About 10 years ago when I worked at Jagex, the creators of RuneScape, there was a sci-fi MMO project (basically sci-fi RuneScape) happening. I didn’t work on it, but a lot of people did, for 2-3 years. It was cancelled before release, I think because it just wasn’t fun enough. When you see a sunk cost like that or Titan (which notwithstanding the Overwatch pivot cannot have been cheap), you get a sense of how hard this is to get right.

I kind of wish there was a "direct to VHS" for video games. You hear about all these scrapped failures, but never get to take a peek.

An MMO might not work, but with regards to Blizzard, there is the example of Starcraft Ghost where they got to the point of releasing trailers and sending empty boxes to stores as advertisements for the upcoming release. I'm sure they'd have sold it if there was a way to do so without damaging the brand.

2009, before EOC and the MTX wheel?

Ahhhh the good days....

Old School Runescape is where you want to be