Project: Gorgon, the old-school fantasy MMO that launched in Steam Early access back in 2018, finally has its big 1.0 update.
As someone who cut his teeth on Ultima Online and EverQuest way back in the day, I've had a passing interest in Project: Gorgon for years. The game was conceived by husband-and-wife duo Eric Heimburg and Sandra Power, former lead developers on legacy MMOs like Asheron's Call and EverQuest 1 and 2, but Power sadly passed away in 2025 following a three-year battle with cancer. Seeing Heimburg carry the torch and launch this ambitious and highly unique MMO into 1.0 is made all the more poignant with that in mind.
What distinguishes Project: Gorgon from so many other MMOs is its stubborn faithfulness to the guiding principles that defined the genre in the pre-WoW days: zero handholding, near limitless player agency and consequence, skill-based progression with no defined classes, lots and lots of grinding, and most of all, a deep sense of community with tools for player-created quests, a player-driven economy, and player housing.
It's also the only game like this, that I know of, with a still-active community that wasn't made in, like, 1997. Yes, it's as ugly as sin, but it seems Power and Heimburg, under Elder Game, LLC, used resources they would've otherwise spent on visual fidelity to create an unapologetically old-school, hardcore MMO whose dedicated, but notably very small, community seems to have nothing but good things to say about it. Steam reviews are also highly encouraging, with 85% of its 2,200 reviews being positive at time of writing.
Project: Gorgon 1.0 brings fully revamped character models, an overhaul to vendor stalls, performance fixes, and the capital city of Statehelm, which houses over 200 new quests and unlocks new skills and abilities for those who make it their new hub city. Here are the full patch notes in case you want to read about all of the new stuff.
The full game is a modest $25, but there's also a chunky free demo I can personally recommend that'll get you up to level 15. As with any demo worth its salt, your character and progress will carry over to the full game if you decide to buy it.
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