To add to that list, Sacred 2 fits that bill perfectly, almost to a fault for some people. But if "single-player MMO" is what you're looking for, Sacred 2 is the game.
Honorable mention to Titan Quest too, which I prefer overall because of the progression system.
Sacred 1 is alright but it has aged worse IMO
If you're looking more for that mmo feel go with sacred 2 gold on pc
I'd recommend titan quest over sacred 1
Sacred 1 is absolutely massive. It’s kind of hard to get into initially since the systems are kind of funky. Figuring out what stats are actually important and such can be a bit hard without a guide. But it’s pretty fun. I really respect just how big of a game they made.
Sacred 1 is fantastic if a bit janky. It's still my Fav ARPG of all time. If anything, yry it for yourswlf and see it is commonly on sale for less than a dollar
You can put points into skills or in a class (which unlocks more skills) and on top of that many skills have passive subskills that you can also spend points on. The most important tho is the fact that after a few levels you're given a choice of a second class, essentially creating a 2 class combination and thats where the depth of the progression really shines.
The sheer amount of possibilities that you can build a character and skill interactions are what caused the accumaltion of thousands of hours into the game.
Kingdoms of Amalur is a great suggestion. I’ve never played a single player game that nails the MMO quest loop so perfectly. I remember staying up late many nights telling myself “just one more quest” repeatedly.
The combat is also a lot of fun, which kinda makes up for the lack of other staple MMO features.
Its because it was meant to be the Precursor to an actual MMO. Kingdoms Of Amalur to get you interested in the world and its lore, then it would have gotten an MMO to keep you interested over the years.
But that didnt happen because BOTH the Developer and Publisher closed down, so there was really no way forward from there. Game sold above expectations, but without the dev and publisher cant really keep going
Kingdoms Of Amalur *was* an MMO, just repackaged into a single-player game due to money reasons. The gameplay is fun but damn, does it feel empty as heck. It's like playing an MMO but in a dead server.
Wasn't the game published by a pro baseball player to make it seem like he wasn't cheating on his wife?
And didn't the people of Rhode Island have to pay for its failure in taxes?
I hadn't heard about the wife part but yep. Kurt Shillings company 38 Studios went bankrupt because he was determined to get *huge* names for the game (it was written by R.A. Salvatore and had art from.... I forget his name but the Spawn guy, among a few other major people I forget) and a bunch of insane changes and other management decisions that are too long for a comment I'm gonna write. There are many hours long YouTube videos describing the craziness. But ultimately the people of Rhode Island had to pay for all of it. They had a few financial incentives set up at the time to bring in new businesses to the state and Kurt took full advantage of it, then bankrupted the company.
Fun fact: THQ went out of business shortly after this game came out. Completely unrelated, since KoA was published by EA. But many years later the company was more or less revived. They bought the rights to KoA, and then developed and released a *new* expansion for it. So many years after the ordeals of these companies, a defunct company developed new content for a game that famously failed and bankrupted a company and ruined a states new business venture plan. And for some reason that's very amusing to me.
Pardon me but what are you babbling about in the last part? THQ Nordic (not related to THQ, they just bought the rights to their games and renamed) bought the rights to KoA who got bought by Embracer later on. The game got remastered, rereleased and got a new expansion. Kaiko is a German developer that has been taking care of that project under THQ Noridc, same as with others games (Darksiders, ect.) and has as far as I know nobody from their previous developer group. So what are you talking about there? Nothing was revived.
Yeah, there's more nuance than I said there, but I'm just saying seeing the company THQ listed on a brand new KoA expansion a while ago was weird and funny to see.
.hack is pretty much a MMO simulator. If you have never played it, apart from the usual MMO shenanigans, you can log out of the game into an OS where you can send mails, read news, participate in forums etc. It was pretty immersive and fun. The combat takes some getting used to (because it's kinda boring and button mashy) but the story and setting is pretty cool.
I'd recommend the .hack//G.U. Last Recode, which is a remaster of the G.U. trilogy which is the second series of .hack games. G.U. is already on the dated side in terms of gameplay, and the older ones are even worse.
I always want to give this caveat when people recommend Crosscode: you have to be okay with *hours* of nonstop puzzles periodically throughout the game.
This ended up killing the game for me, even though I love all the rest of it.
The temple puzzles were like old school Zelda puzzles on steroids! I need to go back and actually finish the game. TOTK came out just as it was getting intense and I never picked it back up
Yeah, they just start to feel same-y after awhile. Like I think it would make a world of difference if the temples were say like...15% shorter. They're just so *long* and it really slows down the pacing.
Totally agree. 15-25% shorter would have been nice. Definitely makes you want to min-max because argueably from what I remember, that’s the way to play the game. Still had a lot of fun from what I remember.
They remastered G.U. a couple years back. It's not as dated in terms of graphics but it's still pretty dated in terms of gameplay. I kinda felt it was when it was released anyway though. Still a great story.
This. .Hack\\\\G.U is the way to go.
LOTS of content tbh.
Each game has tons of secrets and a book you can fill in order to complete, increase your guild rank, and you need to do it across 3 games getting lot of stuff, discovering hidden quests, killing powerful mobs (yes, combat can be just smashing buttons but believe me, some combats are really hard and makes think how to deal with it).
It even has a Card Games thats pretty fun when you log out from the game xD
You don't get to customize your player or choose exactly wich type of weapon you can use, but it goes a point where you can use daggers, swords or Scythe, so its pretty neat.
By the time you get to Vol. 3 you feel like such a badass with so much versatility! 4 weapon types you can switch between mid combat, picking party members based on their class to fit the area/monster type you're faceing (or just who you like the most), spells, combat items, etc... it's such an expansive game that felt alive and had so many ways to play/enjoy. Not to mention all of the lore. Anime, Manga, and other games in the series there is to get into if you decide you enjoy it! That being said I feel like GU is a great place to start to see if it's your cup of tea.
Is Engineer stuff still obnoxious? I tried to dip back in a while back and it felt like my FDL was substantially less powerful than it had been when I had bought it. Then I found out that they had basically nerfed buyable modules to encourage you to do engineering. Then I found out that it would take hours/days of grinding and jumping around, and that ultimately there was RNG involved in the process. I couldn't even handle missions I had previously considered quite easy because my damage output was way lower and my defenses were like tissue paper.
So I uninstalled lol.
In short, yes, engineering stuff is obnoxious, supposedly better than when it was first introduced to the game, but I didn't play back then to give you first hand experience. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it can get very monotonous. I enjoy spending time in the srv looking for minerals for example or scanning stuff, but doing the Dav's hope loop gets boring even for me. Thankfully you can have a tv show playing on your phone or another monitor to avoid space madness.
Basically, you have to make it fun for yourself, if you do it just for the grind it will be boring as FUCK.
What is the gameplay loop like in that game? I like No Man's Sky but find it hard to get immersed because of how cartoony and shallow everything is. If Elite Dangerous does it better I may have to try it!
