City of Heroes

Here we are to save the day?

Source // Moby Games

Superheroes are everywhere these days. No longer confined to pages of a comic book, they've spread to television, cinema, tabletop gaming and, of course, video games. You can't turn around without seeing another film poster or game release.

Back in 2004, however, superheroes weren't so prevalent... except in one city. The City of Heroes.

An MMO set in a metropolis absolutely stuffed full of superheroes - and, later on, supervillains and rogues - City of Heroes was the destination for fans who wanted to play out their dreams of becoming the next Superman.

What would a city overpopulated with cape-wearing characters be like to live in, though? Anything like 2019, with all these Marvel movies?

PlanetSide

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Source // Moby Games

Massively Multiplayer Online titles asked players for a monthly subscription to keep logging into vast worlds where all sorts of action and interaction can take place. Usually, it was the RPG genre that provided the foundations for the game, and that generally went hand in hand with a fantasy setting of Elves, Dwarves and demonic hordes.

What if you could get rid of all that and have an MMOFPS, where sci-fi military factions vie for control of the land in all-out war, with players specialising in various roles, be they on foot, in vehicles or flying through the skies?

That was what PlanetSide asked, and that's what it provided for 13 years.