Welcome back to another roundup of MMOs and MMO-adjacent online multiplayer games you’ve probably never heard of – or have totally forgotten about.
Up first: Mordhau, which officially launched on Steam this week. Billed as a “multiplayer medieval slasher” with “visceral and gory combat,” it’s promising war modes and battle royale skirmishes up to 64 people large in addition to co-op and offline play if you just want to avoid humans.
We last mentioned Ashen Empires a few months ago, but we weren’t sure whether it was still being updated, and it’s not a new MMO – in fact, players are doing their best to give this ancient title a refresh in the form of a rogue server known as Dransik Rebirth. Our tipster Gareth let us know that it’s in alpha testing right now – real alpha testing with a planned wipe – with PvP and corpse-looting and old-school isometric graphics, all in an attempt to “restore Dransik to the game it was prior to the controversial Demon Spire update.”
We bumped into Aberoth for the first time on Reddit; it’s a teeny-tiny indie pixel-art MMO playable in-browser or on Steam, but the mechanics are rather impressive for a game like this. It’s promising no dungeon instancing, item-dropping, construction, trade, full PvP, taming, questing, weekly content – and it’s free-to-play.
Star Sonata is another old MMO that occasionally gets love around here since we started this obscure MMOs roundup; it’s actually a solid indie space sandbox MMO that’s still getting heavy updates. Most recently, its devs have expanded the game into what they’re calling Wild Space, with new NPC factions and a weapon overhaul.
Finally, another game I’d long since forgotten about recently floated back to the top of Reddit: It’s called Kicks Online, and yes, it’s a long-sunsetted Korean soccer MMO. Apparently, a group of players has “revived” it as a rogue server, and there’s already a small but international community stomping up the green. This genre needs more sports MMOs!
