

Legends of Future Past was released in 1992 through CompuServe, who charged players $6 per hour to play the game. The game was designed by Jon Radoff and Angela Bull, who were part of the NovaLink team. Legends of Future Past is notable for being the first commercially available text-based MMORPG to make the transition from a proprietary network provider to the Internet. Game Platform(s): Amiga Atari ST DOS Macintosh and the Internet
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In 2003, Frank Ross of Norseman Games, a true fan of The Realm Online, purchased the rights and continues to maintain and update The Realm Online today.ĭeveloper(s): NovaLink (Inner Circle Software) However, The Realm Online retained a loyal fanbase and Codemasters took over the game and began updating it again. The game came about when the Internet was hitting its stride and at its peak, thousands of players around the world were playing The Realm Online.ĭespite its early success, interest in The Realm Online waned as other better-known MMORPGs came out around the same time and its original developers, Sierra On-Line dropped the game in 2000. The Realm Online was released in 1996, a year before the term MMORPG was even coined. While a few of the earlier games on this list opened the door for the emergence and popularity of MMO games, The Realm Online is widely considered to be the first true MMORPG. Like a few of the most popular MMORPGs released around this time, Nexus is still regularly updated and played by thousands of people around the world today.ĭeveloper(s): Sierra On-Line Current version by Norseman Games Nexus entered beta in North America in 1997 and was commercially released a year later. subsidiary, which changed its name to Kru Interactive in 2005. The popularity of Nexus in Korean led Nexon to release the game in North America through its U.S.

Development of Nexus began in 1994 and the game is loosely based on Korean mythology. Nexus was originally created by Korean game developers Nexon (who are known for the extremely popular MMORPG MapleStory), who released Nexus to the Korean market in 1996.

Nexus: The Kingdom of the Winds, commonly called Nexus TK or just Nexus, is another early MMORPG that heavily influenced the MMO games that came after. Publisher(s): Nexon Kru Interactive in North America Release Date: 1996 in Korea 1998 in North America Later that year, Meridian 59 was returned to the Krimses who released the game as freeware, which is still widely played today. The 3DO Company continued to run the game on a smaller sale until 2000 and turned the game over to another studio who stopped running Meridian 59 in 2010. Meridian 59 did not perform as expected and the Krimses left The 3DO Company in 1997. A year after the beta version of Meridian 59 was released, Archetype Interactive was acquired by The 3DO Company, who commercially released Meridian to a wider audience in 1996. The idea for Meridian 59 was originally conceived by Andrew Kirmse and his brother Chris Krimse, who were part of the development team at Archetype Interactive. The game had an initial small release in late 1995 and received a wider commercial release in 1996. Meridian 59 is notable for being the first 3D MMORPG ever released. Publisher(s): The 3DO Company currently Andrew Kirmse and Chris Kirmse Release Date: Early form in 1995 commercially released in 1996ĭeveloper(s): Archetype Interactive currently Andrew Kirmse and Chris Kirmse A new development studio, Broadsword, now owns Ultima Online and will continue to update the game. In 2007, an updated version of the game was released as Ultima Online: Kingdom Reborn. Over the years, Ultima Online remained popular even as the game was passed onto different developers. After this, Ultima Online went into beta and was finally released to the public in September 1997. Ultima Online was first developed in 1995 and the first preview of the game was shown to the public at the second E3 (Electronic Entertainment Expo) in 1996. The development team behind Ultima Online took the best parts of the game’s predecessors and did it better – Ultima Online had a better story, better graphics, and better game mechanics than any MMORPG that came before. While Ultima Online is far from the first MMO game, it is largely responsible for the popularity of today’s MMORPGs. If you ask any gamer what the first MMORPG was, chances are they’ll tell you it was Ultima Online.
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Game Platform(s): Microsoft Windows Linux Developer(s): Origin Systems currently Broadsword
