Final Fantasy XIV dethrones World of Warcraft to become the most played MMORPG of 2021

Top 14 Most Played MMORPGs of 2021

December 16, 2021

What is Most Played MMORPGs of 2021 ?

MMORPGs are some of the biggest and most ambitious games on PC. In hundreds of games, MMOs gross $10 billion a year and reach a much larger audience than that.

At the beginning of 2020, World of Warcraft was the most popular MMORPG, but what will be the most played MMORPGs of 2021 ?

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List 14 Most Played MMORPGs of 2021 (updated 12/2021)

1. FINAL FANTASY XIV: A Realm Reborn

Final Fantasy XIV is a Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game developed and published by Square Enix .

Home page : https://www.finalfantasyxiv.com/

Platforms: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 3

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 3,381,068

TOTAL PLAYERS : 35,935,099

DAILY PLAYERS : 2,731,068

2. Old School RuneScape

Old School RuneScape is a Massively Multiplayer Online RPG developed and published by Jagex. The game was released on February 22, 2013.

Home page : https://oldschool.runescape.com/

Platforms: Linux, Android, Microsoft Windows, iOS, Macintosh operating systems

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 1,271,603

TOTAL PLAYERS : 33,463,249

DAILY PLAYERS : 1,271,603

3. New World

New World is an upcoming massively multiplayer online role-playing game by Amazon Games set to be released on September 28, 2021.

Homepage : https://www.newworld.com/

Platform: Microsoft Windows

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 818,650

TOTAL PLAYERS : 17,119,569

DAILY PLAYERS : 1,626,359

4. World of Warcraft

World of Warcraft is a massively multiplayer online role-playing game released in 2004 by Blizzard Entertainment.

Home page : https://worldofwarcraft.com/

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 1,108,345

TOTAL PLAYERS : 116,741,754

DAILY PLAYERS : 2,218,093

5. Destiny 2

Destiny 2 is a Free Online Multiplayer First Person Shooter video game developed by Bungie. It was originally released as a pay-to-play game in 2017.

Home page : https://www.bungie.net/7/en/Destiny/NewLight

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Google Stadia, PlayStation 5, Microsoft Windows

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 723,550

TOTAL PLAYERS : 38,214,489

DAILY PLAYERS : 1,089,113

6. World of Warcraft Classic

World of Warcraft Classic is a 2019 MMORPG video game developed and published by Blizzard Entertainment. Running alongside the main version of the game, Classic recreates World of Warcraft in the state it was in prior to the release of its first expansion, The Burning Crusade.

Home page : https://worldofwarcraft.com/en-us/wowclassic

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS, Macintosh operating systems

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 484,930

TOTAL PLAYERS : 25,530,009

DAILY PLAYERS : 970,140

7. RuneScape

RuneScape, sometimes referred to as RuneScape 3, is a massively multiplayer fantasy online role-playing game developed and published by Jagex, first released in January 2001.

Home page : https://www.runescape.com/

Platforms: Microsoft Windows, iOS, Web browser, Android, Linux, Java, Macintosh operating systems

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 448,210

TOTAL PLAYERS : 15,769,656

DAILY PLAYERS : 599,247

8. The Elder Scrolls Online

The game is set on the continent of Tamriel and features a story indirectly connected to the other games in the Elder Scrolls franchise. It had been in development for seven years prior to its release in 2014.

Home page : https://www.elderscrollsonline.com/en-us/home

Platforms: Microsoft Windows , macOS , PlayStation 4 , PlayStation 5 , Xbox One , Xbox Series X/S , Stadia

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 373,500

TOTAL PLAYERS : 19,719,220

DAILY PLAYERS : 374,665

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9. Black Desert Online

Black Desert Online is a sandbox-oriented fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game developed by Korean video game developer Pearl Abyss and originally released for Microsoft Windows in 2015.

Home page : https://www.blackdesertonline.com/

Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X and Series S, Microsoft Windows

ACTIVE PLAYERS : 330,490

TOTAL PLAYERS : 11,614,983

DAILY PLAYERS : 331,027

10. Elite Dangerous

Elite Dangerous is a space flight simulation game developed and published by Frontier Developments. Piloting a spaceship, the player explores a realistic 1: 1 scale open world representation of the Milky Way galaxy, with open gameplay.

Home page : https://www.elitedangerous.com/

Platforms: Xbox One, PlayStation 4, Microsoft Windows, Classic Mac OS

ACTIVE PLAYERS (Player Count) : 735,474

TOTAL PLAYERS : 15,483,668

DAILY PLAYERS : 468,320

From what I've heard from players, it's well deserved - on both counts. FFXIV has come a long, long way since 1.0, and each expansion has added properly great narrative. Meanwhile, Shadowlands is widely considered a disappointment, and the Sylvanas narrative has been particularly divisive.

Blizzard are starting to try to repair the damage with recent patches, which are possibly leading up to a new major expansion, but it's too little for now, as one can see from the mass exodus earlier this year. Congratulations to Square Enix.

Very impressive turn around for this game considering the state that it initially launched in. Also it’s pretty crazy just how long WoW has been around now. Anyway kudos to Square-Enix and I’m really hoping that they’ll bring this over to the Xbox consoles in the near future.

