What is the best MMORPG on PC? If you’re wondering, those oft-used letters represent the words Massively Multiplayer Online, and refer to games where thousands of players come together in the same world. Is it one with spells to sling and demons to slay? Working your way through the stars as a miner or a corporate bigwig? Solving ancient conspiracies and fighting Lovecraftian horrors? Maybe it’s all of them.
Ultimately, the deciding factor for the best MMORPGs on PC largely comes down to personal preference, so with that in mind, here’s our list of the top MMOs currently alive and kicking. You’re sure to find something that will swallow up entire days at a time, and many of these entries can also be considered some of the best PC games around. While there are plenty of new MMOs to consider, the golden oldies on this list have withstood the test of time.
Neverwinter
Neverwinter is a surprise. It is thematically Dungeons & Dragons, taking the places, classes, spells, and abilities from the tabletop game, and then cramming them inside one of the best MMORPGs. It should not work, but somehow it does. It helps that there is an earnest love for the source material, and each quest feels like one you could imagine yourself embarking upon while sitting around a table.
Play for free
Lots of free expansions – which include new races and classes – have been introduced in the time since Neverwinter launched, taking players far from the safety of Neverwinter itself, to lands like Icewind Dale, where barbarians and unpleasant temperatures are the least of your worries.
Miss Star Trek on TV? Star Trek Online might just tide you over until Discovery reappears on Paramount Plus. Each quest in this MMO is like an episode of the show, and each mission series is an arc, complete with the occasional filler episode.
Despite a rocky start, STO has grown into a gargantuan, compelling, and free MMO and one of the best space games out there; it’s frequently expanded by massive updates that add whole new storylines, and a while back the neutral Romulan faction introduced unique missions and ships.
Do you like a bit of city-building in your MMOs? If so, you’re going to love Romans: Age of Caesar as it’s a game that tasks you with helping to rebuild the Roman Empire. You’ll be working cooperatively with up to 16 other players and together you’ll have to build and maintain a city.
As you play, loads of other groups of players will be working on their own cities, and together you all form part of a large, interconnected digital empire. Sometimes you’ll need to do battle to defend yourself from oncoming barbarians, and sometimes you’ll have to create trade routes so that you can establish relationships with the other cities. There’s a lot to this game, and it’s easy to get sucked into its world.
Looking to lose yourself in an MMO with a nuanced storyline and deep battle system? Well, look no further than Wizard101. This game sees you playing as a student in the Ravenwood School for Magical Arts and you have to decide whether you want to enrol in the school for Fire, Ice, Storm, Myth, Life, Death, or Balance – each one will allow your character to learn and develop different magical abilities, all of which will drastically affect how you approach battles.
You’ll end up travelling around the fantastical world of the Spiral which, in true video game fashion, involves locales that range from winter wonderlands, to arid deserts and countless other environments. The game’s storyline involves you coming up against the school’s former necromancy teacher, Malistaire. While at first, he might seem a bit of a generic evil wizard, you’ll soon find that his motivations are much more interesting.
Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn is a story of heartwarming redemption. When it originally released, it was not very good. In fact, it was terrible. This triggered Square Enix to take drastic action – ditch the old team, hire a new team and remake Final Fantasy XIV in its entirety.
The Endwalker expansion adds new jobs (the Reaper and the Sage), locations, instances, and the long-requested male version of the Viera race. However, it’s the story that takes centre stage, concluding the events that began back in A Realm Reborn. Few MMOs receive as many quality updates and expansions, so it’s worth hopping back in if you’ve been away for a while. If you want to find out more, check out our FFXIV Endwalker review. It’s also well worth checking out our FFXIV leveling guide if you’re new to the JRPG game.
Over a decade old and still the most popular MMORPG game in the world, World of Warcraft is a bit special. During its long reign, WoW has changed a lot, introducing a number of new classes and races; just check out our WoW Dragonflight tier list for a glimpse at the most powerful character combinations that are now possible. Over the years, players have also been treated to a graphics overhaul, whole new continents… players can even travel back in time. The world is enormous, and teeming with rich, story-laden quests at every turn.
