks ago.
Profane
The topic of the day was zerging in video games: is it a good thing or a bad thing? INSANE is breaking up the talk into bite-sized chunks because it was a long one. The first clip is available on the Profane YouTube channel.
Kingdoms of the Soul
Soul Kingdoms, an upcoming MMO-lite with a focus on PvP, is another game making its Indie Spotlight debut. You can learn more about developer Power Proc Studios’ new direction with Soul Kingdoms in our article from earlier this week, or just read the Cliff Notes version in our article from earlier this week.
Project F4E
If you enjoy MOBAs, you’ll want to keep an eye on Project F4E, our most recent addition to the Indie MMO Spotlight. F4E is still in the early stages of development, so you can take part in the current playtest for free (yep, no paid access required).
Gorgon’s Project
This week, Project Gorgon received a major update, with a new high-level zone and new skills taking center stage. It’s a long read, but the Project Gorgon Forums have a list of all the changes.
Universe of Abundance
Dev log #304 is now available for viewing.
The Mad God’s Domain
This week, Update 2.0.4.0 went live, bringing a slew of new features to The Shatters as well as a slew of other improvements and fixes. This week, the RotMG Discord launched the Spooky RotMG Event, in which you can enter to win prizes by submitting a RotMG-themed spooky creation.
Heroes’ Ship
This week, Heroic Games published a post summarizing the SoH Summer Beta Event. They shared some of the player feedback from the event, followed by a bullet point list of things to come, claiming it to be a huge success.
TitanReach
As a result, the TitanReach developers have decided to shut down the server after receiving funding to continue development. TitanReach is transitioning to private development, so the servers and download link were turned off on Monday to allow the team to concentrate on the project.
The Last City (Zenith)
TitanReach isn’t the only indie MMO that has recently received funding. Ramen VR, a Zenith developer, announced this week that they had raised $10 million in a Series A funding round. Virtual reality may be the next frontier for MMOs.