The top free MMORPG 2017 list is here! If you are interested in playing something new or just want to check out what the MMORPG industry has to offer in 2017, take a look at this list of the most highly anticipated upcoming MMO games.
Only MMORPGs are listed. Currently, we are looking for VRMMORPGs, too. Please let us know if there are any VRMMORPGs in development.
Top Free MMORPG 2017 List
Featured Game
Neverwinter – one of the most popular MMORPGs of 2017. Neverwinter is a fantasy MMORPG that has everything – gorgeous graphics, fun action combat, tons of character customization, and a great story. The nicest thing about the game is that even though it is free to play, playing it exactly like playing a premium game. The game design has the the epicness, intricacy, and depth that you would expect from a top-of-the-line Triple A MMORPG.
Link: Neverwinter official website
Upcoming MMO Games
This the list of the MMORPGs that are currently being developed. Most of the release dates here have been announced by the game publishers. The release dates that are speculative have been marked as such. The games are not ranked; they are listed alphabetically.
Absolver
Slated for a 2017 PC release date under publisher Devolver Digital
Absolver is an upcoming action role-playing game with massively multiplayer online elements inspired by the Dark Souls series. The game primarily revolves around the intense one-on-one (or three on three) martial arts style combat that focuses on building a string of combination strikes, parries, dodges, and feints.
As players progress they can customize their characters by looting fallen enemies and unlocking new equipment, armour, and weapons. But the most important aspect of customization is altering the fighting style by applying different move sets. The move sets come in the form of cards which construct your combat deck for an element of strategic character management. The fluid, unpredictable movement of your character becomes a weapon in itself as you switch between four of your chosen stances that each possess a unique collection of moves for added complexity in battle.
The lore is set in place for you to discover but the narrative builds through the player’s interactions and choices that arise from the seamless overlap of worlds that introduce other players. As you meander through the environment you come face to face with others, tentatively sizing them up and deciding a plan of action to either engage in violence or befriend and trade goods.
You can choose to fight side by side with other players conquering dungeons and completing quests in PvE or enter the combat area to showcase your fighting skills in merciless PvP battles.
Link: http://absolvergame.com/
Chronicles of Elyria
No concrete release date announced but it’s estimated as sometime in 2017
Chronicles of Elyria is structured in such a way to change how you would play a typical MMORPG. Time is factor that weighs heavily on your character, in fact, it can kill you. For the first time you will age and die over a period of 10 – 14 real months. This requires you to make the most of your time and be weary of your choices in this world as each death in that time dwindles your overall lifespan, which draws you closer to a permadeath. Although your death is permanent physically, your souls will be reincarnated into a new character of your design. This system of death and reincarnation allows you to experience this unique development over the epic 10 year story line.
You take your place in a player run family that involves an inheritance system (gold, titles, traits) and domain management. You can choose to embrace hard work and the bounties that follow or lease the land to others and foster an entirely player run village. You can create laws and stockpile resources, among other things, to move from a speck of humanity in the wilderness into a bustling kingdom.
In Chronicles of Elyria even when enemies are nowhere in sight the dangers of the harsh environment and your diminishing physiology can take its toll on your body. You can only carry so much in your inventory and must mange it in order to satiate your hunger, thirst, fatigue, and even bodily temperature.
The skill based system of progression that includes dozens of skills allows you to meticulously craft specific characters from farmer or blacksmith to warrior or sorcerer without the use of classes. The system itself factors in the danger you undertake in your interactions to favour grueling failure over simple victories in awarding experience. Therefore you will need to accept increasingly more difficult tasks to progress effectively.
Link: https://chroniclesofelyria.com/
Conan Exiles
PC Early Access January 2017 – Full Release TBD
Conan Exiles is an open world survival game that casts you out into the brutal wasteland of Conan lore, forcing you to do whatever you can to subsist in the face of savage enemies, the elements, and your own constantly fluctuating physiological needs.
The combat is fast-paced, barbaric, and bone-crushing – separating limbs, and painting the world in blood. You can amass forces of allies to obliterate your enemies, storm their gates, tear down their walls, and invade their cities. If the tide of war flows to another you can offer up the lives of your enemies as sacrifice to appease the gods and influence the power balance.
Although the battles with dangerous foes will come and go the fight against the harsh environment is a constant battle. You will need to scour the landscape to harvest resources by chopping down trees, hunting animals, and mining for minerals in order to craft weapons for defense, tools for building, and structures to endure the whirling sandstorms and roving tribes of enemies that sweep the desert.
You can journey through this boundless, unforgiving world alone on private servers or in the company of other players in public servers where you can forge alliances and make enemies.
Link: http://www.conanexiles.com/
Crowfall
Set to release at the end of 2016
Crowfall is a complex, detailed open world PvP experience with a player driven economy, kingdom construction, and a voxel based framework for destructible environments to name a few of its features. The game mixes genres like real time strategy games, political and throne war simulators, and survival games to develop its own flavour.
