Neocron

Neocron was the first cyberpunk MMORPG. German studio Reakktor Media built it, cdv Software Entertainment published it in September 2002, and its central idea was odd for the time: a persistent world where fighting means aiming and shooting in first person, back when nearly every MMO asked you to select a target and wait for dice rolls.

It is set in the 28th century on a ruined Earth with two dome cities left standing, Neocron and the Dome of York, ringed by an irradiated wasteland full of mutants. The sequel, Neocron 2: Beyond Dome of York, shipped in 2004 and eventually absorbed the original; that later version is what you play now.

You pick one of four classes and one of twelve factions, and the second choice matters more than the first. Faction PvP drives the game, and most of what there is to do long term grows out of it. Characters are built on a dense skill system with dependencies the game never explains.

Reakktor went insolvent and commercial operation stopped. The game has been in the hands of the Neocron Support Team ever since, a volunteer crew that relaunched it in 2016 as Neocron Evolution: same world, with the weapon system rebuilt, HD textures, expanded zones and balance changes.

Patches keep coming. The official changelog runs up to NCE 2.5.854 in August 2026, covering world content, server stability, netcode and rendering fixes, and the opening MC5 mission chain was rebuilt in July 2026. There is no published roadmap and no population figures: the team releases none, so any number going around cannot be checked.

Nothing costs money today. You create an account for free on the official site and download the client there, with no monthly fee and no item shop. It was not always like this: in 2002 the game shipped in a box with a subscription, and that model carried into Neocron 2 until insolvency ended it. The current team does not say how it funds the servers.

For anyone who wants an MMO where you actually shoot, has patience for a 2002 interface, and does not mind that walking into the wasteland with your gear on means you can lose it. Anyone after a big population, explained systems or professional support will not find that here. What is here is a cyberpunk world of its own, still online and free, still getting patches more than twenty years on.