Offline, Self-Hostable, and Single Player MMOs
Some people don’t care for socialization, monthly fees, or a character they’ve invested so much time in on someone else’s server. Or maybe you want to set up a server just for you and your roommates.
Offline Games Inspired by MMOs
This “genre” isn’t very popular but I’m heartened by a few of the recent solo dev projects that specifically imitate 90s MMOs. “Offline” means no central server. A few of these are self-hostable or multiplayer still.
The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker, perhaps the closest modern solo game to Runescape.
- The Black Grimoire: Cursebreaker - Grindy, point-and-click RPG often compared to Runescape.
- Ultima Adventures - A self-hostable heavily modded Ultima Online R&R game. Unafraid of big grinds and unforgiving difficulty. Actively developed.
- Ultima: Memento - Another Ultima Online R&R variant with a more time-respecting approach and roguelite system. Actively developed
- Secrets of Sosaria - Yet another modded Ultima Online R&R variant. This one is considered feature complete.
- Ruins and Riches - The tree root of most single player Ultima Online forks, originally UO: Odyssey. 10+ years in development! No longer updated but tons of content.
- Erenshor - A “simulated MMO” inspired by Everquest with AI bots.
- Atlyss - Like furry Phantasy Star Online with character progression like Ragnarok Online.
- Astrox Imperium - Space sim made with the goal of being “EVE Offline”. It’s not nearly as complex as EVE, but has the closest feel of the space sims.
- Ancient Kingdoms - Indie 2D top-down ARPG inspired by Everquest and World of Warcraft.
- Wurm Unlimited - The official offline version of Wurm Online, unfortunately not updated.
- Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning - ARPG with World of Warcraft trappings like repetitive fetch quests given to you by NPCs with yellow exclamation points.
- The Bloodline - An indie open world RPG with a large list of influences, among them Elder Scrolls Online and Runescape.
- Gedonia - An open world RPG with 2000s MMO vibes.
- Melvor Idle - An idle game with progression heavily inspired by Runescape.
- Wayfinder - Originally an MMO-ish GAAS that was “salvaged” into an offline ARPG.
- CrossCode - 16-bit style ARPG that takes place in an in-universe MMO.
- Uru: Ages Beyond Myst - Uru was conceived as an MMO, but released as an offline game so it may be of interest.
- Dragon Quest X: Offline - The MMO Dragon Quest X reimagined as a single player JRPG. Japanese exclusive.
- Afallon - A cool early access ‘solo MMO’ like Erenshor. One to check in on in a year or two.
- Swords ‘n Magic and Stuff - A cozy co-op RPG with some tangential MMO vibes.
- Crescent Quest - An obscure free furry RPG maker game with some Runescape in it.
JRPGs
Many JRPGs draw inspiration from MMOs or have overtly MMORPG themes. I know less about these and Eastern MMOs so I’m lumping them together:
Other Offline Games
Dungeons of Sundaria, a multiplayer dungeon crawler with MMO-style combat
- Rabbit and Steel, Dungeons of Sundaria, and Abyssal Blade are some games that imitate MMO boss/raid mechanics.
- Solo Raid Mage, Knightborn, and Attuned are upcoming indie dungeon crawlers and roguelikes with MMO-style cooldown bar combat.
- Goat Simulator has a parody map called “MMO Simulator”.
- Discovery Freelancer is a huge Freelancer mod that turns it into a MMO.
- Minecraft: Java Edition has more RPG mods than I could possibly parse, but perhaps mcMMO and Project MMO are particularly of interest.
- TRIBES: RPG - A Starseige: TRIBES mod that turns it from an FPS into a small scale MMORPG. I spent many hours here as a kid who couldn’t afford Everquest.
- The Mount & Blade series has persistent multiplayer mods that essentially turn it into an MMO, e.g. Persistent World and Persistent Empires.
- The Neverwinter Nights series (including EE) has persistent multiplayer world mods (e.g. The Frozen North).
- Dragon Age: Inquisition - Open world RPG considered MMO-like due to large zones and endless fetch quests.
- Assassin’s Creed Odyssey and Valhalla - Both of these games have been compared to MMOs due to large zones full of tons of repetitive content.
- ARPGs have a lot in common with MMORPGs. In particular Sacred 2 has a huge map with repetitive kill quests. Grim Dawn is sometimes in the conversation with its enormous map and endless progression. Hellgate: London used to be a instanced “MMO” similar to Guild Wars.
