10 Fun Free to Play MMORPG Games Nobody Plays in 2020!

I know what you guys are thinking: “But Stix, if nobody plays these games.. then there must be a reason behind it, right?”
Right, obviously. There are any number of reasons behind the failure of a game. The marketing may have been terrible, the developers could be terrible, heck, one of the biggest reasons is the fact that the game is probably terrible.
Regardless, these are games that I think are missed opportunities. Games we may have overlooked at one point or another. These are no doubt going to be pretty obscure games so keep that in mind.
Now I’m not saying you necessarily need to play these, nor are these games MMOs from 2019 or 2020. So do keep that in mind!

I’m gonna go ahead and start this off with Rift. This is probably one of the highest quality free to play traditional MMORPGs out there.
The game released initially back in March 2011 as a pay to play title – meaning you were required to not only purchase the base game, but continue to pay a monthly subscription fee.
This was Trion’s response to World of Warcraft: Attempting to make a WoW-clone to piggyback off of the successful model that WoW had going.
While initial reviews were actually generally positive, with Trion announcing that within a mere few months, they had over 1 million active subscribers, people lost interest very quickly. In 2013 the game went free to play, and has continued to remain as such to this day.
Rift is a very traditional MMO: It features a large, open world to explore, employs a tab-target combat style and features a faction PvP system, pitting the two factions against one another.
Honestly, the game could have been incredible, but ultimately.. Trion being Trion just mismanaged the game and let it die off.

Scions of Fate is an MMORPG released back in November, 2006. As I’m sure you can believe, the game was incredibly popular in both South Korea and China, having over 100 million registered players within those two regions alone.
While it never met with much in the way of popularity over here in the West, it had its own unique little spin on the genre.
Where in most MMOs you quest, follow through a storyline and are lead from area to area in a linear fashion, in Scions of Fate quests are scarce, and the primary form of progression is in the form of grinding.
This makes it difficult to level up, especially if you’re against hitting the same monster type for hours at a time.
Since the game was released what seems like an eternity ago, the tab-target combat is noticeably.. dated. It’s slow, it’s clunky and it’s difficult to use. This definitely makes grinding a much more arduous experience than it needs to be, but I feel like most grindy Eastern MMOs play more or less the same way.
Like Rift, Scions of Fate also features a faction system, with players being able to choose between 2 unique factions. But honestly.. I don’t think it really changes anything.
While this isn’t anything special, it offers a fun, cute Eastern experience if you’re into grinding, which if Black Desert is anything to go off of.. a lot of you are.

I have a bit of a history with this game, I’ll admit. There was some guy, when I first started the channel, that swore to Bob that this was the be-all and end-all – the pinnacle of MMO perfection.
Now I’ll be the first to admit, Rappelz is a unique game, for sure, but let’s be real.. that’s a stretch of the imagination for any game. But I digress.
Rappelz was released back in November 2006, and at the time it was a pretty popular MMO. This is due to the fairly well thought out pet system that allows players to capture and train pretty much every single creature found in-game.
This was pretty rare at the time and honestly, to date still holds up pretty damn well. It also has well over 30 different classes, with each base class having various branches at several points throughout the leveling process.
The tab-target combat is better than some of the MMOs released around its time, but is still pretty slow and cumbersome.
I bet if you’re a fan of monster-collecting in games, you’ll probably love this. You just have to deal with a slower combat system.

Seal Online is probably one of the oldest Anime MMOs I’ve ever played, having been released back in July 2003. Yes, this actually predates World of Warcraft.
And you know what? Considering when this game released, you wouldn’t think it’d look nearly as good as it does. This looks better than games released years after it.
I’m gonna be honest with you all though.. Yes, Seal Online is a very cute looking Anime MMO, yes it has some pretty solid tab-target combat considering when it was released, and yes it’s very traditional.
However, what stood out to me more than anything else was the fact that the population in-game was incredibly large. Like, Fiesta Online is considered to be a better looking MMO but the sheer amount of players in Seal is ridiculously large, significantly more so than Fiesta.
There’s plenty in-game to explore, although in the way of segregated zones if I recall, but overall it’s just a very basic, very traditional, densely populated Anime MMO – and those are in short supply these days.

Requiem: Memento Mori which I’m going to refer to purely as “Requiem” because otherwise we’ll be here all day, was released back in June 2008. This is the only dark, gruesome horror-themed MMORPG I’ve ever played.
And I’ve played literally every single MMO that has been released in the last 20 years.. or near enough to it.
Seriously, although yes the combat is tab-target, it’s also incredibly fast, very fluid and more interestingly.. the combat actually allows for you to dismember monsters.
As in, while fighting you’re capable of chopping off arms, decapitating, cutting into them, watching guts flow out, seeing pools of blood fill up underneath them.
This is something I’ve never seen done before in an MMO. Requiem is also very large, featuring an open-world for players to explore. The only issue I found with the game was the absence of any other players, which was a little disheartening.
I believe I saw maybe 2 other people within a 6 hour period.

