In-Development Indie MMORPGs

francisbaud

Bronze Knight of the Realm
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They may not all be launching anytime soon, but some of them are getting close. Independent studios have been creating MMORPGs for years now, thanks to crowdfunding and private investors, but most of them aren't showing extraordinarily fast progress (probably due to the nature of open-development: regular updates, multiple polished testing maps, engagement with the community, etc.). Nonetheless there are a few of them that seem promising, so here we go:

Dual Universe [Beta]
Setting: Science-Fiction || Focus: PvP || Budget: ~$25M* || Engine: Unigine 2
  • Single shard persistent universe shared by all the players
  • Voxel-based universe: player-made cities, stations and warships
  • Space warfare: pirate ships, coordinated attacks, skirmishes
  • Player-controlled global economy: mine, craft, build, optimize, barter and trade


Crowfall [Beta]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvP || Budget: $38M || Engine: Unity 5
  • Spiritual successor to Shadowbane
  • Player-created worlds with parcels of terrain and pre-fab building pieces
  • GvG/RvR campaigns that guilds or factions can win
  • Deep crafting system inspired by Star Wars: Galaxies


Camelot Unchained [Beta]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: RvR || Budget: ~$20M || Engine: Unchained
  • Spiritual successor to Dark Age of Camelot
  • Large-scale RvR battles and sieges with more than a thousand players
  • Open world with islands that players can move to strategically reshape the world
  • Block-by-block construction with server-side stability and destruction


Gloria Victis [Beta]
Setting: Medieval Realistic || Focus: PvP || Budget: ~$4M* || Engine: Unity 5
  • Skill-based combat mechanics à la Mount and Blade
  • Class-less system with diversified equipment
  • Open world with housing, territory control and sieges
  • Complex crafting system: leatherworking, armorsmithing, weapon forging


Corepunk [Alpha]
Setting: Cyberpunk || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: $? || Unity 5
  • Seamless open world with top-down view and fog of war
  • Explore the world, participate in trading, complete dungeons, or engage in PvP battles
  • Day / night cycles as well as weather conditions
  • Flexible character customization with a wide variety of builds


Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen [Pre-Alpha]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvE || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5
  • Spiritual successor to EverQuest
  • Deeply social: dungeons require teamwork and group strategy
  • Thrilling climbing system
  • Perception system: the world reveals its secrets through the environment

Ship of Heroes [Beta]
Setting: Superhero || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unreal 4
  • Spiritual successor to City of Heroes
  • Defend Apotheosis City from criminals and alien invaders and explore whole new planets
  • Unique character customization with countless options
  • Thousands of power combinations to form a unique playstyle

Ashes of Creation [Alpha]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvP || Budget: ~$30M* || Engine: Unreal 4
  • Nodes system: player participation influences the type of content in the surrounding areas
  • Open world housing: players have the ability to survey and develop land anywhere in the world
  • Castle sieges with hundreds of players with many moving parts
  • Harsh, unforgiving and stunning environment

Star Citizen [Alpha]
Setting: Science-Fiction || Focus: PvP || Budget: $348M || Engine: Lumberyard
  • Spiritual successor to Freelancer
  • Procedurally generated and handcrafted stunning worlds
  • Open world PvP with high speed dog fights with multi-crew ships or intense FPS warfare
  • Exploration: hidden outpost, abandoned ships and beautiful sunsets

Project Gorgon [Beta]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvE || Budget: +$1M || Engine: Unity 5
  • Exploration: many hidden secrets awaiting discovery
  • Ambitious skill-based leveling system allowing the player to combine skills
  • Old-school MMO with innovative ideas, such as morphing into animals
  • 16 combat skills, 71 trade skills, 11 beasts skills

Mortal Online 2 [Beta]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unreal 4
  • Open and realistic sandbox world
  • True, real-time combat where outcomes are decided by skill rather than levels or gear
  • Legendary crafters trading across the globe, famous warriors studying the art of combat
  • Individual reputation: people will recognize you by the impact you've made on the world

Rise Online [Alpha]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus PvP/PvE || Budget: $? || Engine: Unreal 4
  • Spiritual successor to Knight Online
  • Full PvP-based maps and events
  • PvE content like missions, creatures and bosses that take several groups to defeat
  • An endless war between two kingdoms

Cross post. *Personal estimate, may be inaccurate
Feel free to suggest improvements to this post!
 
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Kirun

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Gloria Victis and Corepunk both seem interesting to me. Gloria Victis especially, as I love janky "sandbox" MMOs like that. Dual Universe looks like a complete ripoff of Empyrion.
 

Cinge

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There's threads for most of those. The others I have never heard of.