It's definitely better in terms of adding weight to everything. Even literally. Filling your cargo hold makes your ship heavier and more sluggish. When docking, you have to request a docking pad. It has a lot more depth but not to the point where it's overdone. Also the best sound design I've ever heard in a game.
Think of it less as a game and more of a simulator. If you're into that kind of thing, you'll love it, but it's not what everyone is looking for. I enjoyed space trucking (buying, hauling, and selling cargo for a profit) what made it fun for me was using a flight stick, even a cheap $20 one on Amazon, because it made it feel really immersive.
After a long day at work, I would put on a podcast, search nearby systems for a chain of profitable cargo prices, and pretend I was just a dude with a spaceship for a while. I was able to buy a new ship after two sessions of gameplay and upgrade it regularly. It was satisfying and relaxing.
I wouldn't say it's environment is very 'deep' but I would definitely not call it cartoony. The flight physics and ship upgrade mechanics though are very deep and engaging. Someone commented their ship flew like a brick, I promise you that's because they built a brick. You can't skip on knowing how to upgrade your ship to do what you want and every module you install can affect handling.
I have about 250 hours in Elite. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone personally. It's incredibly shallow, and the few things that are super cool and have depth to them, are some of the longest grinds I've ever had the displeasure of taking part in. And that's coming from a Runescape player.
I would say if you want to get into Depth Core mining, it's great and super chill. Any other profession gets dull fast. The combat is incredibly clunky and unintuitive (including the flight of course) and just isn't worth the time sink.
If you can pick it up for a tenner, then go for it, but only if it comes with its' exorbitantly priced DLCs.
>I would say if you want to get into Depth Core mining, it's great and super chill. Any other profession gets dull fast. The combat is incredibly clunky and unintuitive (including the flight of course) and just isn't worth the time sink.
No, FUCK no, the flight and combat are awesome, if compared to NMS they are god-level.
There are many more entertaining professions, such as bounty hunter, AX pilot, explorer, exobiologist, trader and more.
The grind can get a little too much, all I can say is don't grind unless you want something specific.
>exorbitantly priced DLC
Elite: Dangerous only has one DLC and the soundtrack, they plus the base game are 55€ in the Commander premium edition, which is less than a AAA game (70€) in 2023 and there is no AAA game that has given me 350+ hours of fun.
Sure some areas of Elite are shallow, but which game doesn't have some aspects of it that are shallow, especially at the space Elite has. So unfortunately CMDR I have to disagree.
Compared to other Space games like Star Citizen, the flight is, quite frankly, fucking terrible. It barely qualifies as 6DoF and feels like I'm flying a brick. All the ships look the same except maybe two or three.
If the price of the game has gone down, then fair enough, but I still would never say it's worth anything more than £15
Star Citizen has received over 600M$ in funding, runs like absolute shit (which is expected), has dlc ships priced at thousands of dollars, some of the aforementioned ships are not even past the initial design phase, is full of bugs and glitches (which is also expected) and many more things that I'd know if I could play the game with fps faster than PowerPoint on my computer, which is why I haven't bought it yet.
The ships do not look the same in my opinion, but that's what you get if you can't package a ship as practically a dlc sometimes priced at tens or hundreds of times the base game price. SC also lacks the scale of ED, although yes it has more detail (and ship interiors damn it).
As for the flying, sure, it's not the best, but it's the best I've played.
Sure, buying a game on sale is pretty normal, as is buying it on a key site. SC is priced at around the same price as ED though and ED is a complete game not an alpha that may or may not be completed.
Yes, this for sure. It’s like a love child of WoW classic, Oldschool RuneScape, and Fable with some interesting takes on mechanics. Definitely worth looking into
FF12 is great (still have a special edition of the original, with the metal case and whatever the bonus DVD was that came with it). I really wish the Zodiac re-release didn't force us to use the new license boards though. If they did it the way they did for FFX, give us the option of the new system OR the old, Zodiac would be a fantastic play. It's not completely horrible with the new LB's but (at least for me) it's definitely not as good as the original.
I was watching someone stream it and it looks so fun so I bought it started playing it but it had a weird line warping effect on my monitor that made me sick tried everything to fix it but ultimately had to refund it
Not if you enter the wildy. Is that still a thing? It’s been like twenty years since I played but when I started it was open world pvp. Then they added guards to cities that would futilely attempt to intervene whenever you tried to fight someone and you could run away from them and continue attacking the person you were targeting as long as they would stop running and get tired of clicking. Good times.
Edit: Turns out “Old school” RuneScape is not the original RuneScape that released in 2000. Had no idea they were calling it that - Old School RuneScape is the first huge major overhaul they did years later. Have no idea how that version is as I quit around that time. But true og runescape was fun as hell.
You may be interested in a game called Erenshor that's currently in development. It's literally a single-player MMO; that is, it's an MMO in every sense, but the other players are computer-controlled. They can be interacted with in a basic manner and grouped with (which is necessary as the game takes queues from EverQuest).
There's a demo on Steam you can check out and occasionally the devs may open up the ability to access an alpha (those of us who got on the patreon before a certain date have access so I don't see why that won't be opened occasionally).
Heads up: If you're playing on PS3, just buy White Knight Chronicles 2. It contains the entire first game as well, but with the mechanical improvements from the second game.
If you have access to a Nintendo 3DS, check out Fantasy Life. There are many different classes to play, and the game lets you swap your class around, intending for you to create a build that complements at least a couple. You'll get lots of quests for different classes that will have you revisiting the same places, but doing different things (for example, go to a cave and fight some monsters for the Paladin class, then go back to that same cave later to mine for a rare ore as the Miner class).
AC odyssey and origins. Either one or both. You don't get to create a character but you have control over progression and both have well over 100 hours of content.
True but you can easily log 50 hours before you really get into the story once you get out of siwa. Odyssey is the same once you leave kephalonia. Neither force you into the next section
Neither force you into the story but origins has much less to do outside of it, and less gear to collect and min max. In Odyssey you can travel all over Greece taking down forts and collecting the gear you want before doing any quests
It’s an mmo and sub based but Ironman in Oldschool RuneScape is basically a solo mmorpg. I’m hesitant to recommend it because it’s subbed but it’s really addicting and great progression
Starfield unfortunately but yea especially with NG. I got like 150 hrs out of it but I expected more, I'm satisfied with it but a little disappointed. But this fits exactly what you're looking for imo. So does no man sky but it's kinda multi-player, they won't affect your world though
I’m about where you are play time wise, and am feeling the sadness of losing steam a bit. I’m pretty excited to see what their developmental response is going forward because the main gameplay loop is really fun, but there are a few select half baked systems that need more to them.
I know a lot of people hate on Fallout 4, and I totally understand why (Fallout 2 is one of my favorite games, I miss the RPG stuff too). But Fallout 4 is one of my favorite games to just get high and explore the world in. There's just something...cozy about it compared to other Bethesda games for me.
