MMORPGsare massive games that drop you into a world where you can fight monsters, take on quests, explore dungeons, and work with others. The core aspect of an MMO, as its name implies, is the ability to play with other players, and most content within the games is group-oriented.
Since most MMORPGs live and die by their community, having strong player retention is absolutely essential. However, no game can last forever, and the fate of every MMO is an empty world that was once filled with life. Below, we’ll take a look at several MMOs that are still alive and kicking, but actually finding another person to play with is next to impossible.
Rift is one of the worst cases of online but dead MMOs we’ve seen. The game launched in 2011 to massive success, with over a million active players within the first few years. However, this popularity didn’t last, perhaps in part due to better offerings cropping up around the same time, like Guild Wars 2 and Final Fantasy 14’s relaunch.
Eventually, in 2018, Rift introduced progression servers that were ultimately successful, but even that didn’t help retain long-term players, and these servers were eventually shut down and merged back into the main live game. What’s left is only a few hundred active daily players logging in to an empty world.
The worst part is that, looking through Steam reviews, you can see that the people who do play Rift are still enjoying their time; the only issue is the lack of players. While these last few holdouts may be keeping the servers alive for now, it seems like only a matter of time before the game is entirely shut down.
9Tree Of Savior
Tree of Savior is an isometric action MMORPG with unique stylized art, satisfying gameplay, great music, and tons of classes. The only problem is the new-player experience, which goes beyond obtuse into the downright off-putting, leading many new players to quit very early on.
The existence of P2W mechanics, such as having to gacha for classes, definitely doesn’t help, and now only a few hundred people call Tree of Savior their home. It’s a shame because the aforementioned combat, art style, and gameplay are all deserving of recognition.
8Anarchy Online
Anarchy Online is a sci-fi MMO that originally launched in 2001, but has always struggled to maintain players. Now, the game is a wasteland, and even the developers seem to have abandoned the game, with the last news update being in 2023 to celebrate the game’s 22nd anniversary.
Despite this, Anarchy Online is somehow still online and playable, just don’t expect to see any other players. The game itself has some of the most impressive depth in its character building, with some fun and unique classes to play around with.
7Istaria: Chronicles Of The Gifted
For the most part, Istaria looks like a fairly stereotypical 2000s-era MMORPG, but its playable dragons set it apart from the competition, offering an entirely separate gameplay experience from their bipedal counterparts.
While the game was certainly unique at the time, the years have not exactly been kind to Istaria, and now its unique combat doesn’t justify its low player count and subscription costs (which are only technically necessary if you want to go past level 15).
6Bless Unleashed
Unlike a lot of other MMORPGs on this list that are at least ten years old, Bless Online is a fairly recent addition to the genre, originally launching in 2018 before being relaunched in 2021 as Bless Unleashed. Despite its confusing rereleases and different versions, Bless Unleashed is a solid MMORPG, with fun action combat and open world exploration.
However, its lack of polish, abundance of P2W elements, and lackluster translation mean that most players didn’t stick around past its 2021 relaunch. Now, the game is essentially in maintenance mode, not having received a significant content update in months.
Meridian 59 is one of the oldest MMORPGs that is still running today. Released back in 1996, Meridian 59 was one of the very first 3D MMOs, so don’t expect the most in-depth graphics or mechanics. Still, the game pioneered the 3D MMO landscape, and transformed the genre from what were essentially glorified chat rooms into full-blown RPGs.
Despite being released nearly 30 years ago, Meridian 59 is still online, albeit with only a few dozen active users. The game’s introduction is admittedly not very beginner-friendly, and many interested new players will bounce off pretty quickly, leaving behind only dedicated veterans, of which there are dwindlingly few.
4Wurm Online
Wurm Online is a sandbox MMORPG whose world is entirely built and run by its players. With one of the deepest crafting systems in any MMORPG, Wurm Online delivers on the premise that any player could work their way toward a person of renown.
You can become a reliable blacksmith, crafting tools and weapons for your town, a brave adventurer, exploring and charting new land, a farmer, providing crops to your kingdom, or anything else. This is all possible due to the game’s overwhelming number of skill progression systems, with individual skills for things like making paper or milking cows.
While this complexity and depth sound incredible on paper, in practice, you’re expected to grind for hundreds upon hundreds of hours to make any sort of progress, and the intricacy of Wurm’s many intertwined systems can be off-putting for new players. Still, it’s a shame that one of the only games that actually delivers on the premise of ‘you can be whoever you want’ has gone unnoticed for so long.
3Eldevin
Eldevin is an indie-developed old-school style MMO that takes inspiration from games like RuneScape. The game follows a classless progression system with six talent trees to invest in, which make up the core archetypes like Warrior, Ranger, or Mage. There are also fourteen professions to level, which comprise the extensive non-combat aspect of the game, like farming, skinning, cooking, and so on.
Eldevin is essentially every major aspect of an MMORPG you can think of shoved into one generic package. There’s really nothing that sets the game apart from others in the genre, which is most likely why players have not stuck around. Despite not receiving any significant updates since 2016, Eldevin is still online, but with so many other options out there, you have to wonder why.
While Meridian 59 may have been the first 3D MMORPG, EverQuest was the first 3D MMORPG to be commercially successful, gaining a massive player base when it launched in 1999. EverQuest essentially changed the trajectory of early MMORPGs, and without it, we wouldn’t have classics like World of Warcraft or Final Fantasy 14.
EverQuest’s player base, however, has mostly moved on, but a small few stick around, mainly due to the game’s Time Locked Progression Servers. Essentially, these are soft relaunches of the game in its near-original state, and expansions are slowly released over the course of the server’s lifetime.
These usually see a high uptick in players, but most move on when the first expansion that they don’t like relaunches. It’s a fickle cycle of reliving the golden days of EverQuest, but it seems to be keeping the game alive, at least for now.
Guild Wars is technically an MMORPG, but it’s structured more like a single-player RPG with multiplayer elements. Basically, you’ll see players in central areas and towns, but once you venture outside, you’ll be on your own, unless you choose to party up with others or bring NPCs with you.
After over 20 years since the game launched, it’s to be expected that there aren’t many players online, but the multiplayer aspects mentioned above exacerbate this issue, making the expansive world feel even emptier. Most of the players have also moved on to the sequel, Guild Wars 2, despite their differences in gameplay.
Unlike a lot of the games on this list, where it’s a mystery how the game is still operating, Guild Wars is being maintained by just two dedicated individuals, ensuring the servers are running smoothly. The game may not be receiving any new content updates, but it’s still a great RPG to play, even on your own.
