In-Development Indie MMORPGs

francis_baud

Here are the 18 biggest indie MMOs in development with information about them and a video showing some gameplay. Feel free to suggest better videos or any popular projects I'd have missed!

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

Gloria Victis [Beta]

Setting: Medieval Low-Fantasy || 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

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: ~$27M || 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

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

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

Foxhole [Beta]
Setting: WW1/WW2 || Focus: RvR || Budget: $? || Engine: Unreal 4

• Single shard with hundreds of players: wars that last several weeks and reset after each war
• Player are what they carry or drive: player progression is purely horizontal as characters have no stats
• Three main roles: soldier, logistics, builder, and many sub-roles: medics, drivers, gunners, artillery, partisan, etc.
• Deep logistics and building mechanics: transportation, factories, scrapping, trenches, bridges, defenses (AI), bunker bases.

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

Wild Terra 2 [Beta]

Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5

• Immersion and adventure: a world full of interconnected little things

• Every season a new continent will be available, with a variety of biomes and inhabitants, conditions, rules and rewards

• Various roles: blacksmith, fisherman, doctor, alchemist, sailor, weaver, merchant, farmer, carpenter, cartographer or hunter

• Raids and sieges: players join groups and clans to siege medieval castles, raid large bosses and adventure in dungeons

Valiance Online [Beta]

Setting: Superhero || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5

• Spiritual successor to City of Heroes

• Players are heroes and villains who battle using superhuman powers and advanced technology

• An open world environment tied to character choices

• Players run stores and a decentralized market system

AdventureQuest 3D [Beta]

Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5

• Cross platform: can be played on PC and mobile

• Ever expanding world: exploration of the lively land with new exciting  environments

• Randomly generated dungeons that are unique and offer a new experience every time

• Random events: dragons could swoop down, the undead may rise, or there could be an Easter egg hunt

francis_baud

Ashes of Creation [Alpha]

Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvP/PvE || 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

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

Profane [Alpha]

Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5

• Territory conquest: guilds can leave their mark on the game's history by conquering mines and castles

• Players can build small towns and great cities in the open world

• No class or level: combat style is determined by what players exercise the most

• Open PvP and full loot: karma system with restrictions to access cities if the player is a criminal

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

City of Titans [Alpha]

Setting: Superhero || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: +$675K || Engine: Unreal 4

• Spiritual successor to City of Heroes

• Players choose their own adventure, tell their own tales, and have their own agency

• Beautiful vistas, from glorious Art Deco monuments to villain-dominated broken tenements

• Customization of the powers: different animations, powers and colors

SamuTale [Alpha]

Setting: Samurai Low-Fantasy || Focus: PvE/PvP || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5

• Food in order to survive: hunting wild animals, keeping livestock, catching fish or growing a large variety of crops

• Open-world building anywhere on the map

• Clan PvP: build walls, gates and watchtowers to set up a good defense and keep the village safe

• Taming wild animals and breeding live stock used for food or transportation

Saga of Lucimia [Alpha]

Setting: Medieval Fantasy || Focus: PvE || Budget: $? || Engine: Unity 5

• Sandbox environment: no quests and no minimap

• Tabletop gaming: all about team-based gameplay and friendship

• Progression system based on skill selection rather than generic classes

• Inspiring lore, myths and legends

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

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

• Fun climbing system

• Perception system: the world reveals its secrets through the environment

Cross post. *Personal estimate, may be inaccurate

Wizardry

Gorgon does not belong in a development list because the dev ERIC did NOT stop and polish finish the early zones,he just moved on to create new areas to keep his staunch backers happy.
If you are planning on FINISHING your game you stop at some point and well...FINISH IT,polish it.His entire game looks like an Indie game just starting,he never makes anything look finished.LAG in some dungeons is beyond awful and we are talking about a game started MANY years ago where any average PC should have frames well over 100.

No matter,that entire list is full of bad games,except maybe ASHES i wouldn't put it into BAD but it won't be good either,just another skinned rpg that is severely lacking in rpg elements.
Mortal Online is the same thing,just another skinned rpg but focused on pvp.I kind of laugh at how EASILY people become delusional.I hear stuff like "this pvp is realistic"lmao says WHO?Just the THOUGHT that two people would fight to the DEATH ..just because is stupid.Put perma death in these games then you might be able to talk about realistic pvp.

The ONLY place i ever want to pvp is in an arena setting with maybe 4 people max and the combat is about skilled THINKING and does not have to fall into the realistic category other than being plausibly real.So my pvp would be a DM if more than 4 fine,maybe 6-8 but one death you are out,so more of a last man standing design.

