Are we on the cusp of a genre revival? Or is this its dying gasp? Still, this month players rushed in their droves to New World, a colonial-themed MMORPG from Amazon’s gaming wing. This has led fans to question whether the genre has run out of juice. Yet WoW is now over 15 years old, and no other MMORPG has rivalled its success. For the first time, game worlds felt truly alive. Communities and societies bloomed overnight, some of them role-playing complex characters. I was used to adventuring alone in fantasy worlds that disappeared when I turned off my console, but WoW’s virtual world was always on, always changing, and it heaved with other humans. It’s hard to over-emphasise how revolutionary it felt at first. For the first time, game worlds felt truly alive Communities and societies bloomed overnight.
