1. Star Wars: The Old Republic
Here’s the thing about SWTOR: If you liked Knights of the Old Republic or its sequel, there is absolutely no excuse for you to not like SWTOR. It’s basically KOTOR ad infinitum. The game has hundreds, literally HUNDREDS of hours of gameplay within it. In terms of content it’s quite possibly the biggest MMO-anything that currently exists. Players can choose from four classes for each side in the galactic conflict, which eventually split off into eight at level ten. Each class has their own branching single-player story, containing thousands of lines of dialogue, unique missions and character interactions, and even conversation options based on the player’s gender and stats. Every single quest in the game, be it story or side, is granted via an interactive conversation, like you’ve seen in every Bioware game since the original KOTOR.
SWTOR also introduces some stuff which hasn’t been implemented in an MMORPG before, like a cover system and relatively permanent interactive companion NPCs, which supplement the player with abilities they might lack. Add to that a separate space-combat rail-shooter game, which plays a lot like Warhawk/Panzer Dragoon/Rebel Assault etc, and you’ve got a game with some ridiculously fun gameplay, an incredible amount of content, and, without exaggeration, the best single-player story in any MMORPG ever made.
On top of all that, SWTOR is free. Okay, technically it’s free only up to level 15, but you know what? It’ll be completely free within a couple of months. Playing up to level 15 just before the switch-over gives you just enough time to really get into it, which you totally should. Of course, Bioware’s recent announcement detailing the limitations of playing the game for free diminishes it’s overall awesomeness somewhat.
So there you have it. The five best MMORPGs currently on the market. If you only have the time to play one, make it SWTOR. Even if you hate MMOs, make it SWTOR. Regardless, MMORPGs make up a small percentage of today’s F2P games. With titles like Firefall, MechWarrior Online, Planetside 2, Blacklight Retribution and others either available right now or on their way, the future looks bright for the F2P model. We’ll cover which of those games you should be excited about most very soon.