I’ve really enjoyed my time in Fate of Gundabad, and while it’ll be interesting to see how the story of the Dwarves progresses from here, the journey has been worth it overall. The Dwarves are an interesting race in Middle-earth, often overlooked in favor for Men or Elves, so seeing them get their due after years of fast tracking the War of the Ring story has been a nice change of pace. The Lord of the Rings Online: Fate of Gundabad reminds me of LotRO of old, and that’s a good thing. I can’t wait to see where they take us next.

Overall, the expansion is good. The graphics still hold up, combat is fun, and the new zones are interesting to explore. The developers did a great job with the story, and while the ending was a bit of a letdown it leaves enough open story threads for hopefully something interesting in a future patch. Everquest 2 Visions of Vetrovia kept me engaged and rekindled my interest in EQ 2 to the point where I have started a new Monk and am already level 50.

Zenith: The Last City, by RamenVR, has been a hard game to rate. It is an excellent VR experience that shows what the future of a fully realized VR MMORPG could look like, and Zenith could be that MMORPG with time. The game can be a grind, especially when soloing. But the combat, group activities, and box price all are on target. Features like climbing and gliding make for a uniquely VR experience. But lack of content and the existing bugs are currently holding it back from being a must-own VR title.

Mortal Online 2 is not a complete game. This feels like an early access title in disguise, just waiting to start charging its players a $15 monthly subscription fee in order to keep development on track. The fact that its first two and a half weeks after launch was unplayable by the majority of the playerbase is the most telling of all, but in tandem with too many missing systems and features it’s not hard to think of it as an unfinished product. Thankfully, at least for now, the subscription charges are postponed until the server issue is completely resolved. But even for $39.99, I would not recommend Mortal Online 2 to anyone unless you are absolutely dying for a full loot open PvP MMORPG to play. And dying you will get – a lot.

So, is Noah’s Heart fun? Well, it can be. Is it good? If you like Genshin Impact, don’t mind monetization, don’t listen to the voice acting, and don’t care about not being able to read the story text…it might be. In general though? If you don’t mind mobile ports I’d give it another few months for fixes before I’d make another attempt at it. The current state is only half-baked at best when it comes to PC play, and if you are a primary PC player, I wouldn’t recommend it at all. Noah’s Heart may be available on PC, but it’s really just another mobile game made to fit a bigger screen while it blindly gropes for your wallet.

Chimeraland by Pixel Soft is an unpolished experience with minor bugs, but it is still weirdly fun. Player races and various creatures are some of the oddest things I have seen in any MMO. The layout of the UI for PC is not intuitive compared to mobile, and there are localization issues. Players may be turned away by some of the graphics and the initial learning curve. But if you can get by these issues, there is a lot of game here for players who enjoy exploration, survival building mechanics, and pet collection/evolution. While many of Chimeraland’s systems at a base level can feel familiar, it is a unique experience.

As a casual gamer, I can jump in at any point during a war, grab some gear, and head straight to the front lines to join up with a group of players. After a couple of hours, I can switch to a Logi role, run supplies for a while, and then jump back off again. I can jump back in the next day or the following week and do it all over again. All the while, hardcore players will happily be trudging along, gaining or losing ground. They won’t even notice my absence but will have no problem filtering me into their plans whenever I’m around. Sure, the hardcore players will most likely be part of a regiment and have more access to armored vehicles and other powerful weapons, but casual players can always find a place in the overall scheme of things. Grunts still make up the bulk of any real-world army, after all.

The content of Wrath Classic is still great and has held up over time really well. However, the many issues and bugs of the launch have dulled the experience, particularly for players on very high-population servers or players who were hoping to join friends already on high-population servers. I’m hopeful that as we move through phase one and into phase two Blizzard will continue to polish things up and get everything righted. However, their history of solid Classic launches has been a bit tarnished with this one.

I really wanted to enjoy Dual Universe, and at first I was. I truly did enjoy the grind early on, until I realized that, for the most part, the grind was all there was. The ambitious systems that define Dual Universe also doom it, and as a result there just isn’t much to do aside from harvest, sell and rinse and repeat, even if you add layer and layer of industrial complexity to the loop. While player ingenuity and artistry will make some of these systems more and more interesting, especially with LUA scripting and more, for me, it just doesn’t make for a compelling experience I can recommend.

Embers Adrift has a lot of fantastic ideas, but I just don’t feel that it is quite there yet. I do genuinely hope that the Embers Adrift team continues to make improvements and listen to their passionate community, because they will be critical in those days ahead as they start to iron out improvements and optimization issues. Maybe one day in the future I will return to Embers Adrift, but for now, I would just honestly rather play anything else.

Combat on its own just doesn’t feel satisfying enough to hold my attention-I’d kind of rather hop back onto Planetside 2 or Chivalry 2 for that. But, the combat combined with all of the features I mentioned earlier really come together to create something special-it still just needs a lot of work and polish. I especially love the concept of taking a large faction-based map and adding mmorpg elements to it, so I will absolutely be keeping my eyes on Gloria Victis over the next few months. If the developers keep making steady improvements like they are now, I’ll more than likely keep dipping my toes in every now and again to scratch that PvP itch.

The Age of Wonders IV: Dragon Dawn content patch feels like a natural addition to the game. The developers at Triumph Studios have done a great job implementing it. It adds an extra ruler type for players to explore and a dragon thematic line of spell tomes. If included in the base game, it would have easily bumped my original review score by 0.5 or even a 1.0. As a stand-alone content pack for $9.99, a few more minor additions to the new features would have gone a long way in fleshing it out. It's a good value, but not a great one.