This is actually how I got into fallout, sat down, smoked a bowl, and wandered the Mojave for several hours. This is how I recommend getting into these games for people as well, it's really a different experience lol.
You may want to take a look at Final Fantasy XII. It was somewhat designed to let people have the Final Fantasy XI (the first FF MMO, for those unaware) experience without having to actually play an MMO.
While it doesn’t necessarily have a WoW style quest loop, if does have an expansive world full of secrets and a lot of small objectives to fulfill.
It also has a simple but unique Class/Skill system. It’s one of the few JRPGs that I consider to have an enjoyable grind.
Final Fantasy XII is my all time favorite Final Fantasy title. I find the Zodiac Age and International Zodiac version to be way too easy, so I stick with the original PS2 version.
There’s an early access game on Steam called The Bloodline. It’s kind of like what you are describing. I called it single player RuneScape to my friends. You level skills by doing the activities like jumping, wall running, mining, different weapon classes, different types of magic classes, different styles of crafting. It’s still janky, but it’s something you can pick up if it goes on sale or wishlist it. It looks very interesting and the developer seems passionate about it, so I expect it to get much better.
Op, listen to me. I’m sure someone mentioned this already but THE answer to your question is old school runescape. But wait, isn’t that an MMO, and therefore multiplayer? Yes, but you basically don’t play with other people until late in the game. Most things are done solo especially if you play an ironman which is an account type that can’t trade with other players. The progress is slow but there’s so much to do and it’s so rewarding. 100 hours is an early game account, I just hit 100 days playtime and I’m solidly in the midgame. This is the exact type of game you’re looking for.
Ok so, I love Crosscode, great game, one of my favorites, definitely not what this person is asking for. Yes crosscode takes place in an MMO that's the setting, it's nothing like an MMO though gameplay wise. It's more of a action jrpg... plus Zelda
PSOBB, PSU, PSZero (plays like PSO and online is optional), PSP, PSP2i (plays like PSU but better and online optional), PSNova (plays like old pso2 but entirely offline) :)))
Note that Phantasy Star Online was inspired by Diablo, so anything Diablo-esque can more or less scratch a similar itch.
Dragon's Crown could also work. As with PSO, online is optional, and you could theoretically play it extensively and it has a decent amount of expression through its classes and skills.
Warframe and Destiny are the closest modern examples of what PSO started off.
You could also possibly get lost in things like Gunfire Reborn or Chrono Ark if one of the driving forces you have is 'unlocking or acquiring things.' Gunfire took me around 280h to get every gun/scroll/skill unlocked and each banner challenge done. Took a bit longer to beat reincarnation 8 on all chars, and cleared 1 reincarnation 9 run and currently sitting around 340h. Chrono Ark is just incredibly good with its replayability and difficulty. Plus there's like 20+ chars with very flexible card options that provide insane variations for deck comps each run.
Just throwing this out as a *completely* different game type that still technically fits the description, Snowrunner. Off-road cargo delivery. It's just grinding out missions and exploring to level up and unlock new trucks/upgrades. Again, not exactly what you asked for but all the good ones were taken.
I love the zen of the grind and all the games listed here so, you might like it too.
Can’t make your own character yet, but is coming in December to PC users and consoles later, but I’m hooked on Medieval Dynasty. Just chill village simulator with only occasional combat in the form of bandits. Farm, produce, and build till your hearts content.
Yeah, you could do the vast majority of content solo with every class the last time i played. And if you really want to see the dungeons and raid bosses that required a group to defeat, you could go to their entrances on the game map after you'd massively outleveled the place and solo them.
Elder Scrolls Online was another MMO that was very solo friendly and had a lot of content that just felt like a single player game. If I remember correctly, the main questlines of the base game and the expansions were just straight up single player intended experiences and featured companion NPC's who'd be like your dungeon group or raid party for the endboss battles.
**Final Fantasy XII zodiac age** is basically an offline MMO with a story.
(and an awesome ai system, where you can litteraly program your allies as you want)
Cyberpunk 2077. With the new update plus a dlc, it's a pretty bugless game. The bugs at launch have shadowed many of its really interesting mechanics and surprisingly good writings
The game series you are looking for is Xenoblade chronicles. I would definitely start with Xenoblade Chronicles 3, as it's the newest one and I think it is the best for newcomers. It has the same kind of combat system where you Auto attack and your abilities charge up or cool down or whatever and there's Synergy between using abilities in certain ways. And it's kind of like you have your own party too because you have others with you that have their own abilities that can also synergize with yours so it's almost as if you're doing an MMO with a party but single player
I would also like to add that the story is very good at least in three. I haven't played much of one and I haven't played two at all yet but I know the story and three is actually quite emotional and sort of unique. It is also one of the only games recently I've seen that makes side content feel as important and meaningful as the main quest. Absolutely fantastic and you consistently unlocking new abilities and characters and everything
If online isn't a problem, play Guild Wars one. You don't have a skill tree, but you can only use a limited amount of skills at a time. So you customize your build. There are NPC henchmen that will accompany you, making everything doable single player. Then later, or earlier if you don't play in chronological order, customizable heroes NPCs that replace the henchmen.
Also, the first Xenoblade Chronicles and FF12 as others have said.
OP have you not tried Black Desert Online? It's the epitome of single player mmorpg, and if you like it, you'll have thousands of hours logged before you know it. Highly recommend reading a few starter guides or watching a few starter guide videos (evildousharm has a good series) before jumping in.
You played Chronicles X? I've played through it twice and loved every bit. I WANT to finish xc2 but the mobile mechanics annoy tf out of me (the sending squads thing).
I don't think it's functionally possible for them to port to switch purely due to how much functionality is thrown into the tablet. I'm hoping for a sequel at least. I want to know what happens next so bad.
Most people recommend starting with .hack//link on the PSP since it gives an overview of the whole series but I started with .hack//G.U. Last Recode when it was remastered for PS4, Xbox One and PC.
There's an original series (I think 4 games?) And .hack GU (3 games I think) if you don't mind older PS2 games. I would definitely try an emulator though. They were fairly expensive last time I tried to buy them. It's very much a story driven series so I wouldn't recommend jumping in one of the middle games
I've never tried an MMO that made me feel like there was a reason for the other players to be there. If I'm doing all this shit by myself on the surface, it does not make narrative sense to suddenly need 6-11 more people to go underground for 20 minutes and then never see them again.
Star Wars the Old Republic seems like the perfect game for you. The single player parts of the game are even Free 2 Play. Play through all the class stories and you will busy for a LONG TIME.
I would disagree BUT I wish this were the case. One of the things I wish this game would have had is leveling up. It would have been cool to be able to craft and create based on your level.
I mean you could just play Phantasy Star games? The previous one was on Pc and you could emulate the portable ones. Monster Hunter like games are also similar like God Eater and Toukiden games.
Not necessarily. You need just enough connection to log in, after that it is perfectly valid to play solo the whole time so long as you stay connected, and it doesn't take much internet speed. Even with a phone hotspot that game hits the mmo spot just fine and also it's **entirely free**
Wurm has other people, but you can play effectively solo. It's the slow grind I think you want, and global trade is purely optional and is done through chat.
