IDK if those equate to an MMO resurgence. WoW Forever is just milking an old cow, and Runeterra is vaporware, as is RS4. MMO talk is cheap. Shipping something original and not half-baked trash is rare.

I do think Riot is in a good position to develop an MMO though, and maybe GW3 will deliver something as well, but the genre is on life support IMHO.

I'd say as a watcher of the genre, some of the major developers are going through a simultaneous point of reflection after seeing some throwback games (that they were dragged into releasing) garner so much audience without cannibalizing their other game. They've realized they may have been leaving customers who want their style of fantasy at the door; that the capacity of people who want their style of fantasy is much greater than the capacity of people that want a single style of MMO game design.

I hesitate to fully confirm it a resurgence as if it's going to be an indicator of a trend in greater pop culture. The genre before was just kind of excessively strangling itself of potential sales that were there due to the high capital costs for new entrants and the major developers previously not wanting to field anything else but one major game.

I think the success of expanded offshoots (OSRS, TurtleWow, Ascension, etc.) showed there is plenty of demand for games that add new features to older, slower, and more sociable games. many features in wow forever are lifted directly from some of these offshoots. blizzard leaning into things like sd models, no flying mounts shows this is beyond just nostalgia bait (something wow classic has been poked for) and indicates that these older iterations that had less streamlined experiences can still have a lot of juice if brought in new directions.

My two theories:

1. The original player base of these games is starting to hit retirement

2. AI has made it more profitable to develop a reasonable pace of content for these games

Were the frick where you the last 10+ years? shareholders want biggest return on lowest risk and remakes are a safer roi as you have decade long real life data that they worked once so they will work twice.

SaaS is dead and other AI doomerism, might as well play games. Nobody knows so might as well guess.

Recession indicator?

'Claude, what product should we push to maximize monthly recurring revenue while minimizing overall labor and maintenance costs? Ideally we'd also like to be able to bump revenue with DLC and other premium content without imperiling the recurring revenue stream.'

Guild Wars 3 is another very big announcement from one of the titans of the MMO industry.