Mendel

Odd that most all of the games listed focus on some aspect of PvP.  Maybe the next generation of games can focus on Mobile, then PvE will be completely forgotten.

francis_baud

Wizardry said:

Gorgon does not belong in a development list because the dev ERIC did NOT stop and polish finish the early zones,he just moved on to create new areas to keep his staunch backers happy.
If you are planning on FINISHING your game you stop at some point and well...FINISH IT,polish it.His entire game looks like an Indie game just starting,he never makes anything look finished.LAG in some dungeons is beyond awful and we are talking about a game started MANY years ago where any average PC should have frames well over 100.

Well we usually don't expect a game in development to be finished. I fail to understand how the early zones of PG not being polished should exclude this game from this list.

Wizardry said:

No matter,that entire list is full of bad games,except maybe ASHES i wouldn't put it into BAD but it won't be good either,just another skinned rpg that is severely lacking in rpg elements.
Mortal Online is the same thing,just another skinned rpg but focused on pvp.I kind of laugh at how EASILY people become delusional.I hear stuff like "this pvp is realistic"lmao says WHO?Just the THOUGHT that two people would fight to the DEATH ..just because is stupid.Put perma death in these games then you might be able to talk about realistic pvp.

"Bad" is subjective, and all of those games have their core followers who believe the game is good enough to spend time testing / following updates.

When I wrote "medieval realistic", I had in mind "no magic" and mechanics that try to mimic historical medieval times.

Wizardry said:

The ONLY place i ever want to pvp is in an arena setting with maybe 4 people max and the combat is about skilled THINKING and does not have to fall into the realistic category other than being plausibly real.So my pvp would be a DM if more than 4 fine,maybe 6-8 but one death you are out,so more of a last man standing design.

You'd probably like Guild Wars 1 PvP arenas, hopefully as much as I enjoyed them.

ringdany

Bookmarked. SImply because its a nice summary.

But... none of the open RvR offerings really appeal to me-- their artwork and also their top down perspective angle/aspect ratios is not really that engaging. There's a lack of a true "fantasy" element. They seem kind of dingy. The other mistake fantasy artwork in an mmo can make, is artwork which is too glitzy. The large RvR mechanics look nice, but they look like space lasers rather than actual fantasy magic. Compare Neverwinter Nights 2002, where every spell or ability cast felt as if it was spawned from a nether realm (every spell had a somatic and verbal cue). The RvR offerings are disappointing, especially for the budgets.

DafAtRandom

francis_baud said:

Wizardry said:

Gorgon does not belong in a development list because the dev ERIC did NOT stop and polish finish the early zones,he just moved on to create new areas to keep his staunch backers happy.
If you are planning on FINISHING your game you stop at some point and well...FINISH IT,polish it.His entire game looks like an Indie game just starting,he never makes anything look finished.LAG in some dungeons is beyond awful and we are talking about a game started MANY years ago where any average PC should have frames well over 100.

Well we usually don't expect a game in development to be finished. I fail to understand how the early zones of PG not being polished should exclude this game from this list.

Wizardry said:

No matter,that entire list is full of bad games,except maybe ASHES i wouldn't put it into BAD but it won't be good either,just another skinned rpg that is severely lacking in rpg elements.
Mortal Online is the same thing,just another skinned rpg but focused on pvp.I kind of laugh at how EASILY people become delusional.I hear stuff like "this pvp is realistic"lmao says WHO?Just the THOUGHT that two people would fight to the DEATH ..just because is stupid.Put perma death in these games then you might be able to talk about realistic pvp.

"Bad" is subjective, and all of those games have their core followers who believe the game is good enough to spend time testing / following updates.

When I wrote "medieval realistic", I had in mind "no magic" and mechanics that try to mimic historical medieval times.

Wizardry said:

The ONLY place i ever want to pvp is in an arena setting with maybe 4 people max and the combat is about skilled THINKING and does not have to fall into the realistic category other than being plausibly real.So my pvp would be a DM if more than 4 fine,maybe 6-8 but one death you are out,so more of a last man standing design.

You'd probably like Guild Wars 1 PvP arenas, hopefully as much as I enjoyed them.

You must be new here.  What Wizardry really meant to say, is that every game is shit because they are not FFXI or Atlas.

I usually don't read anything Wizardry says, but I almost snorted my drink out of my nose when I read that one of their dings on PG is that it looks indie...in a thread about a list of indie games.  That's some dedication to total incoherence, right there.

francis_baud

ringdany said:

Bookmarked. SImply because its a nice summary.

But... none of the open RvR offerings really appeal to me-- their artwork and also their top down perspective angle/aspect ratios is not really that engaging. There's a lack of a true "fantasy" element. They seem kind of dingy. The other mistake fantasy artwork in an mmo can make, is artwork which is too glitzy. The large RvR mechanics look nice, but they look like space lasers rather than actual fantasy magic. Compare Neverwinter Nights 2002, where every spell or ability cast felt as if it was spawned from a nether realm (every spell had a somatic and verbal cue). The RvR offerings are disappointing, especially for the budgets.

