The natural cycle of a game is that it will be popular on release, its audience will gradually fall, and it will eventually die. Still, some games just refuse to fall down this path. Their communities may count tens of thousands, even decades after their initial release.
The best part is that these are not necessarily games whose graphics still look great. Most of the time, these games have aged well, have amazing replayability, and have a loyal fanbase that is still fueled by nostalgia.
The most important thing to remember is that two of these games now have a remaster, but we’ll still refer to them in their base (original) form, just briefly mentioning these remasters. Also, remasters count; it’s still an old game with a small graphics overhaul and some quality-of-life improvements.
With all of this in mind and without further ado, here’s what you need to know about the top five old games with a huge community.
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Diablo II
Diablo II recently got a remastered (Resurrected) version, but you would be surprised at just how many people are still playing the original. So, what’s the secret?
A lot of people grew up on Diablo, and while today there are so many ripoffs and similar (hack-and-slash games), this wasn’t the case at the time. Moreover, none of these games had Diablo’s gritty and gory atmosphere.
Moreover, the game’s replayability is incredible due to its RNG-controlled nature. After all, the map is randomly generated every single time, which means that no two areas or dungeons are alike.
Add to this the randomly generated loot system and item tier list, which serves as a basis for many MMORPG loot systems, and you have yourself a winning combination. It’s an immersive and fun game with a ton of replayability.
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Vampire: the Masquerade: Bloodlines
There’s a legend that every time someone says the title of this game out loud, someone out there reinstalls it and starts playing again.
This is arguably one of the best-written games of all time. The characters are unique, and even character models never aimed for photorealism, which means that the graphics haven’t aged that badly either.
The fun thing about VTMB is that it’s actually a better game than when it first came out. Thanks to the Bloodlines Unofficial Patch, a lot of cut content was restored, a lot of balances were made, and many bugs were fixed. Just keep in mind that even the best tools on the antivirus software shortlist may recognize it as malicious, so you’ll possibly have to work your way around it if you want to start playing it again.
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Heroes of Might and Magic III
This is the game that every Slav and their grandmother has installed on their computer. This turn-based strategy has been the staple of the genre for well over a quarter of a century; however, it still has an active community, numerous streamers, and even tournaments regularly.
Not only that, but unofficial patches added a new expansion (Horn of the Abyss) and a new faction (Cove), and there’s another such expansion on the way (with the Factory faction).
The game has an unforgettable campaign, an amazing random map generator (which provides the potential for infinite hours of fun), and so many different mods. Since HOTA is now considered to be, more or less, an official expansion, the mod that we would point out is WOG (in the Wake of Gods).
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Europa Universalis IV
While this is the “newest” game on the list, its initial release was in 2013. The game is still receiving regular DLCs, expansions, and immersion packs, and it currently has more players than ever before.
There are a few things that make EU4 so universally popular even after all these years. At the moment, there are over 500 playable nations in EU4, a historical game with a starting date in 1444. This means that everyone has a chance to play with the country of their ancestors. It also means that you have more potential campaigns than you can ever hope to finish.
Another thing to understand is that, due to the RNG nature of the game, sophisticated AI, and so many moving parts, it’s highly unlikely that you’ll ever have two of the same runs. This gives the game infinite replayability.
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Age of Empires II
This is a comeback story for the ages. You see, the community of AOE2 never really died out, but it did go quiet for a number of years there. Then, out of nowhere, a huge modder community released an expansion with new campaigns and playable nations, which reignited people’s interest in the franchise.
Then, the game was picked up for a new expansion, and another one, and another one. It wasn’t long until the original team behind the game, freshly resurrected Microsoft Games, decided to do a remaster in the form of a Definitive Edition.
The game is now undergoing a renaissance with numerous tournaments with great prize pools and thousands of people tuning in to streams of their favorite players, AOE legends like Viper or Daut. It can’t quite compete with the popularity of AOE4, which had over 70,000 concurrent players on its weekend of release, but it’s definitely up there.
What Makes A Game Evergreen?
Ultimately, this is a question that no one can answer. One common thing that we’ve found is a great replayability factor since all of these games have new experiences to offer even after decades of playing. Even more importantly, they need an active community for multiplayer and an even more active modding community to provide new content for a single-player experience.