Shaiya is an MMORPG released back in 2007. It’s a pretty solid looking title graphically that features two different factions you can choose between, allowing for faction vs faction PvP. Interestingly, there are also additional game modes when playing.
You have the option to play on the normal server, which is where I’m sure most the playerbase plays, and then the Hardcore server – which is where I played.
The Hardcore server is true to its name, it’s a permadeath server. As in, if you die.. you die. That’s it. End of character. However, rewards for.. pretty much everything are significantly greater.
I’ve never played a permadeath MMO before – well, not longer than a few hours because I couldn’t justify the time investment.
The combat is tab-target, and honestly isn’t half bad. It’s a little slow but I mean it was released in the mid-2000s, so you can’t really complain.
Realistically, I’ve heard a lot of good things about Shaiya and I’m always being told to jump back in. There are enough players to warrant that, I’m just not sure what version of the game they’re playing.

Despite releasing back in February 2008, Cabal actually looks a little older than games released before it. However even so, by today’s standards the game has quite a decent population.
Unlike pretty much any other game in this list, Cabal is a PvP MMO – having a large focus on open-world PvP.
Progress is handled much in the way the majority of MMOs released around the late 2000s did: It features a pretty linear vertical form of progression, having you run from hub to hub, taking quests, leveling and progressing towards endgame.
Which is over level 200, by the way. Yup – and while that’s kind of an absurd number, it’s not nearly as bad as you’d expect it to be. Surprisingly, even though the game definitely looks more dated than most, the combat feels the complete opposite.
While tab-target, it’s fast, very fluid and offers some of the best special effects I’ve seen in a game from that time.
If you’re into a heavy grind at endgame then Cabal’s probably something you’ll be interested in. You just need to avoid all the gold sellers.

Rohan: Blood Feud, which I’m going to refer to as Rohan for the same reasons as Requiem was released back in May 2008.
Now while I’ve done dedicated videos on every game in this list, Rohan was perhaps the most interesting to me as over the course of a mere couple hours, I had made it to almost level 60 – something I’ve never seen in an MMO.
Like Cabal, Rohan features an open-world PvP system. It seems like games made before.. 2012? I guess were all pretty heavy on the open-world PvP thing, but one thing Rohan did differently.. was introduce a Vengeance system, allowing for players to level up exclusively through killing other players.
This meant that you weren’t required to quest, you weren’t required to kill monsters.. you could actually obtain all the XP you wanted through killing players.
While I’m sure that’s likely not possible anymore due to the lack of a playerbase, I think it’s pretty cool providing new ways to level – ways that are completely out of the ordinary.
One thing worth noting is that the game’s tab-target combat is a little slow.. this could make PvP a little less enjoyable. Much like Cabal though, if you like grinding.. this might interest you.

Savage Hunt was released back in September 2013. It was released under a different name, “Dragon’s Prophet,” granted, but hey.. it’s called Savage Hunt now.
This is the game that people played before Riders of Icarus, and you can see why. While Riders of Icarus allowed for the capture of any monster, Savage Hunt allows you to capture one of several hundred different species of Dragon.
Not only can you tame them, but you can also turn them into mounts and fly around on them – which yes, there is actual flight in-game.
Honestly, the game looks pretty damn good visually, and the combat, which is mostly free-aim action with some aim-assist for ranged classes is pretty effective.
Like games released in the mid 2010s, the game is significantly less grindy, and instead is much more focused on questing, running instances and taming your Poke-er, dragons.
If you’re a fan of Riders of Icarus, taming monsters or.. well, if you’re a fan of either of those then I recommend giving this a try. It’s definitely a unique experience you won’t really find anywhere else.

I feel like a lot of these game came out around 2004.. I promise that wasn’t intended, and is completely coincidental. Now Ran Online.. is uh.. well the setting is what drove me to the game.
I’d watched tons of Anime like Tenjou Tenge that dealt with delinquents fighting in school and Ran Online felt like I was essentially playing through one of them. There are several different “schools” you can choose from, with the majority of the game taking place on the school campus.
But other than the setting, the game plays much like every other MMO, however it’s also incredibly grindy with a level cap of what, nearing 300 by this point? Interestingly, the game is quite PvP focused with schools going to battle with one another, although honestly I never got to experience it myself.
This is one of the only games that allow you to play on a school campus and essentially bully the other schools and school students, and that’s funny to me.

And.. they’re 10 MMOs that I think are all unique and interesting yet no longer played for whatever reason.