So this is a weird one. Yes, I know an offline MMORPG is just an RPG, but I’m looking for a specific kind.
I loved FFXIV, but there was always something in the back of my mind that said “I don’t own any of this, it all goes away if I stop paying, and I could be banned tomorrow and lose everything”. I’d love to have a game that plays somewhat similar, but offline and for a single payment, please.
I know about the .hack series and those games seem pretty fun, but don’t scratch the same gathering resources/crafting items/using or selling items cycle. Also they’re apparently grindy as fuck.
Anyone have any suggestions please? Preferably PC please, but Switch and PS1/2/3 also valid suggestions. Thank you.
I spent a lot of years playing EQ1, and I don’t think any game will ever really capture that magic again, but this sure looks like it’s a great attempt at doing so.
Came in to recommend CrossCode. I had an extremely similar itch to OP and this game scratched it. The plot literally revolves around being an MMO, but the entirely game is single player. They did a really good job of capturing the vibe.
I was honestly baffled at how well they captured the vibe of starting a new MMO, when i played through the first 10 or so hours. I kept having this urge to tell my friends to play it so they could come play and explore with me
I’ve had Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning on my wishlist for a while and it’s basically been described to me as playing as lot like an “offline MMO” of the WoW/FFXIV style.
It has MMORPG vibes, particularly with the gathering/crafting systems and little side quests, but it doesn’t have an “endless endgame” to speak of. It was my first thought, too—if OP isn’t looking for an endless endgame loop, then Amalur is a great suggestion.
Lots of Diablo clones have endless endgame and single player, but not sure if they’d be what OP is looking for. Last Epoch is the best of them all, imho. I saw Grim Dawn recommended; it’s also great. Torchlight 2 has a WoW-like cartoony aesthetic and is pretty great. Titan Quest is the other obvious req in this genre, and there are many, many Diablo 2 mods that add new systems and end game loops. (Path of Exile 1 & 2 are both great, of course, but they’re online only.)
Was also going to suggest this one. I tried the demo but unfortunately doesn’t play well on the deck and my sit time in front of the PC is limited as is.
V Rising has the option of setting up a local game.
I made the mistake of starting a game with default settings and i couldn’t play with the internet connection gone. Had to start anew with the correct selection.
In a similar vein are Conan Exiles and possibly Dune Awakening (haven’t it).
What they lack is more neutral or helpful npcs. There’s some merchants and the enslaved pawns, but progression is more automatic through menus rather than quest givers.
AzerothCore is maybe what you would like to check out. They got some builds with bots that fill the world and make you feel as if you are actually online with other players.
seconding this, i use a solo azerothcore build and it’s been great. mine is scaled rather than using playerbots but i experimented with a bot one and it was pretty neat to be able to group up with them.
Surprised that no one has suggested the .hack (dot Hack) game series. They were PS2 era single player RPG games, set in a virtual reality MMO. So it really tries to simulate the MMO experience of that era. There’s even an entire fake computer OS you can explore with news articles, forum posts, email, etc that all contributes to the world building and sometimes unlocks stuff in the “MMO” as you learn stuff ourside of it.
The plot is… ok. Kind of a tired one now and quite trope-y. Mostly because it came first and a ton of anime since “copied its homework”. The series is one of the first instances of the now semi-common plot of “players get stuck in VR MMO”.
The first group of games in the series is pretty easily emulatable, and carrying your save across the games lets you keep your progress and unlocks some extra stuff in subsequent games of the first batch.
The second batch of games in the series (widely believed to be considerably better in gameplay) got an official PC remaster with additional QoL and what amounts to a free story DLC. Probably better to start there, just know there’s some weird plot stuff with a semi-prequel anime. It was the style of the time to make these multimedia projects to try and cross market shit.
They just announced that the series is going to get a reboot/continuation too.
It’s also worth noting that there are some “pay once” MMOs like Guild Wars out there which have been running for a decade or more.
Guild Wars, the original, is still up and running. It isn’t what OP is looking for, but an MMO released in 2005 is not only still playable and has people playing, but also gets very infrequent little patches. Pretty cool stuff.
I played this game with my friend called Wayfinder that was going to be an mmo but I guess at some point in development changed course. The game scratches a kind of itch that I didn’t really need but maybe 10 years ago could have been fun. Might be worth a try.
Unfortunately not on PC but the Xenoblade Chronicles games are very MMO-like, in particular Xenoblade Chronicles X which puts less emphasis on the overall story and more on exploration, sidequests, levelling, min-maxing and gameplay systems. You’ll find great worlds to explore and combat that is quite reminiscent of typical cool-down systems in MMOs. XBX does have some online components but you can play the whole game completely offline too.
Not exactly what you need but have you tried Neverwinter Nights? Its base game is pretty standard linear RPG from BioWare but it was released together with its development kit, and there is an endless sea of community content, some being MMO style worlds.
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Funny enough, there’s Erenshor that is basically simulated single player Everquest
What! I love this conceptually.
Yea planning to pick this up eventually - reminds me of playing EQOA on the ps2
I spent a lot of years playing EQ1, and I don’t think any game will ever really capture that magic again, but this sure looks like it’s a great attempt at doing so.
CrossCode could scratch the itch a bit?
Came in to recommend CrossCode. I had an extremely similar itch to OP and this game scratched it. The plot literally revolves around being an MMO, but the entirely game is single player. They did a really good job of capturing the vibe.
I was honestly baffled at how well they captured the vibe of starting a new MMO, when i played through the first 10 or so hours. I kept having this urge to tell my friends to play it so they could come play and explore with me
CrossCode was great fun, and it really captures that MMORPG feel. Very much enjoyed my time playing it.
