Once amongst the most popular of all gaming genres, MMORPGs have since started to slow and decline somewhat despite still hosting some of the biggest games in the world like World of Warcraft and Guild Wars 2 – much if the change has come because of the launch of esports and the biggest titles that bring a broadcasting experience to the viewers, but also with the successes found in other markets such as mobile gaming as some of the favourites like slot games for Canadian players have been finding a huge home here – but there are still those looking to breathe hope into the slowing MMO market, with the biggest name being with Ashes of Creation right now, but can it really do enough to change the MMO genre as a whole?

Little currently has been seen about the game as it’s still very heavily in its development period, but with a few alpha tests later this year including a non-NDA alpha test during June, it may not be all that long before fans anticipating more information will find their fill – the game has promised to deliver big by bringing some of the most anticipated and widely used features from many different games throughout the years, but will the game change the MMO genre as a whole, or will it be more of the same?

That’s certainly where there is concern for many fans, there have been many big titles in the past that have promised to overdeliver on features but have fallen short, and it has been difficult in the past to unseat the biggest titles like World of Warcraft as they have become so well established and so synonymous with the genre itself, any deviation away from the popular known approach has its troubles too. Other similar titles that are yet to release certainly suffered from these high expectations that had fallen a little with titles like Amazon’s on New World, which is set to release later this year, as where the preview was well received there had been a little push back on all that was missing too.

We’ll know for sure soon enough just how Ashes will measure up against the biggest competition, but given there’s still no estimated release date it could come just too late – the biggest MMO’s are shrinking year on year as even the biggest names are struggling to hold their audience, and many are starting to feel tired and dated after remaining the same for a decade – if there’s too long a delay on the release, it may not matter if it’s being labelled as the ‘WoW Killer’ as the longer development cycle that started back in 2016 may mean fewer opportunities moving forward too.