What is.. VINDICTUS? 2021’s Best Free Action MMORPG?

Vindictus is a hub-based action MMORPG that utilizes what is arguably some of the best interactive action combat in the genre. This is an MMO that released 11 years ago and to date has retained a loyal playerbase of active players, continuing to push out content and new characters regularly enough to retain player interest.

I enjoy all types of MMOs. Action combat, tab-target combat. Anime aesthetic, middle-eastern aesthetic. Open-world, hub-based. If a game is good, I can have fun in it.
Vindictus handles being a hub-MMO well. You have a multitude of different “town hubs” to explore, all with their own seemingly unique NPCs specifically associated with not only the town, but also the story.
The narrative is quite prevalent.. I think there’s more quest text present in the game than I’ve ever seen in a Korean MMO. Traditionally, Korean titles have a very large focus on 3 things: Gameplay, graphics and the cash shop.
Their game has to look good and their game has to play well. If both of those conditions are met, players are going to want to spend money in their cash shop, purchasing cosmetics, character alteration services, and inevitably pay-to-advance and pay-to-win items.

Vindictus is much the same.

This is a game with, once again, arguably one of the better action combat systems out there. You have plenty of variety over your character in terms of what abilities you want to learn, enhance and pursue.
I wasn’t following a build personally so I kinda just.. YOLO’d it, but I’m well aware how an optimal build would’ve allowed me to excel at my class to a much greater degree.
I opted to select the new Tessa class, as I’d done a dedicated video on her announcement when Nexon revealed her. Not that there weren’t at least 10 other classes I was interested in trying.
She had an interesting fighting style. Much more.. mobile, I guess, than I would’ve expected her to be. I found myself, at times, missing the mark on my thrusts and ending up on the other side of the room. But I chalk this up to poor reflexes more than anything.
While Vindictus utilizes an action combat system, it takes it a step further by allowing players to interact with the environment around them and even the enemies in some instances.
You can pick objects up – you can pick enemy weapons up – heck, you can, at times, pick enemies themselves up and use all of the above as weapons. Blunt weapons, projectiles. The kinds of crazy things you can do in this game are unrivaled.

While I have a lot of fun messing around with the combat, it’s not the only focus of mine. And I’m sure a lot of fans of the game.
When you create your character, you’re given very little in the way of customization. Your character ends up looking very basic, very generic.
However after making it in-game you’ll learn that there’s so much more available to you. Either via the use of the cash shop – which is what I used, or via special vouchers obtainable in-game that allow you to purchase hairstyles, outfits and.. underwear.
Which, let’s be real here – when the underwear your character wears is shown underneath your outfit, it’s important to match everything up. Otherwise it throws the entire thing off. I’m sure all you fashionistas out there can relate and fully understand what I mean.
Customization is always a large part of the MMO-scene. Especially fashion. This is evident in games like Final Fantasy XIV and Guild Wars 2 where you don’t necessarily have as much variety and control over your character as you do in something like Black Desert or Blade & Soul.

Graphically, Vindictus is hit and miss for me. Some areas look absolutely stunning. Other times, you can see how dated the engine really is. At least pertaining to some of the environments.
For the most part this game looks great – it has very diverse areas. Deserts. Valleys. Ruins. Forests. Caves. Monsters specific to the environments you come across.
The characters themselves look better than the models found in most MMOs even released today – games like Astellia, Bless Unleashed, New World. I don’t know how Vindictus does it, but they continue to impress me with each and every new class they release.
Abilities don’t look overly flashy. I’m well aware some people find this to be a very large issue in games like Final Fantasy XIV – they think all of the special effects detract from the game. Skills all look and feel relatively believable. Impactful, for the most part.
Even the hubs themselves look decent enough. And given you’ll probably be spending a lot of time in there queueing for instances to run, they’d better be.

Progression is pretty straight-forward. For the most part, all you do is follow the narrative. It guides you through leveling, you’re provided gear to make leveling easier and honestly, while this is an MMO built around group-play, it isn’t necessary to reach endgame.
Depending on how experienced you are with the game, how casually you want to tackle things, and the class you opt to play as, leveling can be pretty quick. By the time I finished recording, I’d hit almost level 80.
While definitely not something to boast about, it did take me about 2 weeks of grinding about an hour or so each day.
Much of this was with a friend, who I’m not going to say carried me, but.. admittedly while Tessa looks incredible, I feel as though she’s a little.. weak. So. Not “carried,” so much as.. aided. She aided me in obtaining level 80-ish.
Again, this was pretty straight-forward and everything we needed was presented to us including limited customization vouchers.

Most of the game – from what I’d experienced was relatively easy for the first 60 or so levels. After approaching level 70 things began to get progressively more difficult.
While I never died, PaperCat, the person I was playing with did. More than once. And that’s okay, not everyone is a professional gamer for a living. But this added sense of danger, this level of difficulty made us pay much closer attention to mechanics during boss encounters.
When boss monsters could kill you in a few shots, you knew you had to step up your game.

Unfortunately we never reached max level or made it to end-game, but I feel as though the 15? 16 hours we poured into recording this was plenty to get an accurate gauge of much of the game.
I’m well aware raids at end-game are very difficult, and subsequently an entirely different experience to what we had during our time playing through it.

This game has some of the best action combat in the MMO genre, providing interactive engagement with environments, enemies and objects.

It has absolutely stunning character models and pretty solid graphics overall given this is 11 years old.

There are multiple hubs to move between, limiting the boredom you might otherwise feel sitting in the same area for hours on end.

There’s an actual narrative.

There’s plenty of customization, allowing players to create something truly unique.. and also simultaneously bizarre, at times.

The leveling experience is pretty easy, which means there’s no real need to repeat content or run irrelevent content to continue.

You can play the game with 1-hand.

Vindictus is published by Nexon.

Hub-MMOs aren’t for everyone. Fans of open-worlds will likely end up feeling very limited.

Instances can sometimes feel too.. “samey” and repetitious.

Limits imposed on customization mean that unless you have the vouchers necessary, you’ll end up looking fairly basic.

People claim the game is pay-to-win.

Very poor optimization.

You probably can’t play with your girlfriend or wife around.

Ultimately, Vindictus is a very fun MMO. Yes, it’s not your typical open-world experience, but for the type of MMO it is, it does things right.
It offers a fast, fluid combat system, a great looking world, a narrative, and so much more.