OKY, Im not 100% sure I will play one very soon, but Im curious about MMOs in 2025. I used to play WoW around its release and up through Burning Crusade. Hows the MMO landscape in 2025? What are some good MMOs to try if I wanted to give one or two a shot?
I did play other MMOs than WOW here and there. Namely Aion, Guildwars 1 and other smaller ones.
I’m open to trying most types of MMOs and don’t mind subscribing monthly if it’s worth it. I’m especially curious about MMOs besides WoW (which would probably be the obvious choice), but I kind of want to try something different—even if WoW in 2025 is a completely different game compared to 2006
Oh btw. Doesnt need to be a MMORPG could be something like Foxhole or Ark as well. As long as its a game with servers and many players.
Thanks for any input 
The mmo genre is a collection of people continuing to play FFXIV and WoW while desperately thirsting for something new that isn't being provided.
I used to have Blue Protocol (cancelled) and Ashes of Creation on my radar. Ashes has dropped off my interest because it's designed around pvp in a way that will not retain players as the losing players will not have fun.
The only one on my radar for the future right now is Stars Reach, which is being developed by the dude I consider responsible for Ultima Online, Star Wars Galaxies and Everquest 2. If there is anyone in this industry that actually seems to understand mmo communities as a social phenomena it seems to be him, even if he is a little techbro brainwormed at times. The game is basically trying to be Noita style interactions but 3d at mmo scale with all the mmo economy bells and whistles you'd expect. It is the first thing in a long time that I've seen which is genuinely trying to do something new that does not actually already exist and that alone is genuinely interesting.
Everyone is really really thirsty for new mmos so any slop released gets MASSIVE then drops off hard when it doesn't meet expectations, typically korean mmos filled with the most grindy and obnoxious systems in existence. Lost Ark's player count chart illustrates this well https://steamdb.info/app/1599340/charts/#max or I guess a more recent example would be Throne and Liberty: https://steamdb.info/app/2429640/charts/#max
Is there anything the MMO crowd is looking for that could be accomplished by an indie studio, or is the draw tied to the huge wealth of content that FFXIV and WoW have?
Raph Koster's studio for Stars Reach is indie. Looks like they have an unlaunched kickstarter: https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/starsreach/stars-reach
The draw of mmo's is different for a lot of different players. For some it's the dungeon loop. For some it's the questing. For some it's the social aspect (for me it is this) of creating guilds and making a name for them in the community.
I don't think this is true anymore. A lot of indie studios have made mmos, some successful. AAA games these days have ballooned in cost to make to the point that they average 200m - 300m. Lost Ark cost $80m to make. So as far as comparing mmo budgets to AAA game budgets the mmos are actually cheap by comparison now.
Boss fights. I'm sure this idea isn't original, but my friends and I always had the idea that for someone mostly interested in raiding and dungeons, you could cut out just about every other part of the MMO.
But keep classes, keep gear, and focus the game on going through tightly designed dungeons with fun mechanics. Can also have various sizes from 2, 4, 6, 8 or however many people. Add challenges, time trials, medals, modifiers.
There are games like this but none of them I know of function like an MMO with tab targeting, ability bars, etc like in WoW. Stuff like Left 4 Dead or Vermintide but with more unique boss fights.
Unfortunately, full MMOs are very expensive, time consuming, and risky to make to where even many AAA developers won't attempt it, let alone Indies.
Rabbit & Steel isn't as complex as an MMO button-wise but it might fit the bill