Well deserved. The latest expansion Endwalker has been highly praised by both critics and players, and rightfully earned one of the highest scores of this year.

FF XIV has also recently been awarded:

• "Best Community Support" and "Best Ongoing Game" at TGA 2021.
• "Best Game Community" and "Still Playing" at Golden Joystick Awards 2021.

It has become so popular that Square Enix even had to suspend its sales and ads to ease the server congestion and allow the existing players to enjoy the game.

Endwalker is my GOTY and no other games released this year could come close to the achievement of it.

wow, kinda surprised Elite is in there

These are incredible numbers and kudos to Square-Enix. Never thought I see the light of day that FF14 would dominate the MMORPG world.

Square-Enix really defied the odds when they relaunched FF14, made amends and came back stronger. Look at them now!

I actually discovered this story when my colleague mentioned that FF14 is trending and is one of the biggest MMORPGs in the world. I was gobsmacked at the time.

@madrocketeer: Blizzard's loss is Square's gain. Many big streamers jumped ship earlier this year due to Blizzard's mishaps. It's going to be tough for Blizzard to convince them to come back.

This also bodes well for the FF franchise, along with FF7R. The FF14 team is working on FF16.

It amazes me that people play Runescape in 2021. What amazes me even more is people playing New World. The game offers absolutely nothing but the base of an mmo. And Destiny 2? REALLY??? All i see here are just millions of gamers starving for a social coop game, an mmo. But the gaming industry refuses to invest the time and resources needed to create a real next generation experience. This blows.

Not going to count out Blizzard yet; WoW is venerable MMO that has seen everything and got all the T-shirts.

But yeah, they have a lot of work to do, and this is a very different Blizzard. Again, they're not exactly off to a flying start, with the divisive response to the recent Sylvanas narrative. I heard it's hinted that they're going into the game's afterlife next, or something like that.

I'm not counting them out, but I'm not confident either.

To be fair to Destiny 2, which I played when BNet had that giveaway that one time before it went free-to-play, it has a really good gameplay loop. Sometimes that's enough for a lot of people.

In hindsight, it was fortunate that the F2P transition wiped my campaign progress, which killed all my motivation to keep playing or spend any money on it. The content vaultings was the final nail in the coffin for me; all Destiny 2 players do these days is raids and Crucible ad nauseam, and bollocks to those.

@madrocketeer: The gunplay itself feels great, and collecting stuff (weapons, armor sets, etc) is alright in my book, but they're uncapable of releasing content at a pace that's needed for these kind of games. Everyone in the destiny community is so permanently starved for content, that any kind of trash Bungie releases, people jump on it no matter what. A game like this needs an engine that is very easy to develop new content for, and from what i've been hearing since D1 days, their engine is the spaghetti code. Over a year of waiting for an expansion, with no dlc's in between, and said expansion will bring just a few hours worth of content. I simply don't understand how this little amount of content is enough. Bet you the majority of people still playing are as addicted as those WoW players, so no matter what, they're not going anywhere.

Hmm, hauntingly familiar. I guess that's a credit to Digital Extremes that not only have they not vaulted any old stuff (only repurposed them like they did with the Acolytes), they still managed to keep being experimental and ambitious with their own spaghetti code engine. Maybe their time working with Epic gave them a few pointers, I dunno. But as for long content droughts, I feel that. Seems to be a common issue with live service games.

I once heard someone describe WoW's motivation loop as thus: "why do you raid?" "To get better stuff." "Why do you need better stuff?" "To do more raids with." LOL.

Stupid chip shortage is holding back servers and sales for Square Enix to build more servers

Didn't know ffxiv finally made it onto xbox. Great game though. Bought the expansion but haven't played yet.

Congrats to FF14 dethroning WoW!

Gave the game a good chance but for whatever reason it didnt really grab me. And the forced subscription didnt help. But I dont think it's a bad game by any means.

and the source is?

At this point it would probably be best if they just made their own throne, the one WoW is leaving behind is covered in milk stains.

Would of been impressive maybe 5yrs ago but WOW has been shooting itself in the foot for years

I assume you're referring to the breast milk kept getting stolen by male employees at Activision-Blizzard. (source)

These kinds of abuses, particularly against female employees, that have occurred at Activision-Blizzard are so creepy and disgusting.

Wow, just when you thought they couldn't sink any lower... Blizzard has some of the most thirsty employees.

What is the source for these numbers?

Most likely this,

https://mmo-population.com/

Those metrics seem very familiar, at least to me.

Endwalker gets an 8 here.

Kinda what I would score it as well. Great expansion when it reaches its heights, but man is it not without its flaws.

But how do they track this? I know for a fact gw2 numbers are not public.

Reddit Activity, which is why the site is not super reliable.

That is not accurate. We can pretty much expect some titles such as wow and ff to be in the top, but for most everything else, its just guessing.

@hardwenzen: The weird thing is...

RuneScape (both modern and old school) even flat out shows how many people are playing at any given time. Should allow them to form a metric based on that.