Thanks! I guess you're describing Camelot Unchained. There are many fantasy elements planned but they haven't yet implemented them in the game. Some examples (concept art that may or may not make it into the game):

francis_baud

AdventureQuest 3D, Wild Terra 2, Saga of Lucimia and SamuTale were added to the list.

KnightFalz

Mendel said:

Odd that most all of the games listed focus on some aspect of PvP.  Maybe the next generation of games can focus on Mobile, then PvE will be completely forgotten.

The list is about evenly split between the two, and there are few PvP focused MMORPGs currently available which some may feel suggests fertile ground for competition.

I'm sure PvE will continue to do just fine.

cameltosis

Thanks very much for the updates, a great amount of info there

I hadnt realised Star Citizen was being built on Lumberyard. Does that mean they started using Lumberyard before Amazon Game Studios was setup, or did SC switch engines during development at some point?

Also, with Camelot Unchained, fairly sure their funding was up above $30mil. It was around the $20mil mark before the Ragnarok announcement, during which they announced over $10mil extra funding, some going to the new game but most going to CU. That said, I'm really struggling to find any links to confirm that number, so I may be remembering things wrong.

cameltosis

I'm also somewhat surprised that so many of these indie MMOs are using the Unity engine.

I understand that from a developers point of view, it's probably the best out there for scripting (whilst unreal is supposed to be better for graphics). However, I've also read that Unity is pretty bad when it comes to multiplayer and really struggles when you try to scale up to massively multiplayer numbers. This does make me worried that these games will either be a mess, or simply won't be able to hit massively multiplayer numbers.

francis_baud

Robokapp said:

any of them have solid large-scale instanced PVE raids like WoW ? 

Ashes of Creation will have raids, some instanced and some open-world

"Raid bosses

There will be between 12 to 15 raid bosses in the world.

Legendary equipment is only dropped by Legendary world bosses."

"There will be open world dungeons and raids. The aspiration is to maintain the open world feel while being able to capitalize on the benefits of instanced mechanics.

Instancing is only going to happen in certain dungeons where the desire is to have greater narrative appeal. Outside of these and arenas there will not be too much instancing anywhere else."

"Raids will have 40 man groups."

https://ashesofcreation.wiki/Raids#:~:text=Ashes of Creation is designed,and 8 person group sizes.

Other than that I think Ship of Heroes proposes big boss fights in the open-world, Wild Terra 2 has large boss raids, AdventureQuest 3D offers random events with dragons spawning, CorePunk mentions raid content and world bosses, Saga of Lucimia will feature 16/24 players raids and in Pantheon:RotF there will raids as players level, so not just end-game raids.

francis_baud

cameltosis said:

Thanks very much for the updates, a great amount of info there

I hadnt realised Star Citizen was being built on Lumberyard. Does that mean they started using Lumberyard before Amazon Game Studios was setup, or did SC switch engines during development at some point?

Also, with Camelot Unchained, fairly sure their funding was up above $30mil. It was around the $20mil mark before the Ragnarok announcement, during which they announced over $10mil extra funding, some going to the new game but most going to CU. That said, I'm really struggling to find any links to confirm that number, so I may be remembering things wrong.

Thanks!

If I'm correct they started with Cry Engine. Amazon licensed the engine in 2015 and they've made a lot of changes to it and renamed the engine "Lumberyard". At the end of 2016 Star Citizen decided to switch to the Lumberyard engine.

https://www.extremetech.com/extreme/241674-star-citizen-developer-chris-roberts-clarifies-engine-change-promises-move-amazons-lumberyard-wont-delay-game

Yea I think you're right, iirc I based the estimation on Wikipedia info but that may be outdated. The numbers I've got are:

• $1M from private investor (2013)
• $5M from Mark but probably more
• $4,5M from crowdfunding
• $7,5M from private investors (2018)
• $640K from a PPP loan (2020)
• $?M from private investors (2020)

We can expect the most recent round of investment to be several millions (as they received a similar amount of money in 2018). So let's presume that $7M went for CU.

Which would bring the total closer to $26.5M.

Theocritus

I don't know...It just seems like it's too much to ask for a small indie studio to come up with a game that thousands can play simultaneously. I really don't have much hope for any of them but we shall see.

francis_baud

cameltosis said:

I'm also somewhat surprised that so many of these indie MMOs are using the Unity engine.

