5 Upcoming Anime MMORPGs You Absolutely NEED To Play In 2020 And Beyond!

2020 is turning out to be an incredibly solid year for Anime MMORPGs. We’ve had multiple Anime MMO announcements and confirmations that have everyone probably more excited than they have been in recent memory.
The last time we were excited about anything Anime related was when we thought KurtzPel was gonna be an MMO, and those hopes were crushed almost as fast as the the content was consumed.
So I thought it’d be a good idea to do a video listing the Anime MMOs slated for release in 2020 and beyond – a follow-up to my last video back in January 2018 that garnered over 700,000 views.

Blue Protocol is a beautiful, incredibly high quality AAA Japanese MMORPG being developed by Bandai Namco. It could potentially be the the biggest Anime MMO ever. No joke. For their Alpha test, they had over 5 million people register.
That was 8 months ago. The game has since exploded in popularity, and it’s likely there will be millions more interested in the Closed Beta.
The game utilizes a beautiful cel-shaded graphical style, and offers players large, but segregated zones to explore. These zones are not in any way instanced from other players, meaning you’re capable of not only seeing, but also partying and engaging in content with hundreds of other people.
The world functions like Final Fantasy XIV or Blade & Soul. Combat is free-aim action, meaning there is no tab-targeting. However, there is the ability to enable a lock-on function, which is primarily utilized by the Mage and Archer if I recall correctly.
This is toggleable, and is not at all required, but it seems to make general combat easier, while hitting critical hits and weak points is easier when you have the freedom to aim on your own.
There’s a pretty good character creation system available, with a lot of customization provided, however, I have yet to see the kind of in-game customization options like outfits or even gear variance.
PvP will be present in the form of instanced arenas, with no open-world PvP planned.
The game is still in development in Japan right now, with the first official Closed Beta being held in March 2020. Bandai Namco have stated that they’re looking to release the game this year in Japan, and it will likely have no IP blocks in place preventing us Westerner’s from playing it.
While the English localized version is unlikely this year, the devs are definitely hinting at looking to release it as soon as its Japanese version is complete. The game is also expected to be free-to-play.

Phantasy Star Online 2 just finished its very first closed beta on the Xbox One. There were some hiccups along the way, but ultimately it went over pretty well.
Some people thought that the game was too old to garner interest, yet there were so many people logging in that it completely overloaded the server, and that was just for the Xbox.. I couldn’t imagine if they’d released on PS4 and PC as well.
While the game definitely can look a little dated, especially when comparing it to a game like Blue Protocol, it still has a certain amount of charm to it. Like the aforementioned game, it’s also a AAA Japanese MMORPG, but developed by Sega.
Phantasy Star Online 2 is one of the largest MMOs in Japan, and looks like it’s going to be quite the success when it launches later this year.
The game world is.. semi-instanced. While it functions much like any other hub-based MMO, such as Vindictus, Soul Worker or Neverwinter, where in those titles you’re limited to a few players per party, and cannot see players outside of your party in the field, in PSO2 you can.
See, there are various multi-play areas that allow several groups of people to seamlessly occupy concurrently. This means that you can at times, while out questing, see random other players participating in the same content.
The combat is pure action combat – there is no tab-targeting, however there is a toggleable lock-on feature. Again, this can be utilized by ranged classes, and provides an easier way of engaging enemies.
Interestingly, you have several different weapon slots that you can swap between while out on missions, allowing for players to fill various different roles at any given time.
There’s a fair amount of customization available in terms of character creation, and that’s surprising, considering when the game was released. If the English version retains the outfits from the Japanese version.. the outfits selection, and subsequently the customization overall is going to be incredible.
There’s PvP in the form of the Battle Arena, but no open-world, or instanced-world PvP.
PSO2 is expected to undergo an Open Beta test in the near future, with the game launching onto the Xbox One in Spring this year. The game has both a PC and a PS4 launch scheduled, with the PC launch rolling out later this year. The game will be completely free-to-play.