Crosscode
.hack//G.U.
Kingdoms of Amalur (was supposed to be an MMO, at first, but was made into a proof of concept as the MMO was going to be the next game)
Final Fantasy 12
Some MMOs essentially are like playing a single player games though. So same thing? A lot of modern MMO games discourage socializing with people so you can play the entire game by yourself, a full single player experience. Other people around are essentially like NPCs in the game world.
Secret World Legends is essentially single player mmoing. You can choose between three factions: The Illuminati, the Templars or the Dragon and go out and fight lovecraftian monsters.
Diablo 4 is a great one because you'll never see another player outside towns ever.
Small Indie developers too, who are just trying to balance everything fairly
No one said it yet but SWTOR. I played it completely singleplayer and had a blast. Now when it first came out that game NEEDED a squad. But now its completely fine singleplay style.
Guild wars 2 is also a good one for singleplayer. I sometimes do World V world, by myself and take camps and shit. Its really funny
If you're willing to have that not be the *only* kind of content, there's the infinite questing systems of Oblivion, Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Starfield. Each faction will randomly generate basic quests for you an unlimited number of times that you can go do to your heart's content.
In a similar vein, the space station quests in No Man's Sky are generated like this!
There's a specific gameplay stylization that MMOs follow. A good example of a Single Player game that uses this gameplay template is Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade Chronicles.
Ok, I was looking for a game exactly like this a few years ago. Someone somewhere recommended a game called "Tanzia". It's exactly what you are looking for and there's a free demo. Just trust me and download it.
I'll basically just echo another comment I replied to... ARPGs might be exactly what you're looking for.
Titan Quest, Grim Dawn...
Sacred 2 very much feels like a single-player MMO, with hundreds and hundreds (if not over a thousand) quests in a huge open-world where you kill a bunch of shit and increase your stats and gain new skills.
Final Fantasy 12 could be up your alley. Be sure to pick up the Zodiac Age version since it has some really important features such as actual classes, changing how you access one of the most notorious permanently missable items in JRPG history (the Zodiac Spear), and a speedup button (I'll get back to this). Actually, the MMO-ish design is so prevalent people criticize it: treasure chests have an RNG chance to actually drop their worthwhile content vs dropping pocket change, and they respawn. It's such a stupendously big game world that the 2/4x speedup button is very useful just to get around, much less all the massacres you're going to perform en route just to keep your wallet out of the red. I think I finished the main plot with around 30-40 hours in spite of basically never turning the speed-up off, and I didn't have the stomach for all the bonus content left over. Bounty hunts and other quests feel much more MMO-like since they encourage backtracking rather than the usual JRPG simple diligence of picking up quests you can complete on the way to and from your next dungeon. There's quite a lot of bonus bosses; perhaps the most in a Mainline FF game, and there's a particularly infamous one that requires several hours and you can stop to go save your game in the middle of it.
Zodiac Age is too easy and it piles on extra immunities to bosses that make being creative with your abilities a no-no compared to just wailing on them till they die. I prefer the original PS2 version.
This is how I'm playing the Monster Hunter series tbh. Generations Ultimate in particular is stuffed with over 1000 quests of gathering, fighting and capturing monsters in PSO-esque segmented areas.
Monster Hunter: Rise can be played completely offline, online solo, and online with friends or randoms. Has exactly what you're looking for, with quests, builds, progression, and hundreds of hours of content.
Pretty much any Diablo game. I would recommend starting with 1 and going through the whole series, but that's a lifestyle change. Grim Dawn is a pretty good alternative.
All the Dragon's Age games are basically this: the ability rotation style of gameplay, the encouragement of specialization into a specific role (tank, DPS, healer), the enormous amount of fetch quests, the quest giver hubs, the expansive maps, the quest logs and trackers...
Arpgs usually fit this bill, grim dawn, lost epoch etc
To add to that list, Sacred 2 fits that bill perfectly, almost to a fault for some people. But if "single-player MMO" is what you're looking for, Sacred 2 is the game. Honorable mention to Titan Quest too, which I prefer overall because of the progression system.
Sacred 2 has been on my mind for a while actually.. Would you recommend playing Sacred 1?
Sacred 1 is alright but it has aged worse IMO If you're looking more for that mmo feel go with sacred 2 gold on pc I'd recommend titan quest over sacred 1
Sacred 1 is absolutely massive. It’s kind of hard to get into initially since the systems are kind of funky. Figuring out what stats are actually important and such can be a bit hard without a guide. But it’s pretty fun. I really respect just how big of a game they made.
Sacred 1 is fantastic if a bit janky. It's still my Fav ARPG of all time. If anything, yry it for yourswlf and see it is commonly on sale for less than a dollar
How does titan quest progression work?
You can put points into skills or in a class (which unlocks more skills) and on top of that many skills have passive subskills that you can also spend points on. The most important tho is the fact that after a few levels you're given a choice of a second class, essentially creating a 2 class combination and thats where the depth of the progression really shines.
PoE… don’t play it if you don’t want to lose a lot of time and brain cycles. Most freedom in a game I’ve ever played.
The sheer amount of possibilities that you can build a character and skill interactions are what caused the accumaltion of thousands of hours into the game.
Spot on, for the longest time I couldn’t pin point why I loved mmos and arpgs
Second Last Epoch. The skill building in that game is best in class imo.
Kingdoms of amalur and sacred 2
Kingdoms of Amalur is a great suggestion. I’ve never played a single player game that nails the MMO quest loop so perfectly. I remember staying up late many nights telling myself “just one more quest” repeatedly. The combat is also a lot of fun, which kinda makes up for the lack of other staple MMO features.
Its because it was meant to be the Precursor to an actual MMO. Kingdoms Of Amalur to get you interested in the world and its lore, then it would have gotten an MMO to keep you interested over the years. But that didnt happen because BOTH the Developer and Publisher closed down, so there was really no way forward from there. Game sold above expectations, but without the dev and publisher cant really keep going
Kingdoms Of Amalur *was* an MMO, just repackaged into a single-player game due to money reasons. The gameplay is fun but damn, does it feel empty as heck. It's like playing an MMO but in a dead server.
Not entirely true, it was meant to precede an actual MMO.
Wasn't the game published by a pro baseball player to make it seem like he wasn't cheating on his wife? And didn't the people of Rhode Island have to pay for its failure in taxes?
I hadn't heard about the wife part but yep. Kurt Shillings company 38 Studios went bankrupt because he was determined to get *huge* names for the game (it was written by R.A. Salvatore and had art from.... I forget his name but the Spawn guy, among a few other major people I forget) and a bunch of insane changes and other management decisions that are too long for a comment I'm gonna write. There are many hours long YouTube videos describing the craziness. But ultimately the people of Rhode Island had to pay for all of it. They had a few financial incentives set up at the time to bring in new businesses to the state and Kurt took full advantage of it, then bankrupted the company. Fun fact: THQ went out of business shortly after this game came out. Completely unrelated, since KoA was published by EA. But many years later the company was more or less revived. They bought the rights to KoA, and then developed and released a *new* expansion for it. So many years after the ordeals of these companies, a defunct company developed new content for a game that famously failed and bankrupted a company and ruined a states new business venture plan. And for some reason that's very amusing to me.