I understand that from a developers point of view, it's probably the best out there for scripting (whilst unreal is supposed to be better for graphics). However, I've also read that Unity is pretty bad when it comes to multiplayer and really struggles when you try to scale up to massively multiplayer numbers. This does make me worried that these games will either be a mess, or simply won't be able to hit massively multiplayer numbers.

Some MMOs achieve to have medium-scale battles at acceptable performances (networking and rendering) on Unity. Here's an example with Gloria Victis with about 40vs40 players in a small area. ~40fps with no visible rubberbanding. However this game doesn't feature VFX and characters move slowly so it's easier to render/network than a fantasy MMO.

francis_baud

tzervo said:

Thanks for the effort @francis_baud. Great list. To add my bits on a couple super interesting indie titles I came across:

=======
Foxhole
=======

Setting: WW1/WW2 || Focus: RvR || Budget: ??? || Engine: Unreal Engine 4

• Single shard RvR with hundreds of players
• Wars with victory conditions that last several weeks, map resets after each war
• Player progression is purely horizontal (ranks). Characters have no stats. You are what you carry/drive. Assets and efforts are communal (clan, faction).
• Three main roles: soldier, logistics, builder
• Many soldier sub-roles based on loadout/vehicle: footsoldiers, medics, drivers, gunners, artillery, partisans
• Deep logistics mechanics: transportation, factories, scrapping.
• Deep building mechanics: trenches (terraforming), bridges, defenses with/without AI, bunker bases.

Sample: Battle in Woodbind - Foxhole - YouTube

================
One Hour One Life
================
Setting: Community/Civilization sim || Focus: PVE || Budget: Single-dev effort || Engine: ???

• Single shard, colonies of many players working together
• Each colony advances from before the invention of fire to the modern ages
• Each player lives at most 60 minutes of real time (from baby to dying of old age)
• Player actions have consequences on the persistent world and survive them
• Focus on survival and community advancement
• Extremely deep crafting and building system (over 3000 human-makeable objects / recipes).

Sample: We Showed Her How To SAVE THIS VILLAGE! - One Hour One Life Gameplay - YouTube

Feel free to add them to your list if you think it is worth it. They are both in EA iirc, so roughly at the same level as P:G or Gloria Victis (i.e. 24/7 availability to play).

I've added Foxhole, thanks! It seems like One Hour One Life is out of EA and has already launched.

cheyane

Theocritus said:

I don't know...It just seems like it's too much to ask for a small indie studio to come up with a game that thousands can play simultaneously. I really don't have much hope for any of them but we shall see.

Perhaps it takes quite a bit of talent and expertise to code for that and I think Indie companies cannot afford to pay such skilled coders.

Good job OP on this thread. 

Mendel

tzervo said:

Thanks for the effort @francis_baud. Great list. To add my bits on a couple super interesting indie titles I came across:
================

One Hour One Life
================
Setting: Community/Civilization sim || Focus: PVE || Budget: Single-dev effort || Engine: ???

• Single shard, colonies of many players working together
• Each colony advances from before the invention of fire to the modern ages
• Each player lives at most 60 minutes of real time (from baby to dying of old age)
• Player actions have consequences on the persistent world and survive them
• Focus on survival and community advancement
• Extremely deep crafting and building system (over 3000 human-makeable objects / recipes).

Sample: We Showed Her How To SAVE THIS VILLAGE! - One Hour One Life Gameplay - YouTube

Interesting, but I'd hesitate to call 1H2L anything close to an MMORPG.  It totally lacks individual persistence.

It also sounds very difficult to join in mid-game.  Here you are in a bear-skin and all your neighbors are in the Industrial Age.  This could be one of many mobile type, buy-your-way-to-victory games.

But, I'll do some research.  Thanks for the info.

francis_baud

cheyane said:

Theocritus said:

I don't know...It just seems like it's too much to ask for a small indie studio to come up with a game that thousands can play simultaneously. I really don't have much hope for any of them but we shall see.

Perhaps it takes quite a bit of talent and expertise to code for that and I think Indie companies cannot afford to pay such skilled coders.

Good job OP on this thread. 

Thanks!

Some of those indie studios have a budget of $25-40M, which is comparable to AAA MMORPGs like Black Desert Online, so they should be able in theory to deliver a product of good quality, and probably can afford to hire skilled developers.

ringdany

francis_baud said:

Thanks! I guess you're describing Camelot Unchained. There are many fantasy elements planned but they haven't yet implemented them in the game. ....

oh..the game i was thinking of, which is an indie game and which has a successful large RvR mmorpg format, is Champions of Regnum. (it doesnt use Unity, it is a custom engine, and does 1,000+ players on one server quite well).

IsilithTehroth

Only game I have hope for is Profane from this list and maybe ashes of creation. Even then I am not sure they can make a game, let alone a good one.