During its peak, World of Warcraft exploded into the mainstream. It ultimately became more than just a game. It also showed that people enjoyed playing in persistent online worlds with friends. Game nights stopped becoming about gathering around a TV with friends; it was about talking to others through your headset.
With the advancement of technology, these types of persistent online worlds starting becoming more and more common. While the Diablo franchise has been around for years, the popularity of the dungeon crawler arguably didn’t hit the big time until the release of Borderlands. From there, it started to become clear: people want to play with others.
Enter the next console generation. Enter the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. What’s a common theme between the two? Persistent online worlds, some that even blur the line between online multiplayer and MMO.
Destiny is as close to an MMO as you can get without flat-out calling it one. Watch Dogs features the ability to drop in and out of online multiplayer seamlessly. Titanfall is a multiplayer online game. Everybody seems to be pushing for this online multiplayer-centric world of gaming, with every genre seemingly adapting towards this focus.
Does this mean one day we’ll have an MMO that doesn’t play like a typical, grindy, job-like affair? Man, I sure do hope so. One that is without subscription fees, too. Could Destiny be that game? It’s possible. I’m not sure, though. I’ve only played the alpha even though I’ve had beta access for a few days. That makes me a bad person, but then again, you already knew I was a bad person.
Feel free to call Jake out for being a bad person on Twitter. You can follow him @hop3less.
