Top 5 Free-to-Play Indie MMOs

Recently the overlooked indie MMO Love was turned free-to-play and has finally garnered the steam it deserves. However, it isn’t the only indie MMO out there worth a look. Here are five indie MMOs that are all free to play and worth a try.

5) Face of Mankind

This MMO is distinct because you can enter PVP mode almost anywhere. You can join a multitude of different factions, ranging from Mercenaries of the Blood to a Law Enforcement Department. There’s also a complicated economy system set up that accounts for not just players, but also whole colonies. As long as you can find someone to help you through the initial stages of the game, it’s easy to get used to the gameplay.

4) Realm of the Mad God

Realm of the Mad God is simple, straightforward, and requires no downloads to play (unless you are missing a Flash player). When you die, you die permanently, but you keep a small certificate of your life’s achievements. It plays similarly to Galaga or Asteroids, except instead of a space ship shooting aliens or rocks on the other side of the screen, it’s a wizard shooting mobile enemies with haphazardous AI. Well, I suppose that also depends on what class you begin as—you can also start as a Rogue, Archer, Priest, or Warrior, and they all have different play styles. It only takes five minutes to learn the game’s basics, and despite its simplicity, it can be quite addicting.

3) The Endless Forest

The Endless Forest is unique because it has none of the complex battles, flashy mechanics, or detailed party system backing it that many MMOs do. However, it is one of the best surreal MMOs out there, free to play, and it manages to incorporate its indie origins comfortably into the platform. You play as a deer with a human face, and your only means of communicating is through body language. Players are marked by symbols, and that is your only way of identifying them. Although there is no overarching plot or goals in the game, there are several objectives scattered in the game’s three different areas. It’s not something you would pour 100 hours into, but it’s fun nonetheless.

2) Love

That picture up there? That’s an actual screenshot. Love is a beautiful procedurally generated game that suffered from bad marketing and a terrible name. Searching for ‘love’ on Google obviously won’t get you the game, but even ‘LOVE MMO’ buries it under all the articles that glorified it. And those articles did so for good reason. The game itself has a complex lighting system and you are tasked with building your own defense system to deal with the cities that build up around you. There are many different traps to help you out, along with different sources of power to help you maintain your defenses and perhaps launch an attack against neighboring cities. The game is very complex and hard to get used to, but a video guide is well worth a watch in order to play this amazing game.

1) Fallen Earth

Fallen Earth was one of the first post-apocalyptic MMOs and perfectly blends the FPS and RPG genres. It’s seen good times and bad times as its original development team tried to manage it—and finally switched hands and went free to play on August 1, 2011. The game environment sits right next to the Grand Canyon, and the development team actually incorporated topographical maps to make the terrain. It has very good character customization and you develop your character however you want, without assigning a class to them. It has amazing graphics, although the animations will occasionally glitch while you play. Overall the game is fun to play and the weapon and trade skills will keep you interested in the game at least a few weeks.