'Mech-based MMORPG Perpetuum Goes F2P

Take a ride with me in my time machine, all the way back to the first half of the last decade, when -- thanks to the explosion of early access -- anyone and everyone was creating an MMORPG and casting it out into the wild for people to try (and hopefully spend money on). A few, like Star Citizen, hit it big. Others, like Crowfall, made do on smaller crowdfunding amounts and eventually saw their way to launch. Still others, like Pathfinder Online, looked to have a chance but fizzled out.

Then there was Perpetuum. I was surprised not to see any articles about it on MMOBomb, because I distinctly remembered covering it. It must have been at one of my former gigs, however, which meant I last paid attention to it prior to 2014. It's back in the news, though, thanks to intrepid fans who refused to let their niche game perish.

Perpetuum's Steam page describes it as "a persistent, sandbox, single server, massively multiplayer sci-fi rpg (MMORPG). Control huge robots and mechs to gain access to an alien planet's resources and knowledge, amass huge wealth, or even claim part of the world for yourself using terraforming and complex infrastructure." That pretty well sums up what I can summon up from the deep recesses of my memory -- a kind of open-world 'mech-based MMO. Sounds cool!

Not cool enough, apparently. The original developers, Avatar Creations, gave up on the project in 2018, but a coalition of players took over and have been running it ever since. Specifically, they offer "a standalone server app that anyone can use to set up a private Perpetuum server where others can join and play together." And on Monday, those caretakers made the game free-to-play, so people would stop pestering them about it. Seriously, that's what they said.

UPDATE: ... sort of. Thanks to a comment from developer Gargaj, "the original developers, not the fans, made it free." Additionally, ANian points out that Avatar Creations "made it F2P because they still own/operate the client and steam store. It was the players who were the pester-ers! (What a twist!)" Yes, that's quite the twist and probably explains why we fuddled the details! Thanks to both for the clarifications.

So, if you like the idea of tooling around in a 'mech, exploring, shooting things, gathering resources, and building stuff, you can give Perpetuum a look for free now. Head on over to its Steam page to check it out.