Is the Game of Thrones MMORPG ever going to happen – and should we care?

Bigpoint was supposed to bring the world a nice Game of Thrones MMORPG. But this was years ago. Announced back in 2012, the game was slated for release in 2015 or 2016. They were even working with HBO on the project.

Yet, here we are, two episodes away from the conclusion of the entire series, and there’s no Game of Thrones: Seven Kingdoms. Or is there?

You see, Bigpoint was bought out by a Chinese consortium that then reworked the Game of Thrones MMORPG into something else, using the license instead to release the browser game that many of you GoT fans have probably seen of late.

So what happened to the Game of Thrones MMORPG? It is deader than the Night King’s army of wights and the general consensus is: Should anyone care?

Probably not, and we’ll tell you why: MMORPGs are a tough business. Few of them succeed. Even when you’re rocking a name like Final Fantasy, an MMO is a huge gamble. Square, for their part, has spent a ton of money making FFXIV work. On top of that, Bethesda has thrown tons of money at their The Elder Scrolls Online game to get it to work. And don’t even get us started on the perennial king, World of Warcraft.

While MMORPGs can eventually print cash for their publishers, they often take a lot of money to get there. Plus, no one cares about a Game of Thrones MMORPG if we’re totally honest. Something like Skyrim would be a welcome addition to the video game pantheon, but another fantasy MMORPG won’t be worth the time.

So there’s no real reason to mourn the death of the MMORPG that was supposed to come out from GoT. In addition, the last season is upon us, which makes the timing now or never and we know now that it will be never.

Fans that are sad should push for a single-player game instead. Whether it follows the lore of the books more closely than the show or situates the player in an entirely different era, the single-player Game of Thrones slate is clean and ready for fresh ideas. And we think that’s a more appropriate format for the game.

Part of the elegance of Game of Thrones is how well-crafted and detailed its world is. This will not survive the transition to an online game and the first request for “mats” or some such nonsense will rip you right out of the atmosphere of the game.

We think that GoT is perfect for a video game in the future, just not an MMORPG. Thankfully, the powers that be ultimately agreed on this.

If anything, we’ll probably see something in the vein of Skyrim or The Witcher or absolutely nothing at all. Going by the last season’s critical reception, the latter is increasingly likely, but we will just have to wait and see what happens with the current darling of television.