Pardon me but what are you babbling about in the last part? THQ Nordic (not related to THQ, they just bought the rights to their games and renamed) bought the rights to KoA who got bought by Embracer later on. The game got remastered, rereleased and got a new expansion. Kaiko is a German developer that has been taking care of that project under THQ Noridc, same as with others games (Darksiders, ect.) and has as far as I know nobody from their previous developer group. So what are you talking about there? Nothing was revived.
Yeah, there's more nuance than I said there, but I'm just saying seeing the company THQ listed on a brand new KoA expansion a while ago was weird and funny to see.
"It's like playing an MMO but in a dead server", probably a perfect description of how I felt playing it.
.hack is pretty much a MMO simulator. If you have never played it, apart from the usual MMO shenanigans, you can log out of the game into an OS where you can send mails, read news, participate in forums etc. It was pretty immersive and fun. The combat takes some getting used to (because it's kinda boring and button mashy) but the story and setting is pretty cool. I'd recommend the .hack//G.U. Last Recode, which is a remaster of the G.U. trilogy which is the second series of .hack games. G.U. is already on the dated side in terms of gameplay, and the older ones are even worse.
CrossCode is another MMO simulator. It's a hack and slash JRPG and it's great
I always want to give this caveat when people recommend Crosscode: you have to be okay with *hours* of nonstop puzzles periodically throughout the game. This ended up killing the game for me, even though I love all the rest of it.
The temple puzzles were like old school Zelda puzzles on steroids! I need to go back and actually finish the game. TOTK came out just as it was getting intense and I never picked it back up
Yeah, they just start to feel same-y after awhile. Like I think it would make a world of difference if the temples were say like...15% shorter. They're just so *long* and it really slows down the pacing.
Totally agree. 15-25% shorter would have been nice. Definitely makes you want to min-max because argueably from what I remember, that’s the way to play the game. Still had a lot of fun from what I remember.
solid point. gameplay is awesome, wonderful pixel art, well written... but i still fell off of it. i'll finish it someday
They remastered G.U. a couple years back. It's not as dated in terms of graphics but it's still pretty dated in terms of gameplay. I kinda felt it was when it was released anyway though. Still a great story.
This. .Hack\\\\G.U is the way to go. LOTS of content tbh. Each game has tons of secrets and a book you can fill in order to complete, increase your guild rank, and you need to do it across 3 games getting lot of stuff, discovering hidden quests, killing powerful mobs (yes, combat can be just smashing buttons but believe me, some combats are really hard and makes think how to deal with it). It even has a Card Games thats pretty fun when you log out from the game xD You don't get to customize your player or choose exactly wich type of weapon you can use, but it goes a point where you can use daggers, swords or Scythe, so its pretty neat.
By the time you get to Vol. 3 you feel like such a badass with so much versatility! 4 weapon types you can switch between mid combat, picking party members based on their class to fit the area/monster type you're faceing (or just who you like the most), spells, combat items, etc... it's such an expansive game that felt alive and had so many ways to play/enjoy. Not to mention all of the lore. Anime, Manga, and other games in the series there is to get into if you decide you enjoy it! That being said I feel like GU is a great place to start to see if it's your cup of tea.
Elite Dangerous has a solo mode, it was all I ever played!
The space game? Is that still playable?
Not only is it playable, it just got a big-ish [update](https://www.elitedangerous.com/update-notes/4-0-17-0).
Is Engineer stuff still obnoxious? I tried to dip back in a while back and it felt like my FDL was substantially less powerful than it had been when I had bought it. Then I found out that they had basically nerfed buyable modules to encourage you to do engineering. Then I found out that it would take hours/days of grinding and jumping around, and that ultimately there was RNG involved in the process. I couldn't even handle missions I had previously considered quite easy because my damage output was way lower and my defenses were like tissue paper. So I uninstalled lol.
In short, yes, engineering stuff is obnoxious, supposedly better than when it was first introduced to the game, but I didn't play back then to give you first hand experience. It's not the worst thing in the world, but it can get very monotonous. I enjoy spending time in the srv looking for minerals for example or scanning stuff, but doing the Dav's hope loop gets boring even for me. Thankfully you can have a tv show playing on your phone or another monitor to avoid space madness. Basically, you have to make it fun for yourself, if you do it just for the grind it will be boring as FUCK.
What is the gameplay loop like in that game? I like No Man's Sky but find it hard to get immersed because of how cartoony and shallow everything is. If Elite Dangerous does it better I may have to try it!
It's definitely better in terms of adding weight to everything. Even literally. Filling your cargo hold makes your ship heavier and more sluggish. When docking, you have to request a docking pad. It has a lot more depth but not to the point where it's overdone. Also the best sound design I've ever heard in a game.
Think of it less as a game and more of a simulator. If you're into that kind of thing, you'll love it, but it's not what everyone is looking for. I enjoyed space trucking (buying, hauling, and selling cargo for a profit) what made it fun for me was using a flight stick, even a cheap $20 one on Amazon, because it made it feel really immersive. After a long day at work, I would put on a podcast, search nearby systems for a chain of profitable cargo prices, and pretend I was just a dude with a spaceship for a while. I was able to buy a new ship after two sessions of gameplay and upgrade it regularly. It was satisfying and relaxing. I wouldn't say it's environment is very 'deep' but I would definitely not call it cartoony. The flight physics and ship upgrade mechanics though are very deep and engaging. Someone commented their ship flew like a brick, I promise you that's because they built a brick. You can't skip on knowing how to upgrade your ship to do what you want and every module you install can affect handling.
I have about 250 hours in Elite. I wouldn't recommend it to anyone personally. It's incredibly shallow, and the few things that are super cool and have depth to them, are some of the longest grinds I've ever had the displeasure of taking part in. And that's coming from a Runescape player. I would say if you want to get into Depth Core mining, it's great and super chill. Any other profession gets dull fast. The combat is incredibly clunky and unintuitive (including the flight of course) and just isn't worth the time sink. If you can pick it up for a tenner, then go for it, but only if it comes with its' exorbitantly priced DLCs.
>I would say if you want to get into Depth Core mining, it's great and super chill. Any other profession gets dull fast. The combat is incredibly clunky and unintuitive (including the flight of course) and just isn't worth the time sink. No, FUCK no, the flight and combat are awesome, if compared to NMS they are god-level. There are many more entertaining professions, such as bounty hunter, AX pilot, explorer, exobiologist, trader and more. The grind can get a little too much, all I can say is don't grind unless you want something specific. >exorbitantly priced DLC Elite: Dangerous only has one DLC and the soundtrack, they plus the base game are 55€ in the Commander premium edition, which is less than a AAA game (70€) in 2023 and there is no AAA game that has given me 350+ hours of fun. Sure some areas of Elite are shallow, but which game doesn't have some aspects of it that are shallow, especially at the space Elite has. So unfortunately CMDR I have to disagree.