Not much is currently known about Gran Saga. It was announced recently by NPIXEL, a South Korean developer who’s experience was in the form of a single mobile game.. albeit that mobile game was highly successful, but you wouldn’t expect their next project to be an MMORPG.
Yet here we are, with NPIXEL developing Gran Saga – a cross-platform MMORPG targeting both mobile and PC devices. This is one of the first MMOs I’ve seen being developed with both platforms in mind, and it’s going to be very interesting seeing where this ultimately ends up leading the market.
Graphically, the game is about what you’d expect from South Korea: It’s very detailed and incredibly flashy.
From what we’ve been told, the game world is expected to be completely open-world. We can see, in the single trailer they’ve released up ’til this point, large, very open areas to explore. However we also see a world map, akin to what you’d find in old Final Fantasy or Tales of JRPGs.
Combat is pure action combat – at least from what the trailer showcased. Since the game is going to be cross-platform compatible with both PCs and Mobile devices, the complexity of the action is likely going to be much more limiting than other games like Blue Protocol or Project BBQ.
Likewise, there will probably be a limited amount of skills bindable to your action bar due to the limitations of mobile devices.
There has been no word on character customization right now, whether or not you’re capable of heavily altering your character, or if it’s something much more basic like hair colors and styles. But being as this is South Korea.. a lack of customization would be unlikely.
It’s unconfirmed if there will be any form of PvP – but it’s unlikely to have open-world PvP judging by the kind of game it is.
Gran Saga is expected to launch a beta test of some kind this year. It’s likely we’ll be able to sign up as we get closer to the release date – even as Westerner’s, but the beta, which is likely going to be a Closed Beta will probably be IP locked.
Like both the previous games, Gran Saga has a very high possibility of being free-to-play.

DokeV is an interesting title. It’s being developed by Pearl Abyss, and is completely different to anything they’ve ever created. But I’m excited – because it’s taking the known Pokemon formula, and adapting it in a way that makes it much more of an open-RPG than Pokemon games usually are.
Little has been revealed other than a single trailer thus far, and thus we’re left mostly speculating.
We haven’t even seen what the game’s going to look like properly in-game with a full gameplay trailer, but nevertheless.. we’re left to assume the graphics won’t be all that different to what’s displayed in the trailer. ’cause why would they be?
When the game was announced, 3 other games were as well, and have all been said to have the same graphics as is present in their trailers, so I believe it’s safe to assume we’ll end up with something similar to what we’re seeing.
According to the official DokeV website, the game is going to be a complete open-world MMO filled with story and monsters to collect.
While the exact combat style is unconfirmed as of this moment, what we can see is that we, the player specifically, do not engage in combat in any capacity. Instead, we send off our monster-slaves to fight in our stead.
Since information is limited, it hasn’t been confirmed how extensive the character creation will be, but considering this is Pearl Abyss.. and judging from the variety in the trailer, it’s probably going to be pretty damn good.
There is no info on PvP right now, but if there is PvP in-game it’ll likely take the form of instanced Pokemon-esque battles.
While there’s no confirmed release date, DokeV is aiming to enter open beta registration this year. The game is expected to be free-to-play and will be available on both PC and Consoles.

Finally, there’s Project BBQ. I use footage from the Project BBQ trailer every now and then because the combat just looks so damn good. But then.. we only have that one, single trailer. And it’s been a year since Nexon revealed any information on the game.
Yes, Project BBQ is an upcoming MMORPG from Neople and Nexon, the devs behind Dungeon Fighter Online. Actually, the two games share the same world and are connected through various means.
Not much in the way of information has been revealed concerning the game thus far, but from what they stated, the game is supposed to feature a “seamless world” filled with large, open fields to explore along with instanced dungeons.
Graphically, the game is gorgeous. Interestingly, the only content we see seems a little linear, and the zones seem void of any other players but I’m assuming that’s just to show the areas off.
The combat looks like it could give Blue Protocol a run for its money in terms of action combat. You’ll have various different skills and combos to utilize in succession, and will have the ability to dodge and parry, much like Dungeon Fighter Online.
There has been no word at all regarding character creation, or character customization in any form thus far. I don’t believe Dungeon Fighter Online provided much, if any at all in the way of customization so it’ll be interesting to see what Project BBQ offers.
PvP isn’t confirmed right now, but will likely feature instanced arena fights like its predecessor.
The one thing stopping me from being truly excited with Project BBQ is the fact that the game has no release date scheduled, and the Alpha and Beta tests have been repeatedly delayed.
With all of the issues Nexon have been facing lately, it’s not safe to say that the game will be available in some state this year, but then we’re talking about both this and next year, and I believe Nexon aren’t dumb enough to wait yet another year to enter Alpha or Beta testing.
The game is, however, expected to be free-to-play, like all of their games.

And that’s pretty much what we have to look forward to right now. At least in terms of Anime MMOs. I was going to list Genshin Impact and Temtem, but unfortunately Genshin Impact is confirmed to be a multiplayer RPG as opposed to an MMO, and Temtem is already available via Steam.
It’s exciting right now to be a fan of the Anime genre. We have plenty of solid looking titles to hold our attention on the horizon. This might mark the return of popular Anime games, so it’ll definitely be interesting to see where the market goes over the course of the next couple years.