Anime MMORPGs: Is the Sub-Genre Dead?

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I grew up watching Dragon Ball, Yu-Gi-Oh, Pokemon, Digimon, and Cardcaptors. They always played in the mornings before I went to school – and were part of my daily routine.
I’d watch the newest Dragon Ball Z episode, then set my VCR – yes, I’m really that old that my family used a VCR when I was a kid, to record whichever series came after Dragon Ball Z since I had to walk to school.
Ever since, I’ve been an avid fan of Anime. I don’t have nearly as much time to watch as I used to what with being an adult and everything that comes with that.
However, I still have time to sit down and play MMOs every day. Partly because that’s my job, and partly because that’s what I do in my spare time.

Anime MMORPGs have always held a very special place in my heart. The game that got me into the genre was Tales of Pirates, or Pirate King Online, depending on the region you played from.
It was a PvPvE MMO – it had a large, open world filled with tens of thousands of players, it had open-instanced dungeons where you weren’t required to party with other people to see one another in the dungeons, and dungeons were PvP-enabled.
This promoted a sense – no, a need for other players. You couldn’t just go in by yourself, because guilds would enter with groups of players.
Bosses were singular – there was one boss per floor of the dungeon, and the dungeon was finite. It ended after a certain amount of time regardless of whether you completed it or not.
So if you wanted the loot, you had to work together with other players to deal enough DPS to the bosses otherwise the entire endeavor would be pointless.

While I’ve enjoyed countless MMORPGs over the years since playing Tales of Pirates as a young teen, that was my introduction into the genre. To date, I’ve never played another game like it, and likely never will.
But that’s alright, the game died after several years due to the greed from IGG, the publisher behind it.
And that brings me to the ultimate purpose behind this video: I wanted to talk about the Anime MMORPG genre, but I didn’t want to do a “top 5” or “top 10 Anime MMOs” list. Instead, I just wanted to talk about Anime MMORPGs in general.

Despite what some people would have you believe, the Anime MMORPG genre is still far from dying. Yes, it has definitely stagnated.
Anime MMOs used to release almost every single year, with games like FlyFF, Fiesta, Mabinogi, Elsword, Dragon Nest, Eden Eternal, MapleStory, Grand Fantasia, Rose Online, Dungeon Fighter Online and many more being very prevalent titles in the genre.
The mid 2000s to early 2010s was the age of the Anime MMO. There were millions of players split amongst a seemingly endless surplus of titles and I believe that’s part of the reason most of them died.
Developers were so content with pushing out the same kind of Anime MMO with little to no innovation that people ultimately ended up growing bored and moving on.
Even much more updated, recent games like Aura Kingdom or Twin Saga followed the same formula, and they died as rapidly as they appeared.
Yet even despite the repeated failure of every title, fans of the sub-genre continue to wait for that special something that will really captivate them.
Although this isn’t exclusive to the Anime sub-genre, it is definitely the general state we’re in right now.

Especially after Nexon cancelled Peria Chronicles. That is a blow that fans are still feeling to this day. Peria Chronicles was something players were highly anticipating for years.
It was a large sandbox Anime MMORPG that offered players creative freedom with a graphical style better than anything out right now.
I was ecstatic when I learned they were already performing beta tests for the game because that was proof they’d made solid progress, but shortly after, they announced the game was closing down and ceasing any further development.
But this was Nexon after all, so it comes with the territory.

Even after Peria Chronicles’ closure, we remained hopeful. And that was rewarded when Bandai Namco announced they were creating Blue Protocol, a complete open-world Anime inspired MMORPG but made with present-generation gamers in mind.
So this game would cater to the current gamer as opposed to trying to stick to a prehistoric formula that doesn’t belong in this day or age.
But that isn’t the only title. We have smaller-scale multiplayer or semi-MMOs like GRAN SAGA, Genshin Impact, TemTem and Project BBQ all coming in the near future as well.
Okay, actually, Project BBQ is being developed with Nexon as a publisher I believe? So that might end up turning out… well, history speaks for itself. But Blue Protocol, GRAN SAGA, Genshin Impact and TemTem all look highly promising.
And those are just a few on the horizon. If they’re well received, we can expect those games to be the foundation of a brand new style of Anime MMO. And I feel as though we need it right now.
The old formula that once worked is long-since passed being an acceptable state to release a game in.

But even though these games look promising, there are still certain things we need from them. Certain.. requirements, expectations that I believe need to be met if we’re going to move into 2020 and beyond and have a healthy Anime scene.
Instead of being cookie-cutter MMOs that feature linear progression, we need to realize that they need to have a good narrative to push the story along. Or, heck, they need an actual story that we can connect and relate to.
All of these games look to feature action combat as opposed to the tried-and-tested traditional tab-target so I feel as though that’s a step in the right direction.
We need group content. Difficult content that pushes us to seek out and play with other players as opposed to soloing everything ourselves. We’re so disconnected from one another in Anime MMOs and this needs to be remedied.
And most importantly, we need to have less of a focus on the endgame and a larger focus on getting there.

I have high hopes for Anime MMOs releasing in the future. Maybe these games will be great, maybe they’ll fall victim to the same issues we’ve seen time and time again.
Nevertheless, I believe that eventually, we’ll get something to breathe new life into and revitalize the genre. I’m a fan of it and nothing will stop me from enjoying myself in it until I no longer can.

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