AzerothCore.
this post was submitted on 23 Feb 2026
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Funny enough, there's Erenshor that is basically simulated single player Everquest
What! I love this conceptually.
Yea planning to pick this up eventually - reminds me of playing EQOA on the ps2
I spent a lot of years playing EQ1, and I don't think any game will ever really capture that magic again, but this sure looks like it's a great attempt at doing so.
I've had Kingdoms of Amalur: Re-Reckoning on my wishlist for a while and it's basically been described to me as playing as lot like an "offline MMO" of the WoW/FFXIV style.
Did KoA change my life with its gameplay or story? No. Did I have fun playing it? Yes. Have I replayed it to try out different builds? Also yes.
One piece of advice is, don't worry too much about doing everything because it is easy to out level the game's curve.
It was supposed to be an MMORPG before the publisher had to reel it in.
It's really good, not sure it's really the same as an mmorpg......100% worth buying though.
It has MMORPG vibes, particularly with the gathering/crafting systems and little side quests, but it doesn't have an "endless endgame" to speak of. It was my first thought, too—if OP isn't looking for an endless endgame loop, then Amalur is a great suggestion.
Lots of Diablo clones have endless endgame and single player, but not sure if they'd be what OP is looking for. Last Epoch is the best of them all, imho. I saw Grim Dawn recommended; it's also great. Torchlight 2 has a WoW-like cartoony aesthetic and is pretty great. Titan Quest is the other obvious req in this genre, and there are many, many Diablo 2 mods that add new systems and end game loops. (Path of Exile 1 & 2 are both great, of course, but they're online only.)
Most of these don't fit "offline MMO" super closely, but are games I've played that share various aspects that I enjoyed in MMOs:
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning
Minecraft with mods
Hytale
Various Bethesda games with mods
Sword Art Online games
V Rising
V Rising has the option of setting up a local game. I made the mistake of starting a game with default settings and i couldn't play with the internet connection gone. Had to start anew with the correct selection.
In a similar vein are Conan Exiles and possibly Dune Awakening (haven't it).
What they lack is more neutral or helpful npcs. There's some merchants and the enslaved pawns, but progression is more automatic through menus rather than quest givers.
CrossCode could scratch the itch a bit?
Came in to recommend CrossCode. I had an extremely similar itch to OP and this game scratched it. The plot literally revolves around being an MMO, but the entirely game is single player. They did a really good job of capturing the vibe.
I was honestly baffled at how well they captured the vibe of starting a new MMO, when i played through the first 10 or so hours. I kept having this urge to tell my friends to play it so they could come play and explore with me
CrossCode was great fun, and it really captures that MMORPG feel. Very much enjoyed my time playing it.
The best and worst part about CrossCode is the lack of sequel.
There's also just playing on community servers or hosting you own.
I'm not sure if it's been figured out how to do that for FFXIV yet, but there are others.
You can try the 2009scape single player mode, join the official server, or host it yourself.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2382520/Erenshor/ is a single player mmo with simulated other players.
You may also want to check Valheim and the like out.
Also, F2P games are definitely a thing. Warframe and Where Winds Meet are both not really cash grabby to play.
Was also going to suggest this one. I tried the demo but unfortunately doesn't play well on the deck and my sit time in front of the PC is limited as is.
Surprised that no one has suggested the .hack (dot Hack) game series. They were PS2 era single player RPG games, set in a virtual reality MMO. So it really tries to simulate the MMO experience of that era. There's even an entire fake computer OS you can explore with news articles, forum posts, email, etc that all contributes to the world building and sometimes unlocks stuff in the "MMO" as you learn stuff ourside of it.
The plot is... ok. Kind of a tired one now and quite trope-y. Mostly because it came first and a ton of anime since "copied its homework". The series is one of the first instances of the now semi-common plot of "players get stuck in VR MMO".
The first group of games in the series is pretty easily emulatable, and carrying your save across the games lets you keep your progress and unlocks some extra stuff in subsequent games of the first batch.
The second batch of games in the series (widely believed to be considerably better in gameplay) got an official PC remaster with additional QoL and what amounts to a free story DLC. Probably better to start there, just know there's some weird plot stuff with a semi-prequel anime. It was the style of the time to make these multimedia projects to try and cross market shit.
They just announced that the series is going to get a reboot/continuation too.
It's also worth noting that there are some "pay once" MMOs like Guild Wars out there which have been running for a decade or more.
OP already mentioned the .hack games, but someone else may be interested.
Guild Wars, the original, is still up and running. It isn't what OP is looking for, but an MMO released in 2005 is not only still playable and has people playing, but also gets very infrequent little patches. Pretty cool stuff.
I played this game with my friend called Wayfinder that was going to be an mmo but I guess at some point in development changed course. The game scratches a kind of itch that I didn't really need but maybe 10 years ago could have been fun. Might be worth a try.
AzerothCore is maybe what you would like to check out. They got some builds with bots that fill the world and make you feel as if you are actually online with other players.
seconding this, i use a solo azerothcore build and it's been great. mine is scaled rather than using playerbots but i experimented with a bot one and it was pretty neat to be able to group up with them.
