5 Forgotten MMOs That Deserved More Love

A few games have largely dominated the Massively Multiplayer Online genre. EverQuest, Final Fantasy XIV, and World of Warcraft have long been the titans of the MMO space, with WoW, in particular, becoming a worldwide sensation. That said, plenty of studios have tried to carve out a slice of that pie. After all, there’s a lot of money on the table if someone could ever supplant the top games and grab a ton of subscribers. Unfortunately for those studios, most of the teams that tried to acquire that audience have failed. That doesn’t mean those MMOs weren’t worth playing before their servers shut off.

Videos by ComicBook.com

Here are five MMOs that deserved more love.

5) Tabula Rasa

In 2007, the developers at Destination Games tried to change the MMO game with Tabula Rasa. Most games at that point used World of Warcraft‘s gameplay style. It was incredibly successful, so you can’t blame anyone. However, the Tabula Rasa wanted to stand out, so it added real-time shooting to the mix.

Now, don’t get it twisted, Tabula Rasa is not a shooter like Halo or Call of Duty. Dice rolling for stats is still happening under the surface, giving it that RPG feel. However, Tabula Rasa proved you could do much more in an MMO than what Blizzard was doing at the time. Unfortunately, it ended after a few years, thanks in part to Richard Garriott leaving the studio and suing the company.

4) Asheron’s Call

Asheron’s Call launched about five years before World of Warcraft. In fact, it was the third major MMO to hit store shelves, following in the footsteps of Ultima Online and EverQuest. With that in mind, it would probably feel a little primitive if you went back to it today, but it closed its servers in 2016.

Still, while it existed, Asheron’s Call was an excellent game for players who loved exploration and long story arcs with solid payoffs. There’s a gigantic world (500 square miles) to explore, and you can cross the whole thing on foot. Despite launching last century, Asheron’s Call featured no loading screens in the open world.

3) Warhammer Online: Age of Reckoning

WAR was a big success when it launched in 2008, pulling 800,000 subscribers at its peak after selling over a million copies. Using the Realm versus Realm system that was originally developed for Dark Age of Camelot, Warhammer Online was the go-to game for players who loved player versus player combat.

Unfortunately, things were not quite as rosy for players who wanted a robust quest system and a world to explore, but it stood out in a crowded genre as something different from the norm. WAR‘s servers stayed open until 2013. Thankfully, a thriving private server launched soon after and is still active, giving fans a relatively easy way to jump back in for some of the great PvP combat.

2) WildStar

WildStar is another MMO published by NCSoft on this list, and spoiler alert, it won’t be the last one. This one from Carbine Studios put a much larger focus on movement than most MMOs at the time. You could double jump, sprint, and dash your way through the huge open-world, and the WildStar team gave players plenty of creative ways to use their tools.

Obviously, combat was a focal point, but Carbine also added races and jumping puzzles, giving fans plenty of variety. WildStar also used telegraphed players, which made cast direction perfect. If you didn’t line up your attacks perfectly, you won’t deal much damage.

Carbine Studios also included popular features that World of Warcraft was lacking at the time. That included player housing, as each player had access to their own plot that gave benefits like quicker access to raids and personal gathering nodes. It had a ton of great ideas, but unfortunately closed its doors in 2018 after a move to the free-to-play model did not reinvigorate the playerbase as much as the developers hoped.

1) City of Heroes

As I said, WildStar isn’t the final NCSoft-published game on this list. City of Heroes was another effort from the studio, which partnered with Cryptic Studios to create one of the best MMOs of the era. City of Heroes took the superhero genre and mixed it with an incredible character creator, letting you build your own hero from scratch.

The developers supported the game for several years with tons of content and a villain’s expansion. There was even a series of novels, comic books, and a collectible card game. At one point, there were talks about a film from the producer of the first Transformers film.

Despite all that success, NCSoft decided to close its doors in 2012. By that point, Paragon Studios had taken over active development, and the publisher shut down the studio along with the servers. Thankfully, fans were able to revive City of Heroes. In 2024, NCSoft gave the private server its blessing, making Homecoming an official server for the game, which you can still jump into today.

What do you think? Leave a comment below and join the conversation now in the ComicBook Forum!