Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games are one of the best time sinks known to the human race. It might be possible to play only a few hours at a time if people have exceptionally high willpower, but if not, days can be lost playing these online MMORPGs.
There have been tons of MMOs created over the decades, some tiny and some absolutely massive in scale, so here is a list of some of the biggest ones out there. However, some MMOs use teleporting and instancing to make the game world seem bigger than it is. This list is a purely open world in one instance.
Updated by Kristy Ambrose on March 17th, 2021: The past year has seen a few changes in the world of MMOs. Vintage games are being reworked and re-released to cash in on the nostalgia factor of older gamers and also to get new games from old franchises some fresh publicity. Games like World of Warcraft, Elder Scrolls Online, and Star Wars: The Old Republic are all part of larger franchises and there’s a lot of marketing clout to go around. That means we can add a few more entries to our list.
14 Dark and Light – 40km2
Dark and Light is an MMORPG that was released back on July 20th, 2017, as an early-access title available on Steam. However, it’s now 2020, and still, the game is in early access. This MMO was developed and published by Snail Games USA.
This MMO is small compared to others in the genre, as this world is only 40km2, which is tiny in relation to open-world games standards. Put it this way, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is 74.9km2, but sometimes smaller can be better.
13 Mortal Online – 64km2
Mortal Online tends to differ from the norm when it comes to being an MMO, as it’s actually a first-person fantasy online RPG, very much like Elder Scrolls Online. It was developed and published by Swedish indie company Star Vault and was released in 2010.
The land of Mortal Online is called Myrland and is one and a half the size of Dark and Light at 64km2. This is pretty remarkable for an indie developer, and they are currently working on a Mortal Online 2, which is meant to be releasing quite soon.
12 Assassins Creed IV: Black Flag
This recent installment of the popular franchise takes place in 142 km2 of the Caribbean Sea, so it mimics a real place, and the space it uses reflects that feature. This is part six of the Assasin’s Creed series and was released in 2019.
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The naval combat portions of the game are part of the reason we need this expansive world to play in and that adds to the realism and immersion factor, so the setting isn’t just a part of the storyline. There’s still plenty to do on land with the usual quests and combat portions.
11 World of Warcraft pre-Burning Crusade – 207km2
World of Warcraft is a game that everyone knows one way or another, surely that has to be absolutely massive with all the expansions it’s received. Well yes and no, yes, it’s massive because of the sizes of some of the expansions, but it uses instances to get to them. However, across only one instance, it’s not really that big.
This is the World of Warcraft’s size before the first expansion, Burning Crusade was released, and it comes to a mighty 207km2, which is pretty massive for a game that came out in November 2004. It’s still five times the size of Dark and Light, however.
10 Vanguard: Saga of Heroes – 288km2
Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is a high-fantasy-themed MMO that was created by Sigil Games Online and co-published by Sony. However, later on in development, Sony purchased the rights to Vanguard. When it first launched it had a pay-to-play subscription but then in august of 2012 this changed, and Vanguard: Saga of Heroes became a free-to-play-based title.
The land of Vanguard: Saga of Heroes is pretty big at 288km2, which is even bigger than WoW’s original map size; however, it was released four years after World of Warcraft.
9 Black Desert Online – 398.858km2
Black Desert Online honestly sides like it’s going to be a first-person shooting game, the name has the vibe to it. But alas, it is not. It’s a sandbox massively multiplayer online RPG. It was developed by the Korean company Pearly Abyss and was released on Microsoft Windows in 2015.
However, the game has been released on mobile as well as Xbox One and PlayStation 4 versions in 2019 but called Black Desert. The world map size is a hefty 398.858km2, which is almost double the size of World of Warcraft.
8 Xenoblade Chronicles X
The planet of Mira takes up almost 400 sq. km., which includes the city of New Los Angeles and five distinct continents, and you can explore all of it in a mechanized battle suit. The gameplay is typical for an MMO, consisting of various quests, interactions with NPCs and other players, and the ability to explore the open world. The RPG backstory and setting, which consists of the character being rescued from an alien pod on another planet, has a science fiction angle that’s different from other games in the same class.
7 Star Wars Galaxies – 518km2
Star Wars Galaxies is as you’ve probably guessed, it is a Star Wars-themed MMO. It was, however, was developed by Sony and published by Lucas Arts, it’s so strange seeing that, especially nowadays. This game was released in 2003, had three expansions, but the final one overhauled the entire game, which dedicated fans were not best pleased about, as it changed what they knew and loved.
This map size is 518km2, while yes, being a space game can make it overly big; this is one of the only space MMOs where everything is contained, which is incredible.
6 ArcheAge – 600km2
ArcheAge is another Korean MMO, which was developed by XL Games and released in 2013/14. Oddly enough, the standard term for a massively open-world game is known as ‘sandbox.’ But the developers of ArcheAge describe their game differently. They say because it’s a mixture of both open-world and the structured playstyle of a ‘theme park’ XL Games have dubbed ArcheAge as a ‘sandpark.’
Now imagine almost three World of Warcraft’s connected together, and that is the size of ArcheAge’s world, a massive 600km2. Though still quite small in comparison to some.
5 Asheron’s Call – 1,295km2
With Asheron’s Call, this is when Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game started getting massive in size. Turbine Entertainment Software created this title in 1999, and it was the third major MMORPG to be released. It stayed alive for 17 years before they eventually pulled the plug and closed all its servers in 2017.
If you thought 600km was a big game, well double that, and then some and that is the size of Asheron’s Call, a massive 1,295km2. All seamless and allowing thousands of people to be able to play it at once, for 1999, that’s impressive.
4 Guild Wars Nightfall – 38,850km2
If you thought the size of Asheron’s Call was the pinnacle of size, well it was for 1999. But now moving onto 2006, only two years after World of Warcraft, we have Guild Wars Nightfall, which was developed by ArenaNet and published by NCSOFT, and this game is technically an expansion.
It’s a standalone title in its own right, players can adventure in up to 38,850km2 of Guild Wars Nightfall’s world. Now, this world is so big it can fit 30 Asheron’s Call inside of it, more or less precisely!
3 Lord Of The Rings Online – 77,700km2
Everyone knows the world of Middle Earth either through the Lord of the Rings novels or through excellent movies. Either way, the world is vast and magnificent, so of course, developers wanted to turn that world into an MMO. The game has gone through quite a few developers and publishers, but Lord of the Rings Online was initially developed by Turbine and published by Midway Games in 2007. It was a pay monthly subscription; however, in 2010 this changed to become a free-to-play model.
The world size, however, is ludicrously big, at a whopping 77,700km2, before any of the expansion. This is double of guild wars nightfall. Now imagine adventuring in that massive realm known as Middle Earth.
2 World War 2 Online – 350,000 km2
Released in 2020, World War 2 Online is breaking new ground as an online war game that uses a first-person shooter style of gameplay. Like other RTS games based on historic events, another example being the Assassins Creed franchise, it uses a scale map of Western Europe for the gameplay. That’s a battlefield of 350,000 km2. Not only is this the world’s only MMO based on WW2, but it’s also close to the top of the list when it comes to the total area of gameplay.
1 Minecraft – 4 billion km2
Brace yourself, because this game takes up more space than the surface area of planet earth. Minecraft easily tops the list with a total surface area of almost 4 billion sq. km. Players create their own spaces, and that goes well beyond simple homes or gardens. It’s the biggest MMO for sure, but there’s a lot of debate as to whether or not it’s an RPG. It certainly can be but it’s not a requirement to play, and honestly, you can say that about almost any RPG.
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