Erenshor, an MMO bottled inside a single-player game, is coming this April

Brian "Burgee" of Burgee Media had a simple vision: a game reinvoking the joys and tribulations of an early-2000s-era MMO. Erenshor, coming out in Early Access this April, is the successful culmination of that vision, but in the most innovative way — it's a single-player game. You heard us right, it's a single-player game that uses a simple but elegant trick to become an MMO.

The trick is that none of the players are real. It's the same as if the characters in an old Sims game were live players. Burgee Media officially calls it SimPlayers in short.

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Erenshor's single-player MMO bots are not powered by generative AI, but careful character development

Erenshor runs on pure gamer energy, not generative AI (Image via Burgee Media)

In an elevator pitch for Erenshor, the SimPlayers would be the central talking point. Surprisingly enough, it does not use generative AI — at least not at the moment. SimPlayers have basic personality archetypes, and a text parser that gets the gist of your queries to say pre-written bits of dialogue (with just enough spice to make it like the different types of MMO players — you know how it is).

SimPlayers also have persistent progression and memory. They get new bling on their own, and can ask you to pick up loot that drops when you're around. They will remember your clutch victories, and your tragic wipes.

There's also a sort of organic relationship curve, as they'll eventually get to know you, remember your name, and send whisper chats to party up. They won't, however, outperform you or outgrow you in levels. The entire point of playing a simulated make-believe MMO is that it gets rid of the catch-up race and FOMO-panic common in real MMOs.

Outside of this SimPlayer gimmick, what is Erenshor? It's something of a hybrid between EverQuest and early Guild Wars 1 repurposed into a single-player progress curve.

Like EverQuest, it's divided into zones with its unique pool of monsters to beat, quests to do, and secrets to find. Also, like a real old-school MMO, it puts immersion over holding your hand — no maps or intrusive quest markers will light your path.

In Early Access, Erenshor will also get pinnacle content with Raids. As Raids tend to be in WoW or any other traditional MMO, these will be gruelling hours-long dungeon runs. Thankfully, there's no race to world's first, because you always come out ahead in it.

This gives you all the usual dopaminergic razzmatazz of the MMO treadmill, but you're never up against hackers and tryhard min-maxers who figure everything out before you get a chance to breathe.

As mentioned previously, Erenshor is coming to Steam on April 14. However, you can sample a slice of it right now, as a demo is live, at the time of writing. Here's our preview of Erenshor from that experience.