MMORPGs have a unique gaming feel. Character creation, world building, and the content often follow a similar pattern. This pattern is now being attempted to be replicated by the role-playing game Erenshor. MeinMMO editor Alexander Leitsch took a look at it and is excited – but only about the concept and not the game itself.
For me, the best gaming feeling is to immerse myself in a brand new world, soak up the story, and discover new content that hardly anyone has seen before. That’s why I try almost every new MMORPG that comes to market – no matter how terrible they sometimes are.
Because the first 10, 20 sometimes even up to 100 hours are simply unique and give me a real sense of adventure. The other players buzzing around me, questing and attacking world bosses together, are also important to me.
But in the endgame, I often realize how hard it is to keep up with hardcore players. You might manage that in one game or, with a lot of time, in two games simultaneously, but anything else is impossible to balance with a job, family, and possibly more hobbies.
That’s why I found the idea of Erenshor so fascinating. A single-player game that is supposed to provide a real MMORPG experience. Dungeons and raids with NPCs that are always online at my specific time and have exactly my strength. A game world that is also always lively in the starter areas. A game that adapts to me, instead of the other way around.
There is no good single-player that feels like an MMORPG
Even before the release of Erenshor, I thought about whether I would be better off in single-player games. But no role-playing game offers me exactly the experience that an MMORPG has.
This often begins during character creation, with the choice of different races, classes, and general customization options. Here, there are at least titles like Skyrim that offer similar depth.
But it gets really difficult when looking for a tab-target RPG. If I then want to go into a dungeon or raid with a group of tank, healer, and DPS and hope for a kind of marketplace where I can buy and sell materials, it gets really tight.
If the NPCs also want to quest with me and spontaneously participate in large world boss battles, that’s definitely the end. Such a role-playing game doesn’t exist.
Then just play an MMORPG, I hear you say. And yes, that’s exactly what I do. But actually, I’m disturbing some of the “real MMORPG fans” who wish that these “single-player players” would finally disappear from their game.
They want a title with a focus of 100% on multiplayer. And I wouldn’t be able to play that for long.
Often, players feel just like NPCs
In many modern MMORPGs, fellow players are only important for world bosses and instances. In the open world, they are often not more interesting than NPCs.
Nevertheless, the players are somehow important. My colleague Mark Sellner, for example, enjoyed New World mostly alone and described it a bit as a “modern Gothic with active NPCs”. He didn’t interact with the players at all but did notice that they were playing in the background.
Even in the comments on the latest news from the Ghostcrawler MMORPG, there were statements that I immediately had to agree with and that ultimately inspired me to write this text. Geroniax wrote, for example:
I don’t know of any pure single-player game that resembles the gameplay of MMOs like WoW, SWToR, or HdRO. It simply doesn’t exist. Not this kind of character creation, class selection, combat system, quest design, or diverse open world.
So what about Erenshor? Is this the solution to the wish?
Erenshor is unfortunately not the solution
Well, it at least addresses some of the wishes I would have for a single-player MMORPG. It has character creation, the tab-target combat system, and the NPCs. These quest with you and also join in the instances later.
However, it is graphically and also in terms of gameplay anything but modern, and after an hour of gameplay in the demo and a few hours of watching videos, I gave up. The game is not the alternative I would like to have. This is likely also due to the size of the studio and the budget.
But a AAA single-player MMORPG in the style of Guild Wars 2 or SWTOR? I would be immediately on board. Best with an optional coop for instances, if I want to game with a few friends!
How do you play your MMORPGs? Are you more the type “multiplayer-only” or do you play most of the time alone? And would a single-player MMORPG be an alternative?
Anyone looking for a multiplayer PvE experience should take a look at Embers Adrift:
MMORPG completely forgoes PvP – now removes the subscription so everyone can play it
