Meridian 59

Meridian 59 is remembered today as one of the very first graphical MMORPGs ever made — it came out all the way back in 1996, years before EverQuest, and together with Ultima Online it paved the way for the entire genre. Players found themselves in a fictional university campus, from which a magic portal took them into a dark fantasy world where, unlike later MMOs, they experienced the action from a first-person view, similar to the action games of the time like Doom. This visually set the game apart from everything else on the market at launch and remained one of the title's defining quirks throughout its entire run.

The game, made by Archetype Interactive, combined real-time combat with a simple but functional system of magic and items and ran on relatively modest graphics, which let it run even on the weaker hardware common among home computers of the time connected over slow modems. Its business model was also significant — Meridian 59 was among the first titles to charge for play through a monthly subscription, setting the direction that nearly the entire online gaming genre would later follow. The world was divided into smaller, interconnected areas, and the atmosphere was reinforced by a dark, gothic aesthetic and music that underscored the sense of danger around every corner, as well as the need to cooperate with other players to complete tougher quests.

At the time of release, only a modest number of people played the game compared to the later giants of the genre, but Meridian 59's historical significance is undeniable — without it, the path to EverQuest and the later major MMORPGs would have looked different. The game also received further updates even after competing titles arrived, which speaks to a surprisingly loyal core community. Today it's more of a curiosity for game-industry historians than a playable experience for the average player, but as a milestone it remains unmissable and a reminder of how tentatively and experimentally the online RPG genre once began, before the rules we now take for granted had settled into place.

Why play it: For game-industry historians, Meridian 59 is an unmissable stop — it shows how tentatively and experimentally the online RPG genre once began, even if today it serves as a playable experience for very few.