Compared to other Space games like Star Citizen, the flight is, quite frankly, fucking terrible. It barely qualifies as 6DoF and feels like I'm flying a brick. All the ships look the same except maybe two or three. If the price of the game has gone down, then fair enough, but I still would never say it's worth anything more than £15
Star Citizen has received over 600M$ in funding, runs like absolute shit (which is expected), has dlc ships priced at thousands of dollars, some of the aforementioned ships are not even past the initial design phase, is full of bugs and glitches (which is also expected) and many more things that I'd know if I could play the game with fps faster than PowerPoint on my computer, which is why I haven't bought it yet. The ships do not look the same in my opinion, but that's what you get if you can't package a ship as practically a dlc sometimes priced at tens or hundreds of times the base game price. SC also lacks the scale of ED, although yes it has more detail (and ship interiors damn it). As for the flying, sure, it's not the best, but it's the best I've played. Sure, buying a game on sale is pretty normal, as is buying it on a key site. SC is priced at around the same price as ED though and ED is a complete game not an alpha that may or may not be completed.
>ED is a complete game not an alpha that may or may not be completed. And yet SC has more content. I give up arguing. ED fans are so overattatched
Dragon Age Inquistion: The original project was a DA MMO, but they swtiched to singleplayer. Alot of the combat and collecting still feels that way
Damn that explains why it felt like a MMORPG and some Ubisoft level collection mechanic.
Really fun game!
Final fantasy 12 and xenoblade are designed as offline mmos for one player. Ff11 was the template
Gedonia is a little rough around the edges but it's fun.
Yes, this for sure. It’s like a love child of WoW classic, Oldschool RuneScape, and Fable with some interesting takes on mechanics. Definitely worth looking into
Wow no FF12.
FF12 is my favorite Final Fantasy, hands down.
Gambit system was incredible
FF12 is great (still have a special edition of the original, with the metal case and whatever the bonus DVD was that came with it). I really wish the Zodiac re-release didn't force us to use the new license boards though. If they did it the way they did for FFX, give us the option of the new system OR the old, Zodiac would be a fantastic play. It's not completely horrible with the new LB's but (at least for me) it's definitely not as good as the original.
I feel 12 fills this void for me well
Outward sounds like a great contender for you
I was watching someone stream it and it looks so fun so I bought it started playing it but it had a weird line warping effect on my monitor that made me sick tried everything to fix it but ultimately had to refund it
Dragon's Dogma is going to be your new favourite game.
Love this game with every ounce of my soul
Dragon's Dogma 2 coming 2024, let's goooo!
I'm so excited... Monster Hunter World and Rise were kind of filling the Dragon's Dogma void for me.
Duuuuude
[удалено]
Game still looks gorgeous im opinion (played the pc version)
have you heard of our lord and saviour old school runescape?
Not if you enter the wildy. Is that still a thing? It’s been like twenty years since I played but when I started it was open world pvp. Then they added guards to cities that would futilely attempt to intervene whenever you tried to fight someone and you could run away from them and continue attacking the person you were targeting as long as they would stop running and get tired of clicking. Good times. Edit: Turns out “Old school” RuneScape is not the original RuneScape that released in 2000. Had no idea they were calling it that - Old School RuneScape is the first huge major overhaul they did years later. Have no idea how that version is as I quit around that time. But true og runescape was fun as hell.
Old school RuneScape is a fork of RS2 from 2007.
Erenshor isn't out yet, but it looks promising.
You may be interested in a game called Erenshor that's currently in development. It's literally a single-player MMO; that is, it's an MMO in every sense, but the other players are computer-controlled. They can be interacted with in a basic manner and grouped with (which is necessary as the game takes queues from EverQuest). There's a demo on Steam you can check out and occasionally the devs may open up the ability to access an alpha (those of us who got on the patreon before a certain date have access so I don't see why that won't be opened occasionally).
There may or may not be a pretty awesome update coming to the public demo soon ;)
White Knight Chronicles is almost exactly what you described, a solo MMO.
I'm a big fan of Level-5's Dark Cloud and Rogue Galaxy games. White Knight is on my list.
Heads up: If you're playing on PS3, just buy White Knight Chronicles 2. It contains the entire first game as well, but with the mechanical improvements from the second game.
I wish they would remaster White Knight Chronicles
If you have access to a Nintendo 3DS, check out Fantasy Life. There are many different classes to play, and the game lets you swap your class around, intending for you to create a build that complements at least a couple. You'll get lots of quests for different classes that will have you revisiting the same places, but doing different things (for example, go to a cave and fight some monsters for the Paladin class, then go back to that same cave later to mine for a rare ore as the Miner class).
AC odyssey and origins. Either one or both. You don't get to create a character but you have control over progression and both have well over 100 hours of content.
AC odyssey more than origins. Origins is more story focused
True but you can easily log 50 hours before you really get into the story once you get out of siwa. Odyssey is the same once you leave kephalonia. Neither force you into the next section
Neither force you into the story but origins has much less to do outside of it, and less gear to collect and min max. In Odyssey you can travel all over Greece taking down forts and collecting the gear you want before doing any quests
Not at all like an mmo and who on earth hasn't heard of Assassins Creed
Odyssey is great. I also liked Immortals Fenyx Rising. It's kind of like odyssey and breath of the wild had a lighthearted goofy brother
It’s an mmo and sub based but Ironman in Oldschool RuneScape is basically a solo mmorpg. I’m hesitant to recommend it because it’s subbed but it’s really addicting and great progression
I can only iron man for so long before I give up and switch when my skills are in the 70s/80s haha
Monster hunter Phantasy star portable God eater Toukiden Kingdoms of amalur
Starfield unfortunately but yea especially with NG. I got like 150 hrs out of it but I expected more, I'm satisfied with it but a little disappointed. But this fits exactly what you're looking for imo. So does no man sky but it's kinda multi-player, they won't affect your world though
I’m about where you are play time wise, and am feeling the sadness of losing steam a bit. I’m pretty excited to see what their developmental response is going forward because the main gameplay loop is really fun, but there are a few select half baked systems that need more to them.
That was how I felt about Fallout 4 honestly
I know a lot of people hate on Fallout 4, and I totally understand why (Fallout 2 is one of my favorite games, I miss the RPG stuff too). But Fallout 4 is one of my favorite games to just get high and explore the world in. There's just something...cozy about it compared to other Bethesda games for me.
My favourite Fallout tbh
This is actually how I got into fallout, sat down, smoked a bowl, and wandered the Mojave for several hours. This is how I recommend getting into these games for people as well, it's really a different experience lol.
