It's The End of the Year As We Know It

Long-time visitors to MMOBomb might recall my yearly tradition of producing articles around this time of year that looked back on the gaming industry from the previous year or forward to the next. That won’t be happening this year, chiefly because I’m not as “plugged in” as I was when I was handling news and podcasts on a regular basis and had a better idea of everything that was going down in the gaming world. Maybe next year, once I get back into the swing of things.

I did want to push out one more piece before the end of 2025, however, so rather than look at the industry as a whole, I thought I’d look at my personal free-to-play gaming experience and see if there’s anything interesting I can gleam from the year gone by. Don’t worry, this won’t be just idle navel-gazing; I’ll come up with something that will be worth reading even if you aren’t me. Which I sure hope you aren’t, or else this is going to be really weird.

I scoured my list of free-to-play games that I played in 2025 and came up with eight, which fell into two distinct categories. Here’s when those eight launched:

2004
2007
2012
2016

2024
2024
2025
2025

That’s four games in the realm of one to two decades old and four that released this year or the last. It’s quite the divide!

The four older games are all titles that launched as paid games: the first two with monthly subscriptions (City of Heroes and The Lord of the Rings Online) and the other two without (Guild Wars 2 and Overwatch 2). That’s largely how it went in the first half (so far) of this century, and how they were when I started playing them.

The other four games are Marvel Rivals, Zenless Zone Zero, Umamusume: Pretty Derby, and Where Winds Meet. All of those were free-to-play from the start.

The difference is notable, and not just in the graphics. The latter group were all made by Asian developers and three of them are on mobile devices.

That last fact probably helps explain why they’re overloaded with dopamine hits, notifications of achievements for doing virtually anything. Killed 10 monsters? Achievement. Entered a new zone? Achievement. Crafted an item? Achievement. Click over here to get your reward! Earned three achievements today? Guess what? Achievement! And so the cycle continues. Engagement is king, and nothing engages you more than constantly giving you rewards, right?

I like a good reward as much as the next guy, but at some point it gets a little overwhelming. Where Winds Meet was especially the butt of my jokes when I streamed it, as every couple of minutes my attention was pulled away from the game to claim my rewards, most of which I had no idea what they were for.

That was my early experience in Zenless Zone Zero as well, and I did eventually learn what most of those currencies did, so more time in Where Winds Meet will probably help. It’s clear that developers want to give you plenty of loot so you feel good about yourself and want to keep playing, especially in a game’s early stages, but for some of us, thinking about where all that loot is coming from and what you’re supposed to do with it induces more stress than it does joy.

This isn’t to say that the older games I mentioned don’t have pop-ups to reward you as well; they certainly do. But I feel like I can actually play them for a length of time before getting one of those GW2 bouncy chests or seeing I’ve earned a loot box in Overwatch, and they generally aren’t nested achievements-within-achievements-within-achievements. There’s a sense of restraint in those titles, perhaps because of their age and how intrusive older players would find the constant notifications.

The thing is: If they’re intrusive in those games, they’re intrusive in all games.

Personally, I play that Where Winds Meet less because, as calming as it can be when you’re enjoying a splendid vista in medieval China, it’s irritating to feel like I need to pull myself away from that to claim my latest shiny. That vibe works better for me in a fast-paced game like ZZZ or Umamusume, but I think it should have been toned down a bit for Where Winds Meet.

But this isn’t meant to be a downer post to end your year. I actually enjoy playing those games, new and old, despite whatever gripes I have with them. As I often say to people who think the next big shiny MMORPG will be the perfect one that solves every issue they’ve ever had with the genre, go ahead and wait for that. I’ll be playing games that are already here, and you will be too after you’ve been disappointed for the 826^th time.

We live in imperfect times. That statement obviously can be applied to things far more important than video games and other forms of entertainment, but that’s not what we cover here. In that field, I can only offer the answer that I always give whenever someone asks me what game I’m looking forward to: nothing.

No, that doesn’t mean the gaming industry is dying, or that there’s nothing I want at all – I have a Steam wishlist, after all. But I’m not not pinning all my hopes and dreams on games with nebulous release dates or non-existent developer updates. When something comes out, it’ll come out, and I’ll (hopefully) be happy. Until that time, however, I’m content with the games I play, and the ones I have yet to play – I have a Steam backlog, too.

If you’re looking for a New Year’s Resolution, that can be it: Enjoy what you’ve got, gaming-wise at least, and don’t pine for a future that may never come. Maybe your jam can be a game that came out this year or the last, or maybe it came out two decades ago. So many games being free-to-play now make it easier than ever to get into older titles. Try something new (to you) and look forward to new gaming experiences to come, but also don’t oversell yourself on something that may never arrive, at least not in the form that you want it.

And don’t preorder or heavily invest in broken alphas. Obviously.