There was a time, around 2005 and 2006, when every new MMO was a ‘World of Warcraft killer.’ Age of Conan. All Points Bulletin. LOTR Online. The fates of these games are varied, but for the most part, they serve to prove a single point – making a successful MMO and keeping it online is tough. Originally released in 2002, that halcyon year that brought us Grand Theft Auto Vice City, Medieval Total War, and Morrowind, one massively multiplayer and FPS hybrid was formally resigned to the trash can of gaming history. But thanks to the work of cast-iron fans, 23 years later, it’s still online. A bit cyberpunk and very Deus Ex, you can play Neocron for free.
It’s the 28th century and the world as we know it is dead. After a series of nuclear wars, natural disasters, and humanity’s mass exodus to colonize other planets, only two fully functioning cities remain, the Dome of York and the eponymous Neocron. There are 12 factions, four character classes, and a dozen different career paths and specialties. An FPS game as well as an MMO, you can fight other players in PvP, or team up and explore the desolate landscape to complete PvE quests.
Take one glance at Neocron, and you’d think you were looking at the original Deus Ex. Neon lights, sci-fi weapons, a mix of melee, gun, and ability-based combat – for 2002, original developer Reakktor was striving to raise the bar. Sadly, the studio went into insolvency in 2008, and the future of Neocron became uncertain. At first, it transitioned into a community-maintained free version called Necron 2.2. When that closed down in 2012, the source code and the servers were passed to a new team called NST, the Neocron Support Team. Now, 23 years after it first launched, the online RPG is still going – and better than ever.
Reminted as Neocron Evolution, NST continues to improve and expand with a series of patches. There are HD textures, expanded zones, balance changes, and bug fixes, and you can still play the entire thing for absolutely free. The last update arrived in January, and fixed encoding issues and added some new in-game icons. A lovingly preserved relic of PC history, if you want to try Neocron for yourself, just go here.
Otherwise, you might want to try some of the best cyberpunk games, or maybe the best old games that are still available to play now.
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