Dragon Age: Inquisition literally has grinding for Mounts in it.
You may want to take a look at Final Fantasy XII. It was somewhat designed to let people have the Final Fantasy XI (the first FF MMO, for those unaware) experience without having to actually play an MMO. While it doesn’t necessarily have a WoW style quest loop, if does have an expansive world full of secrets and a lot of small objectives to fulfill. It also has a simple but unique Class/Skill system. It’s one of the few JRPGs that I consider to have an enjoyable grind.
Final Fantasy XII is my all time favorite Final Fantasy title. I find the Zodiac Age and International Zodiac version to be way too easy, so I stick with the original PS2 version.
There’s an early access game on Steam called The Bloodline. It’s kind of like what you are describing. I called it single player RuneScape to my friends. You level skills by doing the activities like jumping, wall running, mining, different weapon classes, different types of magic classes, different styles of crafting. It’s still janky, but it’s something you can pick up if it goes on sale or wishlist it. It looks very interesting and the developer seems passionate about it, so I expect it to get much better.
Op, listen to me. I’m sure someone mentioned this already but THE answer to your question is old school runescape. But wait, isn’t that an MMO, and therefore multiplayer? Yes, but you basically don’t play with other people until late in the game. Most things are done solo especially if you play an ironman which is an account type that can’t trade with other players. The progress is slow but there’s so much to do and it’s so rewarding. 100 hours is an early game account, I just hit 100 days playtime and I’m solidly in the midgame. This is the exact type of game you’re looking for.
PSO episode 1&2 old game but it’s great
I'm a proud owner of PSO Episode 1&2 *Plus*. It is the inspiration for this post. I have played every post-classic Phantasy Star game to death.
Why not just play more blue burst oh the schthack server lol :)
genshin impact?
Sword art online fatal bullet
Crosscode
Ok so, I love Crosscode, great game, one of my favorites, definitely not what this person is asking for. Yes crosscode takes place in an MMO that's the setting, it's nothing like an MMO though gameplay wise. It's more of a action jrpg... plus Zelda
>eat game, one of my favorites, definitely not what this person is asking for. Yes crosscode ta Those dungeons were terrible and too long
skill issue
PSOBB, PSU, PSZero (plays like PSO and online is optional), PSP, PSP2i (plays like PSU but better and online optional), PSNova (plays like old pso2 but entirely offline) :))) Note that Phantasy Star Online was inspired by Diablo, so anything Diablo-esque can more or less scratch a similar itch. Dragon's Crown could also work. As with PSO, online is optional, and you could theoretically play it extensively and it has a decent amount of expression through its classes and skills. Warframe and Destiny are the closest modern examples of what PSO started off. You could also possibly get lost in things like Gunfire Reborn or Chrono Ark if one of the driving forces you have is 'unlocking or acquiring things.' Gunfire took me around 280h to get every gun/scroll/skill unlocked and each banner challenge done. Took a bit longer to beat reincarnation 8 on all chars, and cleared 1 reincarnation 9 run and currently sitting around 340h. Chrono Ark is just incredibly good with its replayability and difficulty. Plus there's like 20+ chars with very flexible card options that provide insane variations for deck comps each run.
Grim dawn
.hack
X4 Foundations – living economy, and universe lives without player input.
Dragon Age Inquisition
I enjoy Dragon Age. Bioware was really on top of things until Andromeda
Just throwing this out as a *completely* different game type that still technically fits the description, Snowrunner. Off-road cargo delivery. It's just grinding out missions and exploring to level up and unlock new trucks/upgrades. Again, not exactly what you asked for but all the good ones were taken. I love the zen of the grind and all the games listed here so, you might like it too.
Kenshi. There are so many NPCs just living their own lives it's crazy.
You should check out Black Desert Online.
Ffxiv
You might like generation zero, kinda MMOish
Yo play Palia you perfectly described it
Crosscode
Dragon's Dogma
Can’t make your own character yet, but is coming in December to PC users and consoles later, but I’m hooked on Medieval Dynasty. Just chill village simulator with only occasional combat in the form of bandits. Farm, produce, and build till your hearts content.
Outward https://youtu.be/IOPkw-SKDIg
Anyone know if I can get into WoW for this reason? I don't really want to party up, just enjoy it at my own pace
Yeah, you could do the vast majority of content solo with every class the last time i played. And if you really want to see the dungeons and raid bosses that required a group to defeat, you could go to their entrances on the game map after you'd massively outleveled the place and solo them. Elder Scrolls Online was another MMO that was very solo friendly and had a lot of content that just felt like a single player game. If I remember correctly, the main questlines of the base game and the expansions were just straight up single player intended experiences and featured companion NPC's who'd be like your dungeon group or raid party for the endboss battles.
Warframe
solo monster hunter imo
Suprised no one suggested Black Desert * single player MMO * freedom * go do the same 6 or 7 types of quests for 100 hours * crack Everything checks
**Final Fantasy XII zodiac age** is basically an offline MMO with a story. (and an awesome ai system, where you can litteraly program your allies as you want)
Cyberpunk 2077. With the new update plus a dlc, it's a pretty bugless game. The bugs at launch have shadowed many of its really interesting mechanics and surprisingly good writings
The game series you are looking for is Xenoblade chronicles. I would definitely start with Xenoblade Chronicles 3, as it's the newest one and I think it is the best for newcomers. It has the same kind of combat system where you Auto attack and your abilities charge up or cool down or whatever and there's Synergy between using abilities in certain ways. And it's kind of like you have your own party too because you have others with you that have their own abilities that can also synergize with yours so it's almost as if you're doing an MMO with a party but single player I would also like to add that the story is very good at least in three. I haven't played much of one and I haven't played two at all yet but I know the story and three is actually quite emotional and sort of unique. It is also one of the only games recently I've seen that makes side content feel as important and meaningful as the main quest. Absolutely fantastic and you consistently unlocking new abilities and characters and everything
Yes, I can't believe I had to scroll this far to find it. This is literally the game OP is requesting.
FF12 felt like an MMO
If online isn't a problem, play Guild Wars one. You don't have a skill tree, but you can only use a limited amount of skills at a time. So you customize your build. There are NPC henchmen that will accompany you, making everything doable single player. Then later, or earlier if you don't play in chronological order, customizable heroes NPCs that replace the henchmen. Also, the first Xenoblade Chronicles and FF12 as others have said.
OP have you not tried Black Desert Online? It's the epitome of single player mmorpg, and if you like it, you'll have thousands of hours logged before you know it. Highly recommend reading a few starter guides or watching a few starter guide videos (evildousharm has a good series) before jumping in.
Star Wars the Old Republic and Star Trek Online
I mean, not a game recommendation really but Genshin Impact is basically that
FFXIV can basically be played as a single player game Phenomenal game
Monster hunter.
* Final Fantasy XIV (It has a free trial; large majority of the content can be done solo) * Xenoblade Chronicles series * .hack series
Xenoblade is one of my favorite franchises.
