Planet Explorers vs Rift
Planet Explorers
Planet Explorers is an exploration-driven, sci-fi-themed sandbox RPG where you play as one of the several pioneers who made it to the new planet, Maria… well, barely since you crashed landed on the planet. Here, you’ll need to work with your fellow pioneers to build a life and a colony for yourselves.This game is nothing short of amazing for a completely free-to-play title. Its crafting system is incredibly convenient for the player and despite the grind, gathering resources from the environment can be quite a relaxing endeavor, all thanks to the beautiful music and the immersive ambiance. Besides crafting and gathering materials like wood, rubber, and minerals, you can also hunt the local fauna for animal-based items like meat and animal fat which are needed to craft certain items. You can even tame these creatures and turn them into mounts!
Planet Explorers also comes with a rather nice storyline, an MMO-like questing system, sandbox features which allow you to build magnificent structures similar, in some ways, to Minecraft; and even build your own custom vehicles from scratch and take it out for a spin by driving around the massive map in this game.
Although the game seems to fall short of its potential of being a pretty darn great MMO game because the developers done messed up the codes, Planet Explorers still manages to offer a rather decent single-player experience. Plus, the game's completely free to play now and it doesn't contain any of those annoying ads or micro-transactions since the game was not built that way. Definitely worth a try!
Rift
Rift is one of the world's top 10 most popular MMORPGs even until today. In fact, many would agree that this game can be considered a classic, which will put it on the same level as epic MMORPGs like World of Warcraft, Guild Wars 2, and Runescape.In this game, you'll need to choose a side – either the Guardians or the Defiant – before venturing into the rift-torn world of Telara. The character customization in this game is absolutely brilliant mainly because you can literally mix and match Callings (a.k.a. classes) and the large number of souls (talent trees) to create the perfect “3-soul talent tree” to fit your own play style. Of course, aside from the usual raiding and PvPing, the game even has exciting world- and zone-based Rift events that involve players from the level cap to the newbies, as well as the incredibly fun, sandbox feature - Dimension Building. You'll be truly amazed at the various creative worlds that Rift players have built over the years.
Surprisingly, there isn't as many immersive MMORPGs anymore at this day and age, and at times, we're thankful that games like Rift still exists and is still going strong. If you pride yourself in being a hardcore MMO gamer, then this is definitely one game you mustn't miss out.