MMO Hype Train: Can Scars of Honor overcome its generic WoW clone identity?

Whenever I’m looking at an upcoming MMO project, I have the same pressing question: Is this a contender? As in, does this project have actual funding, a solid development team, a strong vision, proof that it’s of interest to the community, and the potential to make it to an actual launch? Because that’s all got to break your way — along with many other factors — if your title is going to go the distance.

That’s the same question I bring today to Scars of Honor, an interesting-looking and colorful MMORPG that’s been bouncing around development and testing for a few years now. It doesn’t seem to be on a lot of players’ radars, but should it be? Is this a contender?

Scars of Honor first emerged onto the scene back in early 2024 as a World of Warcraft clone seeking $200,000 in Kickstarter funding. The campaign was an abject failure, barely topping $34,000. However, the team at Bulgarian studio Beast Burst Entertainment declared that it would continue to move forward with the project.

Since then, it’s been making the rounds on dev blogs, development updates, and testing, with some significant design rework happening behind the scenes. The game wrapped up a technical alpha this past spring with “tens of thousands of players” from 165 countries. The studio said that it’s revisiting almost all of its systems, especially movement and mounts, in light of the test.

My first impression from looking over its Steam page is that Scars of Honor has that colorful, cartoonish look that greatly appeals to my eyes. I like a bit of saturated eye candy in my games, and this reminds me a lot of, say, RuneScape and Albion Online in the visual department.

Less interesting is the features list, which offers little to distinguish it from current titles and up-and-coming MMOs. It’s action-based with a lot of positional combat, which appeals to some and is a little too hectic for others. It’s got a handful of traditional races and a few unusual ones (including bear-people and Undead, which… good for them), dungeons that are semi-randomized (interesting!), and an insane number of talents per class, with over 240 apiece laid out on a Path of Exile-like board. One must hope that the talents are interesting because the classes aren’t anything we haven’t seen before.

It’s not bad, it’s just pretty standard stuff for MMOs. There’s crafting and PvP and factions and a vow to not incorporate pay-to-win transactions. The typical features list.

Scars of Honor calls itself “community-driven,” which is one of those terms that sounds good while meaning nothing very specific at all. The devs surely mean that they’re listening to the players’ feedback in testing — of course, who doesn’t? — but it’s not like every decision is based on a majority vote by fans. There’s a pre-established vision here that’s being augmented by a willingness to revisit that design if the players really hate it. Again, that’s called “responding to feedback,” and it’s nothing new.

When it comes to MMOs in development, I tend to be more gracious toward them until they genuinely prove whether or not they’re worth my time. I don’t think we’re quite at that point for Scars of Honor, but even with warm feelings toward its visuals, I’m struggling to muster strong enthusiasm for this project.

If we’re to look for signposts that this is a contender, it’s certainly a mixed bag that probably leans toward the negative side. The fact that the team’s been soldiering on with the project, getting tests out, and being fairly communicative speaks in its favor. The fact that there wasn’t much demand for its influencer-hyped Kickstarter nor a lot of buzz around it in the years since does not.

Being adequate and acceptable in this genre simply isn’t enough. “Adequate” doesn’t generate the hype you need to get noticed and build up that critical mass of Day One players you’re really going to need to drive sales, engagement, and the long tail of revenue. As it currently stands, if Scars of Honor launched tomorrow, it would be a little blip that would make some gamers go, “Huh what is that?” but would probably be forgotten by the end of the month. Not great for them or for the genre!

That said, there looks to be some time before this tries to go for a full launch or an early access thing, and that gives Scars of Honor a chance to build up its name and reputation (and put all that apparent investor money to work). In fact, we’re looking forward to some sort of hypey reveal this coming weekend.

But if it’s got a solid game under its hood, that genuine word-of-mouth from testers will be essential to generate buzz. The devs also need to be doing more to distinguish why this is a unique game and not, say, another Tarisland.

Remember Tarisland? That’s not what Beast Burst wants to be hearing about this game in five years: “Remember Scars of Honor?”