‘Erenshore’ is a Single Player MMO with simulated players, and it’s one of the weirdest and wildest things I’ve ever played.

Meet Pete. Pete is just like you and me. He’s a normal guy, trying to live a normal life in the world of Erenshor. As I wait in the login queue to start working on my dailies, the reality of the situation hits me. “Wait,” I say, befuddled beyond belief, “I thought this was supposed to be a single-player game?”. Here’s the thing: it is a completely single-player affair, but it’s masked so well behind the mask of an old-school MMORPG that I had to second-guess myself more than once that I wasn’t actually playing with other people. It’s one of the weirdest concepts I’ve ever seen, but I can’t get enough of this idea.

Before I get into the meat and potatoes of everything, I need to commend Burgee Media for absolutely nailing the aesthetic, as well as the NPC behavior. As I roamed around the opening lands of Erenshor, I was taken aback by how well the game looked and ran. Alongside the aesthetic choices, the way that NPC “players” react and act is emulated so perfectly, I almost couldn’t believe that these were computer-controlled characters. But, most importantly, the gameplay is smooth, responsive, and feels like something I would have been playing in 2006. That’s the highest compliment I can give Erneshor by a long shot.