The character creation and system of advancement features a number of sub segments to open the possibilities of customization infinitely. There are 13 archetypes, which each consist of a combination of class and race. Most anthropomorphic archetypes can be both male and female but the beast races are locked. Then you have points to spend on advantages (increased speed, etc.) and disadvantages that dampens one skill but provides you with extra points to buff a particular stat even more. There are also Disciplines, which can be equipped to gain powers and skills such as alchemy for better potions or lyncanthropy to turn into a werewolf. There are no traditional levels to be gained and you instead progress based on the way you approach combat. This is broken down into three Promotions per archetype, similar to a fighting style that each possess their own skills for your character can adopt as they get stronger.
Each character will have its own instance zone called an Eternal Kingdom. This is a base of operations that can be upgraded using a grid system to place tiles with varying landscapes as a way to terraform the land to your liking (ex. mountain ranges, lush pastures) and buildings that have different purposes (ex. holding artifacts, contain a Thrall for passive training) within them. You can set your Eternal Kingdom to private or public to invite other players to build and collaborate with you in a potentially massive social hub.
Campaigns are where you can harvest these necessary materials to expand your kingdom. When you begin the campaign you spawn in a newly created world with a map clouded in fog waiting to be explored and pillaged for its resources. These resources are then used to craft weapons and build fortifications to defend against opposing players and wildlife. There are 4 different types of PvP campaigns with unique rewards and rules/challenges (Guild vs Guild, God War, 3 Faction, Free for All). Throughout the duration of these campaigns the seasons change from spring to winter and with that force you to deal with the resulting harsh environmental factors and increasing creature difficulty.
Link: https://www.crowfall.com/en/
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen
Estimated release date of 2017
Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is an experience that does not stray from its core premise of highly social, group-based gameplay in a massive open sandbox. The game mechanics, the detailed non-linear narrative, and community spirit all maintain this focus on team accomplishments. There are aspects of the game that can be played single player, but to maximize the full extent of the story and quests you want to do so with allies.
Due to the meaningful nature of social interactions among players your reputation can define you one way or the other. The game places a great importance on the building of strong alliances in order to conquer this world’s many dangers and avoid certain death.
You are given a multitude of options to define your own character. There are a total of 9 vastly different races from the greedy, murderous “Skar” to the majestic, transcendental “Dark Myr” – along with 12 classes that encompass many of the traditional RPG choices and some more mysterious ones as well.
The combat looks to combine both strategy and a natural reactive element in each encounter. You will often need to coordinate a specific plan off the cuff as you encroach upon different enemy types as there are no ability rotations, and you will also strategize long before any encounters by pre-selecting spells and abilities.
Link: https://pantheonmmo.com/
Saga of Lucimia
Expected for release in December 2017
Saga of Lucimia is a high fantasy, group-focused MMORPG that creates a world where players are pushed to ignore the impulse of venturing alone and instead work in tandem with others to achieve their goals and conquer any obstacle.
It takes its inspiration from the games of old that held teamwork and community in high regard and built meaningful mechanics around these tenets. In Saga of Lucimia there are no solo quests and it instead gets you to form groups as large as 8 members in order to progress through the game. You can also build a stronger force by coordinating with other groups in multigroup raids.
Your character will not be constrained by a specific set of characteristics and progression possibilities within a class and can instead utilize the deep skill based system to mold the hero of your imagination. However, there is also the option of developing within over 40 unique pre-arranged combinations of skills.
The world is not arranged like a theme park with a bunch of hub worlds, it is an enormous open sandbox with diverse, meaningful interactions which carve out your own stories as you explore along side your friends.
Link: https://sagaoflucimia.com/
Soul Worker
Recent 2016 release in Japan – no specific date for NA and EU
Soul Worker is a F2P, third person, action MMORPG with a very distinct cel-shaded anime art style. You play as a group of psychic kids that live in a now barren city that is filled only with ravenous, roaming hordes of creatures. The story surrounds the disappearance of the citizens and the journey to find a remedy to the cataclysmic event that as overtaken the city.
The only hope they have of surviving is by harnessing their emotions (soul) to charge their special weapons called: Soul Workers. Each weapon represents a different class including: chainsaw, cannon, dual swords, greatsword, or scythe.
The combat is an energetic, combo driven mess that fills the screen with explosions of vibrant colours only to be topped by the flashy Zenith special attack. Battles often occur in random stages as puzzles develop, difficulty changes, and environmental factors alter the battlefield.
There are more than 100 PvE areas to complete, which are separated into episodic releases that delve into Soul Worker’s intricate story and each conclude with a larger than life final boss battle.
There is a crafting system that allows you to collect materials and assemble them together using blueprints to create better armour, weapons, and magic items. Players can also build homes outfitted with custom furnishings and form guilds amongst themselves to fight to earn new lands.
Link: http://www.liongames.co.kr/Front/?lang=eng
Reminder: all of the games those that we expect to be released some time in 2017, whether it is as an alpha/beta testing phase or the actual full launch. However, the expected release dates may or may not change.
It’s entirely possible that some of these chosen games might not launch on schedule but this list should still be a useful resource for players who are looking for interesting new MMORPGs.
Top Mmorpg 2017 Video
Here is a video compilation of alpha/beta gameplay, trailers, and teasers.
That’s it for the Top Free MMORPG 2017 List. This list will be updated with new MMO games as soon as they launch so you might want to bookmark this page. If you liked it, we would appreciate a share/tweet/mention! Thanks for reading and feel free to leave a comment below.