Like World of Warcraft, Runescape has been a staple of the MMORPG genre for as long as we can remember. But rather than dwindle, Runescape continues to grow in terms of both players and content. New quests and events are introduced on an almost weekly basis so that veterans always have something fresh to experience, while new players enter a world already enriched by a decade of lore and adventures.
Black Desert Online received a graphics overhaul in 2018 to remaster the original (and already gorgeous) MMO, breathing new life into the game. For what it lacks in polished dialogue, it certainly makes up for it with one of the best character creators around and a gorgeous fantasy world that you’ll want to roam around in for hours.
There’s a good chance that you’ve already heard about one of the many tales of dark bastardry that have spun out of Eve’s New Eden. It is a game of cold-hearted betrayal, mining, economics, more betrayal, more mining, and the occasional thousand-person spaceship battles.
Despite a rocky beginning, The Elder Scrolls Online remains a strong entry for one of the best MMORPGs on PC. The Elder Scrolls games are among the best RPGs around and now you can sink even more of your time into the series’ rich and vibrant universe by playing online with friends or total strangers.
In Destiny 2, you take on the role of a righteous and stalwart Guardian, defending the last city of humanity against anyone or anything that would seek to destroy it. As with most action MMOs, you begin by creating your Guardian, customising their face, hair, and body to your satisfaction. There are three classes to choose from – the shield-bearing Titan, spell-slinging Warlock, and agile Hunter. Each class comes with their own unique abilities, along with perks and upgrades to differentiate yourself from other players of your class.
Trove is an action-focused MMO, most often compared to games similar to Minecraft and one of the best building games on PC. Firstly you’ll need to build a base, a home from home, where you can fashion all sorts of creatures, weapons, and items. Once your homebase is established, you’ll be able to zip between worlds and loot dungeons and go on quests online with your friends or guild pals. Trove’s dedicated community are always updating and bringing the best mods to Trove, so there’s always something to do whether you’re improving your base or looting with your online buddies.
ArcheAge can be a very traditional MMO, with quests, factions, and a completely forgettable story. But what makes it one of the best MMORPGs is that you can ignore all of that and head into the sea.
If you’re looking for an MMO where you can sit back, relax, do a little crafting, and tend to your farm while popping out for the occasional fight and odd monster hunt, then Albion Online is not your game.
Tolkien’s world of Middle-earth is a perfect setting for an MMO. It has great characters, a massive world to explore, and everyone is always fighting.
A galaxy far, far away is the perfect setting for one of the best MMOs, so it is no surprise that BioWare’s Star Wars: The Old Republic is a winner. Play as one of eight classes, split across the Empire and Republic. Each has a detailed, dramatic story, and they are good. Surprisingly so.
Where World of Warcraft is as traditional an MMO as they come, Guild Wars 2 is the weird, contrarian opposite. Its design can be seen as an attempt to fix and improve on every broken mechanic that online games persist in pursuing, and its success in these areas makes it one of the best MMORPGs you can play.
If you didn’t expect to see World of Warcraft on this list twice then you’re severely underestimating Blizzard’s juggernaut MMO. There are thousands of World of Warcraft veterans nostalgic for the charm and challenge of the vanilla game, and the launch of WoW Classic has granted their every wish. Based on the version of Azeroth pre-Cataclysm, WoW Classic is home to veterans and newbies alike, enjoying the sense of community that emerges by necessity when you remove dungeon finders and quest markers.
New World is as much a sandbox survival game as it is a traditional RPG. It dispenses with the typical character creation of other fantasy MMOs – there are no other races aside from humans, and classes are replaced with attributes and skill systems that grant you the freedom to experiment with different character builds at your leisure. New World is set in an approximation of the 1600s, so while you can don burnished plate armour and cast spells with an elemental staff, you can also wield a musket or blunderbuss.