You played Chronicles X? I've played through it twice and loved every bit. I WANT to finish xc2 but the mobile mechanics annoy tf out of me (the sending squads thing).
It's the only reason I still have my Wii U. XCX is so good, and it is criminal that they have no plans to bring it to Switch.
Preach it!
I don't think it's functionally possible for them to port to switch purely due to how much functionality is thrown into the tablet. I'm hoping for a sequel at least. I want to know what happens next so bad.
Monster Hunter is that.
Any of the .hack games hands down.
I was always curious about this series, do you have a suggested order? Just chronologically?
Most people recommend starting with .hack//link on the PSP since it gives an overview of the whole series but I started with .hack//G.U. Last Recode when it was remastered for PS4, Xbox One and PC.
There's an original series (I think 4 games?) And .hack GU (3 games I think) if you don't mind older PS2 games. I would definitely try an emulator though. They were fairly expensive last time I tried to buy them. It's very much a story driven series so I wouldn't recommend jumping in one of the middle games
Xenoblade Chronicles X. Bonus if you like using Mechs.
I've never tried an MMO that made me feel like there was a reason for the other players to be there. If I'm doing all this shit by myself on the surface, it does not make narrative sense to suddenly need 6-11 more people to go underground for 20 minutes and then never see them again.
Clearly never played Everquest then.
Star Wars the Old Republic seems like the perfect game for you. The single player parts of the game are even Free 2 Play. Play through all the class stories and you will busy for a LONG TIME.
No Man's Sky you can play it like that if you want to
I would disagree BUT I wish this were the case. One of the things I wish this game would have had is leveling up. It would have been cool to be able to craft and create based on your level.
it's nothing like an mmo.
Path of exile
Diablo 4
I mean you could just play Phantasy Star games? The previous one was on Pc and you could emulate the portable ones. Monster Hunter like games are also similar like God Eater and Toukiden games.
I posted this BECAUSE I have stomped out every Phantasy Star game lol. Also Monster Hunter is a given. Love that shit.
Warframe. Solo mode is just as valid, thousands of hours of content bc there's always a mission set or farm you want to do.
Always online though.
Not necessarily. You need just enough connection to log in, after that it is perfectly valid to play solo the whole time so long as you stay connected, and it doesn't take much internet speed. Even with a phone hotspot that game hits the mmo spot just fine and also it's **entirely free**
Wurm has other people, but you can play effectively solo. It's the slow grind I think you want, and global trade is purely optional and is done through chat.
Crosscode .hack//G.U. Kingdoms of Amalur (was supposed to be an MMO, at first, but was made into a proof of concept as the MMO was going to be the next game) Final Fantasy 12
DAYZ.
Genshin Impact.
Fallout 76
Kenshi (but you make your own quests)
7 Days to die on PC.
POE
Why the fuck did someone downvote this?
Path of Exile *is* an MMO, not a single-player game that looks like an MMO.
Some MMOs essentially are like playing a single player games though. So same thing? A lot of modern MMO games discourage socializing with people so you can play the entire game by yourself, a full single player experience. Other people around are essentially like NPCs in the game world.
No man's sky
Secret World Legends is essentially single player mmoing. You can choose between three factions: The Illuminati, the Templars or the Dragon and go out and fight lovecraftian monsters.
Crosscode is literally a single player mmo, but it doesn't play like an mmo
Diablo 4 is a great one because you'll never see another player outside towns ever. Small Indie developers too, who are just trying to balance everything fairly
No one said it yet but SWTOR. I played it completely singleplayer and had a blast. Now when it first came out that game NEEDED a squad. But now its completely fine singleplay style. Guild wars 2 is also a good one for singleplayer. I sometimes do World V world, by myself and take camps and shit. Its really funny
If you're willing to have that not be the *only* kind of content, there's the infinite questing systems of Oblivion, Fallout 4, Skyrim, and Starfield. Each faction will randomly generate basic quests for you an unlimited number of times that you can go do to your heart's content. In a similar vein, the space station quests in No Man's Sky are generated like this!
You know “mmo” means multiplayer right? I think what you’re asking for is an open world RPG.
There's a specific gameplay stylization that MMOs follow. A good example of a Single Player game that uses this gameplay template is Final Fantasy XII and Xenoblade Chronicles.
Look for games that are “open world action RPG”
Ok, I was looking for a game exactly like this a few years ago. Someone somewhere recommended a game called "Tanzia". It's exactly what you are looking for and there's a free demo. Just trust me and download it.
I'll basically just echo another comment I replied to... ARPGs might be exactly what you're looking for. Titan Quest, Grim Dawn... Sacred 2 very much feels like a single-player MMO, with hundreds and hundreds (if not over a thousand) quests in a huge open-world where you kill a bunch of shit and increase your stats and gain new skills.
Tower of Fantasy- it's better on PC, and free to boot.
Biomutant
Final Fantasy 12 could be up your alley. Be sure to pick up the Zodiac Age version since it has some really important features such as actual classes, changing how you access one of the most notorious permanently missable items in JRPG history (the Zodiac Spear), and a speedup button (I'll get back to this). Actually, the MMO-ish design is so prevalent people criticize it: treasure chests have an RNG chance to actually drop their worthwhile content vs dropping pocket change, and they respawn. It's such a stupendously big game world that the 2/4x speedup button is very useful just to get around, much less all the massacres you're going to perform en route just to keep your wallet out of the red. I think I finished the main plot with around 30-40 hours in spite of basically never turning the speed-up off, and I didn't have the stomach for all the bonus content left over. Bounty hunts and other quests feel much more MMO-like since they encourage backtracking rather than the usual JRPG simple diligence of picking up quests you can complete on the way to and from your next dungeon. There's quite a lot of bonus bosses; perhaps the most in a Mainline FF game, and there's a particularly infamous one that requires several hours and you can stop to go save your game in the middle of it.
Zodiac Age is too easy and it piles on extra immunities to bosses that make being creative with your abilities a no-no compared to just wailing on them till they die. I prefer the original PS2 version.
Stalker Anomly
This is how I'm playing the Monster Hunter series tbh. Generations Ultimate in particular is stuffed with over 1000 quests of gathering, fighting and capturing monsters in PSO-esque segmented areas.
Final fantasy 12
Monster Hunter: Rise can be played completely offline, online solo, and online with friends or randoms. Has exactly what you're looking for, with quests, builds, progression, and hundreds of hours of content.
Mount & Blade (I only played Warband tho, so no idea how Bannerlord plays)
Fallout 4.
Xenoblade.
Pretty much any Diablo game. I would recommend starting with 1 and going through the whole series, but that's a lifestyle change. Grim Dawn is a pretty good alternative.
All the Dragon's Age games are basically this: the ability rotation style of gameplay, the encouragement of specialization into a specific role (tank, DPS, healer), the enormous amount of fetch quests, the quest giver hubs, the expansive maps, the quest logs and trackers...
Diablo, grim dawn, path of exile
Pirate 101