The best and worst part about CrossCode is the lack of sequel.
I’ve had Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning on my wishlist for a while and it’s basically been described to me as playing as lot like an “offline MMO” of the WoW/FFXIV style.
Did KoA change my life with its gameplay or story? No. Did I have fun playing it? Yes. Have I replayed it to try out different builds? Also yes.
One piece of advice is, don’t worry too much about doing everything because it is easy to out level the game’s curve.
It was supposed to be an MMORPG before the publisher had to reel it in.
It’s really good, not sure it’s really the same as an mmorpg…100% worth buying though.
It has MMORPG vibes, particularly with the gathering/crafting systems and little side quests, but it doesn’t have an “endless endgame” to speak of. It was my first thought, too—if OP isn’t looking for an endless endgame loop, then Amalur is a great suggestion.
Lots of Diablo clones have endless endgame and single player, but not sure if they’d be what OP is looking for. Last Epoch is the best of them all, imho. I saw Grim Dawn recommended; it’s also great. Torchlight 2 has a WoW-like cartoony aesthetic and is pretty great. Titan Quest is the other obvious req in this genre, and there are many, many Diablo 2 mods that add new systems and end game loops. (Path of Exile 1 & 2 are both great, of course, but they’re online only.)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2382520/Erenshor/ is a single player mmo with simulated other players.
You may also want to check Valheim and the like out.
Also, F2P games are definitely a thing. Warframe and Where Winds Meet are both not really cash grabby to play.
Was also going to suggest this one. I tried the demo but unfortunately doesn’t play well on the deck and my sit time in front of the PC is limited as is.
Maybe not exactly MMO-like cause it’s like Diablo and Path of Exile: Grim Dawn.
Most of these don’t fit “offline MMO” super closely, but are games I’ve played that share various aspects that I enjoyed in MMOs:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Minecraft with mods
Hytale
Various Bethesda games with mods
Sword Art Online games
V Rising
V Rising has the option of setting up a local game. I made the mistake of starting a game with default settings and i couldn’t play with the internet connection gone. Had to start anew with the correct selection.
In a similar vein are Conan Exiles and possibly Dune Awakening (haven’t it).
What they lack is more neutral or helpful npcs. There’s some merchants and the enslaved pawns, but progression is more automatic through menus rather than quest givers.
AzerothCore.
AzerothCore is maybe what you would like to check out. They got some builds with bots that fill the world and make you feel as if you are actually online with other players.
seconding this, i use a solo azerothcore build and it’s been great. mine is scaled rather than using playerbots but i experimented with a bot one and it was pretty neat to be able to group up with them.
Surprised that no one has suggested the .hack (dot Hack) game series. They were PS2 era single player RPG games, set in a virtual reality MMO. So it really tries to simulate the MMO experience of that era. There’s even an entire fake computer OS you can explore with news articles, forum posts, email, etc that all contributes to the world building and sometimes unlocks stuff in the “MMO” as you learn stuff ourside of it.
The plot is… ok. Kind of a tired one now and quite trope-y. Mostly because it came first and a ton of anime since “copied its homework”. The series is one of the first instances of the now semi-common plot of “players get stuck in VR MMO”.
The first group of games in the series is pretty easily emulatable, and carrying your save across the games lets you keep your progress and unlocks some extra stuff in subsequent games of the first batch.
The second batch of games in the series (widely believed to be considerably better in gameplay) got an official PC remaster with additional QoL and what amounts to a free story DLC. Probably better to start there, just know there’s some weird plot stuff with a semi-prequel anime. It was the style of the time to make these multimedia projects to try and cross market shit.
They just announced that the series is going to get a reboot/continuation too.
It’s also worth noting that there are some “pay once” MMOs like Guild Wars out there which have been running for a decade or more.
OP already mentioned the .hack games, but someone else may be interested.
Guild Wars, the original, is still up and running. It isn’t what OP is looking for, but an MMO released in 2005 is not only still playable and has people playing, but also gets very infrequent little patches. Pretty cool stuff.
There’s also just playing on community servers or hosting you own.
I’m not sure if it’s been figured out how to do that for FFXIV yet, but there are others.
You can try the 2009scape single player mode, join the official server, or host it yourself.
I played this game with my friend called Wayfinder that was going to be an mmo but I guess at some point in development changed course. The game scratches a kind of itch that I didn’t really need but maybe 10 years ago could have been fun. Might be worth a try.
Goat MMO Simulator, but just technically.
Unfortunately not on PC but the Xenoblade Chronicles games are very MMO-like, in particular Xenoblade Chronicles X which puts less emphasis on the overall story and more on exploration, sidequests, levelling, min-maxing and gameplay systems. You’ll find great worlds to explore and combat that is quite reminiscent of typical cool-down systems in MMOs. XBX does have some online components but you can play the whole game completely offline too.
The Xenoblade Chronicles series and maybe FFXII.
Xenoblade Chronicles X in particular feels like it was meant to be a MMO and then they just kinda… gave up on the multiplayer part.
Apparently FFXII and FFXIV 1.0 both are heavily inspired on the FFXI formula, so perhaps FFXII is the closest to what the OP is asking.
Yes!! I came here to recommend Xenoblade Chronicles X. It’s the most MMO feeling game I’ve ever played that wasn’t an MMO.
Not exactly what you need but have you tried Neverwinter Nights? Its base game is pretty standard linear RPG from BioWare but it was released together with its development kit, and there is an endless sea of community content, some being MMO style worlds.