
If you know your MMORPG history, then you’ll be well-acquainted with the fact that the oldest and original variants of these games came about in the early 1980s as text-based titles. Most commonly called MUDs — multi-user dungeon — but sometimes saddled with other acronyms, these text-based MMOs were fairly popular in certain circles for a good while there.
And while the rise of graphical MMOs in the mid-90s seemed to make their textual siblings obsolete, that hasn’t happened at all. In fact, they’re still around and in greater quantities than you may realize.
A new video from YouTube channel This Exists explores the phenomenon of MUDs persisting well into the 2020s. This is actually a pretty good watch, summing up the history of MUDs and their enduring legacy in under 20 minutes. Give it a watch and let us know in the comments if you have ever played a MUD!