EverQuest Legends is the 1999 MMO you know and love born again with more respect for your time

The year is 2026, and a new-but-not-really EverQuest is on the way. Announced today, EverQuest Legends is the same MMO some of you have been playing for coming up to 30 years, just without all the years of expansions. And the graphics look as they did upon launch. And there's a few modern upgrades. Don't ask me what the word same means.

What seems to be a key difference between the original EverQuest and Legends is how much more approachable it will apparently be for solo players. According to the game's website, you can still join groups of up to four and raids of up to eight people, but the game's class system has been tweaked to allow for solo play. You'll be able to train your character in up to three different active classes at once, and eventually essentially become powerful enough to tackle even the toughest (ever)quests by yourself. Apparently there'll be 560 class combinations to make, so you're pretty spoiled for choice.

In terms of what's included at a launch - which as a note, there's no release date yet, but you can sign up to try its closed beta - the whole continent of Antonica, pre-Kunark, will be there for you to explore. All of EverQuests playable races will be there to choose from too, including Iksar, Frogloks, and Kerran, which will still be in the original game's art style. You can expect some streamlining of things like UI, improvements to spell and ability management, a bevy of quality of life enhancements, and "more than a few new surprises," too.

Speaking to PC Gamer, executive producer David Youssefi essentially described the old-but-new game as "EverQuest for people who don't have time to play EverQuest." I'm very enthused for the venn diagram of people this includes that I am assuming is just one circle. It's a bold sounding move, one that will probably go down well with at least a certain subvert of people given that there was an entire revival server dedicated to the original 1999 release.

I'm also quite intrigued by this wave of nostalgia that's washing over long-running MMOs too. They're particularly mutable games, once an expansion is released they're never quite the same thing again, but I wonder if that's such a bad thing? Perhaps change is a good thing! Except I also really like how the Frogloks look in EverQuest Legends, so, shrug emoticon!