6 As both an MMO player and journalist, I am absolutely crushed whenever an up-and-coming project gets tanked before it even launches. The thought of how that title might’ve done if given a true release and support haunts me, especially for some of the more promising MMORPGs. Today I want to skip around the timeline and look at 10 MMORPGs that never made it to release but could have done very, very well if they had. If you’re all about torturing your psyche with “what if” scenarios, this list is for you! ZeniMax’s Blackbird Described as “a blend of Destiny, Blade Runner, and Horizon Zero Dawn,” Zenimax’s Blackbird sounded amazing and could’ve been a serious contender for a major AAA release… had Microsoft not canned the project and its developers earlier this year despite rave reviews from testers, developers, and even Microsoft CEO Phil Spencer. One tester remarked, “This is one of the cancelled games that, by literally every account, sounded like it would’ve been a slam dunk in literally every sense.” But now it’s gone, that sucks, and we move on. That will be the refrain for the rest of the titles on this list. 38 Studios’ Project Copernicus Put together by a so-called “Dream Team” of veteran MMO devs and given an unholy amount of money to make, Project Copernicus was poised to come out swinging at the top of the industry. It even got a published single-player prologue RPG in 2012 called Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning, and Copernicus came within months of release before a public financial scandal brought down the studio — and the MMO with it. Origin Studios’ Ultima X Odyssey The second of two abandoned Ultima Online sequels, Ultima X Odyssey had greater potential with colorful stylized art, a morality system that emphasized real roleplaying, and the development backing of Origin Systems. It was even meant to be a part of the mainline Ultima series with branching quest paths and virtues that you would develop over the course of y our journey. The project was canned by the end of 2004, around the same time that World of Warcraft released, thanks to EA forcibly relocating the studio and losing most of the dev team. Interplay’s Fallout Online Younger Fallout players these days may not even know that their favorite franchise began under Interplay, which created the first two titles, fashioned a spin-off, and worked on an online version of the game even after Bethesda acquired the rights to the series. Fallout Online underwent some development in the late 2000s under the code-name V13 with the hopes of getting it out the door before a legal rights window closed. Ultimately, however, Bethesda pushed back hard enough in court that a settlement was reached, and Fallout Online was canned in 2012. SOE’s EverQuest Next This may be the greatest regrettable MMO cancellation in development history, depending on your point of view. For a brief time, SOE looked to be reaching for a true next-generation MMO and was within a couple years of actually attaining it. EverQuest Next was to take the series in an innovative direction with malleable landscapes, collectable classes, NPC AI, and a gorgeous art style. While the studio did get the companion MMO Landmark out the door, 2015 happened, and SOE got sold off and transformed into Daybreak, massively scaling down its projects while cancelling both Landmark and Next. To this day, we’re still waiting for the next EverQuest MMO. Blizzard’s Project Titan With World of Warcraft reaching record heights in the late 2000s and the industry being absolutely on fire for MMOs, the timing was perfect to invest a lot of money, talent, and resources into creating a follow up online game. And that’s exactly what Blizzard did as it spent six years working on code-named Project Titan, a scifi class-based MMO where players would have both a combat career and a non-combat profession. Hype was high for Project Titan, and the team ballooned to over 100 people by 2012… only to have Blizzard scrap the project and repackage it into Overwatch. How’s that going for the studio these days? OK, I guess. Blizzard’s Project Neptune A mobile version of World of Warcraft has always been a tempting dream, and it’s one that Blizzard got very close to activating as it worked on a project code-named Neptune with NetEase. However, a falling out in 2022 between the studios canned the project entirely. Considering NetEase’s reputation, this might have been a financially successful but reputation-damaging product, so you can make up your mind whether this cancellation was a blessing in the end. Ensemble’s Halo Universe Not that long ago, Halo was one of the reddest of hottest multiplayer FPS titles on the market — a genuine killer app for Microsoft’s Xbox. It’s not surprising, then, that there’ve been a few attempts to bring this into a massively multiplayer space, including Halo Infinite. But it’s Ensemble Studios’ late 2000s Halo Universe that sounded the most like a proper MMO that developed a working prototype and was reported to carry a potential $90 million price tag to fully develop. However, the plug was pulled in 2007, and that was that for Halo Universe. Cheyenne Mountain’s Stargate Worlds The almost-was potential of Stargate Worlds still infuriates me to this day. From 1994 to 2011, Stargate put forth a strong sci-fi franchise with a movie and several TV series. The spin-off Stargate Worlds MMORPG began work in 2006 to capitalize on this fandom and got within spitting distance of launching — with people even beta testing the game — before developer Cheyenne Mountain financially imploded in 2010 and the whole game was scrapped. Level 5’s True Fantasy Live Online Years before Final Fantasy XI and XIV (among others) proved that console MMOs could have legs, Microsoft angled to develop an ultimate anime-styled fantasy MMO for Xbox Live. It sourced the project out to Level 5 to work on True Fantasy Live Online , a robust-sounding MMO that made some good progress in development until the whole thing was squashed around 2004 when it wasn’t getting made as fast as Microsoft wanted. Everyone likes a good list, and we are no different! Perfect Ten takes an MMO topic and divvies it up into 10 delicious, entertaining, and often informative segments for your snacking pleasure. Got a good idea for a list? Email us at justin@massivelyop.com or eliot@massivelyop.com with the subject line “Perfect Ten.” TAGS Source: https://massivelyop.com/2025/11/26/perfect-ten-10-cancelled-mmo-projects-that-couldve-done-very-well/