- Parts of the survival crafting genre have DNA in common with MMOs. The grindy gear and skill progression loops in games like Project Zomboid, Valheim, and V Rising could appeal to people looking for an MMO. People also tend to play these for 100s of hours.
- Some sandbox space sims are compared to EVE Online, like X4, Avorion, Starsector, or No Man’s Sky but EVE is such a multiplayer economy focused game that I don’t really feel it.
- Kenshi and Elin - These sandboxes aren’t really like anything else, but if you’re still looking for that intangible special interest feeling after all these games, maybe these have it.
Self-Hostable MMOs
AzerothCore supports hundreds of AI-powered playerbots or you can scale raids to be solo-able
These are MMO private servers you can run yourself that have a reasonable amount of content. The custom servers you see hosted by others often have a ton of private development done on them that is not publicly available.
There are a large number of abandoned and unfinished projects so I’m focusing on playable ones. This is nowhere near a comprehensive list. Discussion of these often occurs on Ragezone.
Check out Dad’s MMO Lab for Steam Deck install scripts for this exact thing.
Most of these are not 100% comparable to retail servers.
- C-MaNGOS - World of Warcraft Vanilla, Burning Crusade, and WOTLK.
- AzerothCore - A classic World of Warcraft server up to Wrath of the Lich King. Many plugins including player bots and LLM chat.
- EQEmu - Server preserving the early days of Everquest. EQ2Emu unfortunately was shut down.
- OpenRSC - A Runescape Classic server preservation project
- 2009scape - A Runescape 2 server preserving the game as it was in 2009. Perhaps the most complete RS2 project (all of them are missing quests). Also has an Android mobile client.
- Lost City - A Runescape 2 server preserving the game from 2004.
- Darkan - Custom Runescape 2 server based on the game from 2012 with some changes. Includes the Dungeoneering skill.
- SMGEmu - Complete Star Wars Galaxy server preserving the game pre-Combat Upgrade (which made it more like WOW).
- ModernUO, ServUO, and Moongate are popular Ultima Online server emulators.
- MHServerEmu - Server emulator for Marvel Heroes with a 2017 client.
- Cosmic - Server emulator for MapleStory v83 based on HeavenMS.
- rAthena - Server emulator for Ragnarok Online.
- L2J - Server emulator for Lineage 2.
- NexusForever - Server emulator for Wildstar.
- LandSandBoat - Server emulator for Final Fantasy XI.
- Aion-server - Server emulator for Aion: The Tower of Eternity.
- OpenDOAC - Server emulator for Dark Age of Camelot.
- ACEmulator - Server emulator for Asheron’s Call.
- Crystal Server and ForgottenServer - Server emulator for Tibia.
- GServer-v2 - Server emulator for Graal Reborn.
- Melia - Server emulator for the international version of Tree of Savior.
- Erupe - Server emulator for Monster Hunter Frontier.
Open source MMOs
These MMOs are completely open source. No emulated server or retail client needed.
- Meridian 59 - The source code for the first 3D MMO Meridian 59. Check out the updated Server 105 version and 3D Ogre Client as well.
- Daimonin - The open source isometric MMORPG Daimonin. Actively in development, but hard-coded to 800x600px resolution.
- Stendhal - Another completely open source, self-hostable MMORPG with an old school 2D top-down view.
- Crossfire - Open source multiplayer dungeon crawler with a very retro aesthetic. Check out the similar games Deliantra and Mangband.
- Illarion - Open source isometric online RPG with all content licensed under GPL. Check the tutorial for getting it set up.
- Blade Mistress - MMO from the 2000s designed for low system specs and low bandwidth. The original source code was released to the public domain.
- The Mana World - A top-down 2D open source MMORPG
- Planeshift - The old “legacy” version of Planeshift is open source. There is a new Unreal 5 version that is proprietary.
- 2D Multiplayer Survival MMORPG - The base for the vibe coded survival game Broth & Bullets.
MUD Codebases
CoffeeMUD, one of a number of popular DikuMUD derivatives
There are a large number of open source engines for MUDs (text based multi-user dungeons). These usually only include some example maps, so are not feature complete like real games you’ll find running online. They are meant to build your own game with. There are hundreds of MUD codebases that go back to the 70s that would still work fine today but I’m listing some more active/interesting projects. MUDs in 2026 are very niche.
