Chris Burke

Sony Online’s newest MMO Free Realms is opening its servers tomorrow after being in beta since January.

I got a chance to take part in the closed beta two weeks ago and was impressed with what I saw. Unlike most free-to-play MMOs out there, Free Realms is extremely polished. From logging in and creating your character in your browser to launching the game, it’s all very streamlined and easy to use. It feels more like a living-room console experience than a PC download. Sure it’s aimed at a younger crowd, but the developers have done such a good job it should be enjoyable for players of any age. Unfortunately, the game ran at a stuttering pace on my three-year-old laptop, so I didn’t get to explore everything the world has to offer.

Though free to play, Free Realms reserves a decent amount of its content for those who pay the $4.99 monthly fee. Soon retailers will stock the Free Realms trading-card game, which works like the World of Warcraft TCG, allowing you to redeem special cards for in-game items.

WoW is fun, there’s no getting around that, but it’s good to see companies trying to offer something different from the “WoW but more awesome!” path taken by Conan and others. Now if someone develops a free-to-play Sci-fi MMO, I’ll be there in a heart-beat.

[Source: Kotaku]