Top 5 MMOs That I'm Looking Forward To At This Exact Moment

As we start closing out 2024 and move into 2025, we'll no doubt be updating our "Most Anticipated MMORPGs and MMO lists" as the new year begins. However, we've seen quite a few projects delayed, cancelled, or massively changed throughout the year already. Remember Blue Protocol? Yeah.

In that spirit, I thought for today's list I'd just give you a quick hit of the top 5 MMORPG/MMO projects that are still on deck that I'm looking forward to at this exact moment. Some of these may not open up to wide access in 2025, either. You can bet our "Most Anticipated" list will focus on games you can likely play to some degree in 2025.

Obviously I'm interested in more than just 5 games right now, but I thought I'd limit this to my top 5. My apologies to games like Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen and Dune: Awakening. I'm following you, I will play you, but you just missed my personal top 5 list at the moment.

In no particular order:

Soulframe

Digital Extremes, makers of Warframe, have been teasing Soulframe for a while. While this fantasy/earthen magic-based MMO will only have slight MMORPG features, you'll probably want to think about this one as kind of "Destiny 2" like. You likely won't see hundreds of players in areas, but you will see some.

The art isn't going to be for everyone, sure. Dark colors and shades of brown/gray may not always be the most interesting, but I'm still eager to see what the devs are cooking here. Currently, Soulframe is in "Preludes" testing which is really just alpha. You can test out some combat, crafting, puzzles, and more right now, but you had to be lucky enough to get a key. 2025 will see more invites going out to new testers and friend invites are going out to testers, too.

If you're interested, expect to be able to get in early next year for some 4-person max party size adventures.

Stars Reach

What can I say about Stars Reach that I haven't already said. We don't know a whole lot about the galaxy-exploring MMO, but what I've seen so far certainly has my interest piqued. Explore planets, terraform to your heart's content, master numerous jobs, or just build a place to call your own.

I'm loving everything Playable Worlds seems to be exploring/experimenting with here, but I'm still a bit more on the "cautios" side of things as hearing ambitious development plans is very different from seeing those development plans actually executed.

ArcheAge Chronicles

Color me surprised to actually be interested in this one at all. First, I'm not a sandbox MMO type of guy to begin with and second, the original ArcheAge was so full of issues (read: bad monetization) that I just didn't care about the game at all. When ArcheAge 2 was announced, I was uninterested in that, too.

So wait, a name change to the sequel got me? No, it's more than that. Granted, I'll give you that most of this is just hype-talk from the team right now as we've seen little and, with the MMO delayed... again... this time into 2026, it'll be a while before we see this. However, I am eager to see the team's new version of action combat, I love the visuals coming out of Unreal Engine 5, and I'm very interested in the defending of trade routes.

Sadly, we'll have to wait a bit.

Chrono Odyssey

Here's another one that got delayed a bit and is expected in Q4 of 2025. We've also got another one here that looks amazing in Unreal Engine 5. I am very intrigued by how an MMORPG can utilize time travel in a meaningful way.

Yes, we've had some games set an expansion or update in a past timeline, but I'm talking about using your "Chronotector" to manipulate time to your advantage. I'm also a sucker for a good story and the team keeps emphasizing the fact that their focus is on the story. Yeah, they got me...for now.

Path of Exile 2

Since most of my picks above are future releases, here's one that we'll get to play very soon. Not as soon as originally announced, but still soon. Early access has been moved back to early December for the APRG sequel from Grinding Gear Games, but we're still on track for 2024 at least.

I dabbled in the original PoE but often found myself a bit overwhelmed each time as more and more had been added to the game. While seasonal leagues attempted to mitigate that a bit, apparently I wasn't the only one in this boat. GGG is not only improving on the original in almost every way, but they're also directly addressing that overwhelming feeling and I can't wait to see how it works out.

P.S. Some of the bosses we've seen so far are amazing looking.

There's my current watch list. Are any of them on yours? What games not on the list are you keeping an eye on or are excited for? Let me know below!