- Evennia - A modern MUD codebase built in Python. A notably “blank slate” that doesn’t impose any game mechanics and mostly sets up the networking, database, rooms, and accounts.
- GoMud - A very new (in MUD terms) MUD codebase built in Go. Very pretty with lots of built-in systems.
- MuOxi - Evennia-type blank slate framework built in Rust. Actively in development and a little barebones.
- CoffeeMUD - A large and well-documented Java codebase. Does not include the full game running on Coffeemud.net.
- Luminari - A Pathfinder/D&D game built on tbaMUD. Very well documented and active development. There is discussion on the Discord of eventually releasing Forgotten Realms world files, but no world is included yet.
- FluffOS - The modern continuation of the popular LPMud codebase used for the ever-popular Discworld MUD.
- DikuMUD III - DikuMUD is the most popular early MUD codebase and parent to many codebases.
- tbaMUD - A modern continuation of the CircleMUD codebase (derived from the above DikuMUD).
- SmaugFUSS - A maintained update of the Smaug MUD (DikuMUD derivative). See also the Star Wars projects SWRFuss and SWFoteFUSS.
- Dusk - An open source graphical MUD that was very recently revived. I’m not sure how much is here yet.
This old collection of MUD areas may be useful too.
Complete MUDs
These are some of the few self-hostable MUDs I can find that include maps/data beyond samples. It is rare to see still-online games do this because MUDs are a dead genre and they really want you to play on their online server.
The history of MUDs is unfortunately spread out in old, unloved repos and dead links. Email me if I’m missing something cool.
I’ve compiled and played most of these. The ones I’d recommend checking out most are towards the top.
- EmpireMUD - Self-hostable version of the unique city-builder EmpireMUD. Make sure to check out the beta-dev branch which is years ahead of master.
- SneezyMUD - Open source DikuMUD fantasy game developed since 1992. Lots of content and fancy ASCII map. Has an easy to run Docker image.
- AwakeMUD CE - Community maintained fork of Awakened Worlds, a Shadowrun MUD. Includes area data and nice Mudlet package.
- Dark Castle - Fantasy MUD from 1995 that was open sourced in 2020. I spent some time finagling to get this running, so check out my guide on how to run it.
- Delusions of Grandeur - The biggest GoMUD project (that I know of). Actively in development, check out the GoMUD discord.
- Usurper-Reborn - Modern update of the BBS dungeon crawler Usurper. 100 level dungeon. Still in active development.
- Riftshadow - Preservation of an early 2000s fantasy MUD.
- Federation II - Commercial, economic space MUD and perhaps the first MUD without a fantasy theme. I made a guide on how to run it with the planet data.
- Legends of Future Past - Recreation of a commercial MUD from 1992 remade with the magic of LLMs.
- Dibrova - Late 90s fantasy MUD that was entirely open sourced including the world.
- Crimson Stained Lands - ROM-based fantasy MUD including world data.
- Merc - A backup of Merc v2.1 including area data, a MUD from 1993.
- Forgotten Dungeon - Ukranian DikuMUD game from the 90s including area data.
- GroundZero2 - A PVP (deathmatch?) DikuMUD game from the 90s.
- 4Dimensions - Time travel MUD with old west, sci-fi, and prehistoric themes. New accounts seems to get stuck in a starter room #3007. Edit
mud/lib/world/30/30.wld and change line 647 from 0 0 501 to 0 0 3001 to get past this.
- Aariat - Small 2002 MUD focused on fishing and farming rather than killing. I needed to fix a few things (hardcoded directories, broken strings, missing definition for
spell_info_type) to get this one to compile.
- AberMUSH - A modern semi-graphical MUD with minigames and around 600 rooms.
- Land of the Rair - Open source graphical MUD. This game is pretty jank but if you’re reading this list you probably embrace the jank.
- Twilight Grove - A tiny graphical MUD made in Godot. It is also pretty jank.
- MUD1 - The original commercial MUD: MUD1. You need to run this in a PDP-10 emulator like SIMH.
BBS Door Games
If you’ve made it this far down the list, you must be desperate. The only other thing I can think that fits into into “self hostable MMO” genre would be BBS games from the 80s and 90s, a number of which are social multiplayer strategy games, RPGs, and adventure games that hosted dozens or hundreds of players. What these lack in MMORPG mechanics they make up for by being social hangout games, just like older MMOs were!