In 2012 The Secret World was released, an MMORPG like no other. Now, in 2023, it’s as good as dead. What actually happened to the game? MeinMMO editor Benedict Grothaus takes a look at the past.
Back then, The Secret World was the first MMORPG since Ragnarok Online and World of Warcraft that I was able to keep fascinated by. Since then, only WildStar has gripped me so enormously.
Today, however, three of these four names have been forgotten, at least here in Europe. Ragnarok only plays a bigger role in Korea and Brazil, WildStar has been dead since 2018 and even MeinMMO demon Cortyn cried a tear after the MMORPG.
Hardly anyone talks about The Secret World these days either. It doesn’t even have a significant number of players anymore. Hardly anything can come close to the world of MMORPGs.
The trailer of The Secret World already shows the particularly gloomy and somewhat wacky world:
Secret World Legends: The Launch Trailer
Story and atmosphere: Lovecraft horror par excellence
What is The Secret World? Imagine a world like ours. Except that every unspeakable horror and conspiracy theory is true. Everything Alex Jones says is true – and more.
Templars from the secret order in London, the Dragon from Seoul and the Illuminati from New York – every secret organization that secretly pulls the strings in the shadows of the world exists. And you play one of their members.
In the past, The Secret World largely dispensed with classes. Instead, the weapons you wield determined what your role is: with combinations of firearms, melee weapons, and magic, you became a tank, healer, or DPS hero—or anything in between.
This made The Secret World special: But not just being a level 39 Illuminati accountant, the world of the MMORPG is filled with horrors and dangers. More precisely: with everything that horror author HP Lovecraft came up with:
Sounds just as wacky as it played. Story and atmosphere were what made The Secret World better than almost any other MMORPG. And even better than most single-player RPGs I’ve seen.
For this reason alone, The Secret World is – to this day – one of the best MMORPGs that are also fun on their own and one of the best story MMORPGs:
The 5 best story MMORPGs you can play in 2022
Hours of quests that add depth to the world
The special atmosphere is partly due to the fact that the world was not simply plastered over with generic quests. Sure there was the classic “Kill 12 zombie dogs with a flamethrower” quest every now and then.
But The Secret World had a special type of quest that wasn’t repeatable either: research, or “Investigations.” Using a few clues, real websites had to be visited through the browser and details found that would take the quest one step further.
It brought the world to life, filling it with detail and building it up like a good book. Just like the excellent environment, which has always made me feel uneasy. Everything was just a fitting whole.
I still remember The Secret World so well that I reinstalled it in 2022 for my 10th birthday – probably my biggest MMORPG mistake of the year, because I didn’t last long.
TSW becomes Secret World Legends – and hardly anyone plays anymore
The MMORPG did not die suddenly, but over the years. Since 2012 there have been few player peaks, at least on Steam (via steamcharts). In general, however, the number of players has steadily decreased. It has to be said that the game also had its own launcher, whose numbers I can’t name.
5 years after the release, in July 2017, The Secret World became the new MMOPRG Secret World Legends. Instead of relying on a subscription, developer Funcom made the game Free2Play and offered additional premium services.
In fact, that brought back over 3,700 players, but not for long. The Secret World became 2 dead MMORPGs and that hasn’t changed to this day. In December 2022, the game had a sad 57 players on average, 124 maximum at any one time.
There is no single reason why The Secret World died. Rather several. For one thing, a world of Cthulhu mythology was very specifically geared towards nerds and literature geeks. Something less conducive to MMORPGs that thrive on having many players.
On the other hand, The Secret World simply offers little replay value. Anyone who has played through the story has little incentive to continue. There are raids and endgame dungeons, but The Secret World has never been hardcore enough to warrant excessive min-maxing. Apart from that, the intersection between Lovecraft fanboys and hardcore MMORPG players is even smaller than each part on its own.
Secret World’s German blog no longer publishes any news today, the last one is from October 2020. The English website still has updates with a few lines of text per news item.
Another service game has claimed Funcom’s attention since 2017: Conan Exiles, which now even offers magic:
Survival hit Conan Exiles shows his new magic tricks – Doubles players on Steam, but annoying with microtransactions
Nevertheless, the servers are still online, everyone can play. How much the MMORPG is still financially worthwhile for the developers can probably only be said by Funcom itself. But shortly after the release of Secret World Legends, they had a new game: Conan Exiles.
After The Secret World fell short of expectations, Conan Exiles has been a real blessing. The game literally saved the studio from ruin:
Conan Exiles: How Naked Barbarians Saved an MMO Studio
Surely no one needs to expect major content updates for The Secret World anymore. After all, the studio has announced that the game will appear as a pen and paper in the 5th edition D&D rulebook. Let’s see if more than 124 people play this.