MMO Hype Train: Six upcoming MMO expansions that have my attention

I don’t know about you, but some days — perhaps most days — I’m more excited about and invested in expansions to existing MMOs that I love than possible upcoming full-fledge titles. After all, if you love a game or have a fond history with it, it’s almost always a thrill to see its world expanded and the title getting a huge shot of attention.

Today I’m going to turn my HypeVision™ to upcoming MMO expansions, from the ones that we know a lot about to the ones that we can only speculate and presume. What are the ones that have my interest and attention right now in 2025?

Guild Wars 2: Visions of Eternity

While I’m not currently playing Guild Wars 2, it’s a past favorite that I definitely cheer from the sidelines. And I am genuinely pleased to see that ArenaNet is putting a lot of effort into producing a quality product with October’s Visions of Eternity.

More maps, another housing area, and more story is great and all, but what seems to have everyone buzzing are the nine new elite specs. That’s a huge amount of class addition to this game, and I’m sure it’s got everyone thinking about what they want to play this fall.

World of Warcraft: Midnight

While World of Warcraft’s 11th expansion won’t be out until next year sometime, it’s biggest addition — a robust player housing system — is rolling out before the end of 2025. And that’s going to be a serious game-changer for WoW, offering a vast canvas for players to get creative and be social while also populating the rest of the game with housing decor rewards to pursue.

Sure, there are also a lot of nice little additions and quality-of-life improvements, and I am grateful that Blizzard is continuing to invest in evergreen content like the warband system and delves. But make no mistake: Midnight is housing, housing, housing.

WoW Classic: The Burning Crusade

Players haven’t called last year’s Anniversary Servers “The Burning Crusade waiting room” for nothing. There are a whole bunch of WoW Classic people quite eager to return to the first expansion, especially those who missed out on the original and the 2019 Classic run through Outland. We should be getting this by the end of the year.

This should be an event that’ll spike interest in WoW Classic and keep the fires burning while Blizzard continues work on a more long-term solution for this version of the MMO behind closed doors. Heck, I’m excited if only to get the pre-patch class improvements!

Lord of the Rings Online: Umbar expansion number three

Any day now we should be getting an official reveal of the third expansion set in Lord of the Rings Online’s southern Umbar region. While I will admit that I’m ready to move on from this semi-arid region, I am also quite interested to see what SSG’s storytellers have in store for the next portion of our long journey through Middle-earth — and whether there are any surprises that might come with it.

There haven’t been any rumors of a new class or race, so I’m willing to bet that we’re not going to see anything much beyond more quests and regions this time around, but I am also willing to be surprised!

Final Fantasy XIV: 2026-27 expansion

It feels like that for the first time since as far back as I can remember, the current version of Final Fantasy XIV is hitting a really rough patch. Last year’s Dawntrail didn’t get the accolades the the past few expansions did, and this year has seen a downward trend for the game’s revenue.

But this could all change in a flash if and when Square Enix gets the next expansion cycle going. The big question is… when? It may already be too late for a 2026 release, considering how much advance hype that this studio likes to do. I am definitely eager to see what the next phase of this game might be, including the new jobs and maybe even races.

Elder Scrolls Online: Who knows?

At the start of this year, ZeniMax was all about changing course from the traditional yearly expansion cycle to doing this new, nebulous “Seasons” format. But when the big layoffs hit and the studio’s “Blackbird” MMO project was canned, it created a whole lot of uncertainty for the future of Elder Scrolls Online.

Will ZeniMax continue with its seasonal course into 2026, and if so, what will the next cycle bring? Or did the layoffs cause a re-investment into ESO and a re-evaluation of the chapter format? I’ve strongly suspected that the studio will come back to the tried-and-true format sooner or later — but now, perhaps sooner.