Unfortunately not on PC but the Xenoblade Chronicles games are very MMO-like, in particular Xenoblade Chronicles X which puts less emphasis on the overall story and more on exploration, sidequests, levelling, min-maxing and gameplay systems. You'll find great worlds to explore and combat that is quite reminiscent of typical cool-down systems in MMOs. XBX does have some online components but you can play the whole game completely offline too.
The Xenoblade Chronicles series and maybe FFXII.
Xenoblade Chronicles X in particular feels like it was meant to be a MMO and then they just kinda... gave up on the multiplayer part.
Apparently FFXII and FFXIV 1.0 both are heavily inspired on the FFXI formula, so perhaps FFXII is the closest to what the OP is asking.
Yes!! I came here to recommend Xenoblade Chronicles X. It’s the most MMO feeling game I’ve ever played that wasn’t an MMO.
Goat MMO Simulator, but just technically.
I think Kenshi and Heroes of Hammerlock 1-2 might scratch that itch as well. Never played them tho, but all my actual recommendations are listed in this thread already ;)
Not exactly what you need but have you tried Neverwinter Nights? Its base game is pretty standard linear RPG from BioWare but it was released together with its development kit, and there is an endless sea of community content, some being MMO style worlds.
I mean your looming for a specific kind or RPG you can't have a massively multiplayer online role playing game be offline.
Phantasy Star Online for the GameCube could fit the bill. You can also emulate it on PC, and people even run custom servers if you did want to play online.
Atlyss has that number go up progression like mmorpgs have but is p2p or solo. its still in development.
Did you ever play Runescape? If so, might I introduce you to 2009Scape. The 2009 Runescape experience that you play locally on your PC.
One suggestion that comes to mind is the elder scroll's series, morrowind in particular had a good crafting system with poition brewing and stuff like that. Do not know how oblivion is holding up, becauseI never played it much, but scyrim was a lot simpler and might not fit your description.
Another game that might scratch that itch, although in a completely different setting: the X-series. It is a giant space rpg, where you start with a small ship an can work your way up to a giant space empire (if you put in a lot of time). You can mine asteroids, trade resources, or fight pirates.
Morrowind, if you're using OpenMW, also has multiplayer.
Astrox Imperium is an attempt at a "Single Player Eve Online" game. It's still in development though.
I have high hopes that online/offlne models become the norm for exactly that reason. one just to be able to play when the internet goes out or you can't reach it but yeah also later when the servers go away.
People said it, but Xenoblade Chronicles feels very MMO-y with auto attacking and big open maps and shitloads of grinding.
Wheb you say offline, do you mean literally or just not multiplayer?
Because a ton of F2P games are basicslly that these days. Genshin Impact, Zenless Zone Zero, Arknight: Endfield, etc. They are essentially single player MMORPGs. But they DO need to be connected to the internet despite that so...
I believe FFXI is available for free download and self server hosting. XIV might go that way eventually too, but hosting your own mmo server is probably the way to go.
I remember seeing something for an offline/single player "mmorpg" dungeon crawler, but I don't remember the name
The fall of the dungeon guardians has an mmo feel. Dungeon crawler rpg, grid based movement.
When I was deployed to Iraq in 2007, I worked for a Communications Squadron, which managed the base's computer network. Someone built a media server in our server room, so we could legally host movies and music on our network for other military members to enjoy at work.
We would borrow copies of DVDs and CDs from our base library and rip them to the server, then we built a rudimentary website where people could browse the catalog and stream content through the site. Nobody could download copies of anything, so we weren't guilty of government-sponsored illegal filesharing. It was basically a way to digitally access the content from our library.
A part of the server that was locked down just for our squadron included video games we could install and run from our work computers. Our squadron especially liked to close up shop around lunchtime for some "simulated warfare training" and then jump into a giant Call of Duty multiplayer free-for-all map and shoot each other up for about 30 minutes.
Anyway, this is a long-winded way to explain that one day, I noticed someone added World of Warcraft to the server. I thought it was odd, considering MMOs needed an Internet connection and our military networks are specifically designed to block most non-work related content. Battle.net would definitely be on the block list.
Still, curiosity got the best of me and I installed it on my PC. And to my surprise, it was a local server instance! I could access all of vanilla WoW, and I was the only person online.
I don't know what exactly that game mode was. I thought maybe it was a beta instance, but I've never been able to get any of Blizzard's beta or test servers to run locally without an Internet connection. Someone had obtained an actual working offline copy of the game to play!
Suffice to say, that kept me entertained for most of my deployment. Back in those days, there were a lot of griefers online and you didn't have much of a choice in avoiding PvP (this was before they started making specifically RP servers), so I was frustrated when other players would interrupt my gameplay to fight me. Having a whole MMO to myself was fantastic!
The only downside was that my character was isolated on my local server; all my progress couldn't come with me when I left Iraq. But I was addicted to WoW back in those days, so it let me continue to enjoy the game while I was unable to access my actual account back home.