Are OARPGS the future of the MMORPG genre?

Toward the end of 2014, genre academics popularized the idea that the MMORPG genre was becoming “unbundled” — that MMORPGs were splintering, “with sociality, story, multi-player combat, and economy splitting off into different directions and platforms instead of staying unified in MMOs.” At the time, it was hard to argue; it seemed to us that MOBAs, online FPS titles, survival sandboxes, and so forth were taking bits and pieces of the MMORPG genre and running off with them.

The current trend might be the the online action RPG, the multiplayer roguelike — the Diablo clone, essentially. We may never get a pure raiding game, but the OARPG is surely the closest thing to a pure dungeoning experience, and we’ve been seeing them crop up on Kickstarter and Steam early access more and more frequently (in contrast with the decline of new MOBAs).

I’m not horribly sad about it, as I find roguelikes’ multiplayer combat far more interesting than modern MMORPG dungeoning, but I’m certainly not a big fan of the fracturing of the genre, if that is indeed what we’re witnessing. What do you think? Are OARPGs the next big thing for the MMORPG industry?

TH