While I still think Total War: Warhammer III: Shadows of Change is a good DLC, it could have been a great one with a few more unique mechanics. If you enjoy all three factions or really like how The Changeling gameplay sounds, it may be worth picking up sooner rather than later.

In many ways, this feels like the version of New World that Amazon really wanted to launch. It’s not perfect, and many times bugs and issues can leave it feeling a bit messy. But it’s a great MMORPG, and now is the perfect time to hop in if you’ve been on the fence.

The early access version of The Wagadu Chronicles has a unique setting, great accessibility, and a fantastic soundtrack. Unfortunately, these features does not make an exceptional game. There’s a basic framework here that needs a lot of refinement, and some direction on a core game loop. I feel like a vast majority of Wagadu is built with the premise of societal interactions, and I fear that will be a tremendous gamble from an untested niche. [Early Access Provisional Score = 30]

At $29.99, Palworld is one of the best gaming investments you can make right now, especially with the current state of AAA. It’s far from a perfect experience, but Pocketpair has already hit the ball out of the park with much of what the game has. [Early Access Score = 80]

Honestly, it feels like Enshrouded took the best aspects of multiple games in the genre and packaged them all in one place. The survival-lite aspects of Valheim are here - and even more streamlined thanks to how easy it is to repair your items (you just interact with a workbench and voila - you’re repaired), while it also has the incredible traversal and world that just begs to be explored. [Early Access Review]

Overall, Nightingale is an engaging survival game and one that feels like you can have low commitment to in order to have fun. It’s easy to pick up and put down, and has some solid foundations. Even in its early stages, Nightingale has a lot to offer players, even if it is very clearly in Early Access. I’m eager to see what the game will be further down the line when some of these issues are ironed out, and what the core narrative of the game will eventually turn out to be. For now, I’m content logging into Nightingale for a few hours every few days just to hang out with friends and explore the vast wealth of Realms the game has to offer. [Early Access Provisional Score = 70]

Although both are turn-based strategy games, Chaos Gate is also quite a bit different from Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader. Unlike Rogue Trader, you aren’t walking around your ship or the planets in Chaos Gate. So if you want lets exploration or RPG aspects and more action then Chaos Gate is likely the better fit.

AFK Journey is a great idle-strategy game with a lot of game modes, a beautiful canvas art style, and an engaging way to interact with the community through cooperative battles. Despite allowing you to select from a small pool of characters you want for when you roll for new characters, the monetization is still incredibly predatory, and nearly every game mode is completely pay to win. Knowing this, there’s still a lot here to love whether you’re playing on PC or Mobile, as this is one of, if not the best idle strategy RPG to hit the scene in a long time.

In its current state, Manor Lords just doesn’t have the staying power needed to put it into the same category as a Palworld or Valheim - at least not yet. There are just too many unfinished components to keep people playing for weeks. The development, policy, and production trees are full of skills that are still a work in progress. Combat is entertaining at best, full of small skirmishes and little control over your units (and that may never change), and although the economy model shows potential, there just aren’t enough production lines or tiers to keep you occupied beyond a few in-game years. [Early Access Review Score = 75]

All of the positives are groundwork for what could be a really exciting game. Its core gameplay has proven to be more than satisfactory and deliciously engaging — even if using slower builds feels like throwing yourself against a brick wall. But there’s still enjoyment in that. Overall, it’s a fantastic package comprised of gorgeous environments, room for experimentation in terms of character build and an interesting narrative. It will be interesting to see where No Rest for the Wicked ends up, even a week, month, or years from now. [Early Access Score = 70]

Despite my concerns when Blizzard announced they would go forward with Cataclysm Classic, this has turned out to be a much better experience than I remembered. Yes, I have seen many people step away again, but many have stayed. I hope this enjoyment keeps up through the other phases as well, but for now, Cataclysm Classic has been a real win for me. Additionally, there have been a ton of updates with streamlining leveling and speeding it up, so this is also a great time to jump in if you have been out of Classic for a while or haven’t given it a try yet.

Right now, Pax Dei is selling a promise, and it's one you have to decide if it's worth trusting with your hard-earned money. Because I do think the bones are good enough to at least give it a look when you're ready to do so. [Early Access Provisional Score = 70]

For now, I’d recommend it for PvE fans who aren’t too fussed about story-driven content and for new MMORPG fans who’d like a free game to sink a few hours into. It’s not ground-breaking by any means, but it was quite fun and offered a good alternative to my usual games.

Sword Art Online: Fractured Daydream delivers a great deal for the franchise, offering an engaging story and the chance to team up with beloved characters. While I believe it stands as the best Sword Art Online game to date, elevating the series to new heights, its repetitive gameplay and lack of content variety may hinder its long-term appeal. While its nostalgic charm shines, whether this can sustain players' interest long-term remains uncertain. Still, I'm optimistic that future installments will build on the strengths Fractured Daydream has introduced.

If you’re a survival game fan who’s willing to look past some bumps, IfSunSets might be worth your time. It’s not quite there yet, but it could grow into something exceptional, especially with improvements to the multiplayer mode. There weren’t any elements that stood out as particularly unique, but I did have fun playing it and I’m looking forward to the full version. [Early Access Provisional Score = 65]

Brighter Shores has the potential to be even more unique and enjoyable as an MMO, thanks to the development getting new and exciting features like combat abilities, trading systems, and episodes. It is likely that the success of it would depend on retaining the community’s unique identity while responding to feedback about divisive features. For the time being, it acts as an intriguing experiment in MMO design that breaks modern conventions in favor of a more classical and steady method of exploring virtual worlds and building up characters. [Early Access Provisional Score = 80]