Upcoming mmorpg games >Blade & Soul >Bless >Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms >Monster Hunter Online >WildStar >Titan

2. Several recent MMOs have
made bold claims about
action-based combat, but
few take that term so
seriously as Blade & Soul,
which has already been out
for a while in South Korea.
Much like TERA, it places a
heavy emphasis on battling
gigantic, hulking monsters,
but it distinguishes itself by
requiring complicated
combos in the vein of
Bayonetta or God of War to
achieve the most
effectiveness.
This could be big. Even after
attempts at including
dynamic events, rich stories,
and interactive player
housing, the genre's core
combat tends to be on the
bland side, especially when
compared to games
designed for a gamepad.
Too bad the port has been
in development hell for
years.

3. We know graphics aren't
everything, but damn,
Bless is beautiful. You
thought TERA looked
nice? TERA looks like
alpha footage compared
to Bless. Alas, all the
development team's
attention seems focused
on delivering such a
massive helping of
beauty, as the gameplay
itself looks heartbreakingly
dull.
That's something of a
surprise, since titles like
Age of Wushu and
ArcheAge suggest that
South Korea (of all places,
considering their
reputation for grinds) is
one of the only countries
that's at least attempting
to inject some fresh ideas
into the genre

4. We know, we know--
sometimes it seems like
we should all just give up
hope of ever playing a
good game set in the
Game of Thrones
universe. But Game of
Thrones sounds like it
could be fun in a War of
the Roses (the game, that
is) kind of way,
particularly considering its
focus on sandbox PvP,
castle sieges, and a
political system.
Unfortunately, the details
are better kept secrets
than the truth about
Joffrey Baratheon's
parentage, although we
do know that weapons
like the two-handed
sword has as many as 20
different skills and 60
abilities. Considering that
this, too, is a browser
game, we may be
witnessing a trend toward
the legitimization of the
platform for the genre.

5. Chinese developer
Tencent is working with
Capcom to bring the
world of Monster Hunter
to the MMO arena once
again. Monster Hunter
Online, as it's tastefully
called, is a free-to-play
game running on the
beautiful Cry Engine 3,
making for one of the
best-looking online games
currently in development.
That's the good news.
The bad news is that we
still don't know if it's going
to make it out of China.
So far Capcom/Tencent
aren't talking about a
worldwide release, but
we'd be shocked if this
money-making franchise
isn't spread to other
territories if it proves
profitable (and, since it's
Monster Hunter, it's going
to be profitable).

6. We recently had a chance
to experience a few hours
with Wildstar, and we liked
what we saw. Playing it
feels at once familiar and
refreshing, as it combines
several standard ideas with
some attractive attempts at
innovation. Among these is
the path system, which lets
you spend a good chunk of
your time climbing
mountains and exploring
underground passageways.
Still others include an
uncommon focus on single-
player content at the level
cap and the ability to
create your own PvP
battlefields through Wild
Star’s version of player
housing. All that aside,
though, it's good to see a
MMO that brings a Pixar-
esque lightheartedness to
its cartoony visuals, rather
than using them to relate
oh-so-serious narratives.

7. Can Blizzard pull off
another success like
World of Warcraft? It'll be
tough. So tough, in fact,
that reports are in that
Blizzard killed Titan in its
near-finished state and
started over fairly
recently. Apparently it
wasn't ready to reinvent
the wheel.
So, what do we know? A
few things. It'll have a
casual focus and feature
some form of in-game
advertising, it'll have a sci-
fi setting, and it'll be a
new IP separate from
Warcraft, Starcraft, and
Diablo. If some leaked
concept art reflects
reality, it'll look somewhat
like Wild Star. We're
probably not going to see
it this year, but with
BlizzCon back on
schedule, we're hoping
we'll at least get an
official announcement in
Anaheim this November.