 
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Rali

Trakanon Raider
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Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen [Pre-Alpha]
Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvE || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5
  • Spiritual successor to EverQuest
  • Deeply social: dungeons require teamwork and group strategy
  • Thrilling climbing system
  • Perception system: the world reveals its secrets through the environment

This made me laugh! :)
 
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francisbaud

Bronze Knight of the Realm
16
15
Gloria Victis and Corepunk both seem interesting to me. Gloria Victis especially, as I love janky "sandbox" MMOs like that. Dual Universe looks like a complete ripoff of Empyrion.
Agree, Gloria Victis now really feels like a game, I wouldn't be surprised if they launched soon. Corepunk I've just discovered it, looks really promising, I like the artstyle and the attention on details.
There's threads for most of those. The others I have never heard of.
Thanks, I didn't realize most of them already had a thread. I also had Repopulation and Saga of Lucimia on the list but they have very little following so the chance they get large enough to be called MMO seems pretty slim to me.
This made me laugh! :)
Lol yea, well when I saw a video of P:RotF showing climbing on a castle wall I thought it looked cool :p
 

Uriel

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Star Citizen [Alpha]
Setting: Science-Fiction || Focus: PvP || Budget: $348M || Engine: Lumberyard

Lol so funny. I hope at least 1-2 of these games turn out good, the MMO genre is so stale right now.
 
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Kirun

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Lol so funny. I hope at least 1-2 of these games turn out good, the MMO genre is so stale right now.
The only hope really is likely from Korea or possibly Riot. American gaming companies don't really invest in MMOs anymore. Anything created in this space is "mmo-lite" now. Conan, Valheim to a certain extent, ARK, Empyrion, Destiny 2, etc.
 

Uriel

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Well just from this list, AoC I've been following and it's inspired by Korean games and self funded (38 studios flashbacks I know). We'll see soon when NDA is down later this month I think. Corepunk also sounds cool and since it has simpler overhead graphics, it might have more focus on gameplay systems. Besides this list I'm interested in Blue Protocol, which might be MMO-lite but looks better than Genshin Impact.
 

Kirun

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Blue Protocol is literally just the "new-wave" of Japanese/weeb MMOs. Expect to see 900 million Genshin clones as it's a fairly easy/simple gameplay loop, simple enough to make, and makes a ton of money from the gacha aspect.

Corepunk is interesting to me just because it's trying a different approach - which I appreciate in a world of WoW clones. That isometric style hasn't really been done since UO. I think AoC has a ton of potential, but I also think people need to go into expecting the meat of the game to be PvP-centric.
 

francisbaud

Bronze Knight of the Realm
16
15
Lol so funny. I hope at least 1-2 of these games turn out good, the MMO genre is so stale right now.
A lot of funding for sure, but as CIG is independent from big publishers and investors, iI guess it's still an indie.

The only hope really is likely from Korea or possibly Riot. American gaming companies don't really invest in MMOs anymore. Anything created in this space is "mmo-lite" now. Conan, Valheim to a certain extent, ARK, Empyrion, Destiny 2, etc.
There's Amazon that is developing 2 MMORPGs, New World and Lord of the Rings. But I agree there are only few AAA MMOs coming from the west right now.

Well just from this list, AoC I've been following and it's inspired by Korean games and self funded (38 studios flashbacks I know). We'll see soon when NDA is down later this month I think. Corepunk also sounds cool and since it has simpler overhead graphics, it might have more focus on gameplay systems. Besides this list I'm interested in Blue Protocol, which might be MMO-lite but looks better than Genshin Impact.
Yea Ashes of Creation and Corepunk look promising. AoC is stunning visually and promises many interesting features (nodes, large-scale PvP battles, large boss encounters, etc.)

Blue Protocol is literally just the "new-wave" of Japanese/weeb MMOs. Expect to see 900 million Genshin clones as it's a fairly easy/simple gameplay loop, simple enough to make, and makes a ton of money from the gacha aspect.

Corepunk is interesting to me just because it's trying a different approach - which I appreciate in a world of WoW clones. That isometric style hasn't really been done since UO. I think AoC has a ton of potential, but I also think people need to go into expecting the meat of the game to be PvP-centric.
Afaik Blue Protocol is not a MMORPG considering that the cap per instance is just 30 players. Multiplayer games like Fortnite has 100 per zone and still don't qualify as MMO. Maybe in the future they'll increase the cap though.

Yea I've just discovered Corepunk a few days ago, and it seems well-thought and beautiful game, full of discoverability.
 

uniqueuser

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Corepunk is interesting to me just because it's trying a different approach - which I appreciate in a world of WoW clones. That isometric style hasn't really been done since UO.
You're kidding. The isometric/orthographic perspective is de rigueur among all the (seemingly euro) indies who can't make up their minds whether they're making MOBAs or MMOs.