Not all games have long-lasting multiplayer. Old games are more prone to this, but some still work today, give or take a patch or two. Here’s a small list of old PC games with working multiplayer that I personally recommend.
Medal of Honor – Allied Assault
Released: March 2004
Available on: GOG, Origin
Developer: 2015 Games Inc.
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Medal of Honor – Allied Assault (MoHAA) is a FPS game based on the Quake engine. Set in World War II, the single player campaigns available in the definitive War Chest Edition put you in the shoes of three American soldiers fighting the German and Italian Axis forces in Europe, going through key points of the war such as the Normandy landings.
The multiplayer part of the game has the players take on either Allied or Axis roles in modes such as deathmatch and free-for-all. In addition to the built-in maps, you can download custom maps made by the community (the Aftermath map is one I’m nostalgic for). Since the game relied on the now defunct GameSpy for populating the multiplayer lobby, you need to install a patch to the game, located here. The patch should be able to detect where the game is installed – if not, browse to the path of the game, then click Patch Detected Games. You can then enjoy the available servers, of which there are a fair bit with people playing them round the clock.
Most of the Worms series
Released: December 1997
Available on: Series available on Steam and GOG.
Developer: Team17
Publisher: Team17, SEGA
Worms is a party, turn-based game series about a bunch of warring worms that fight with conventional weapons such as grenades and rocket launchers, as well as unconventional and wacky weapons such as flying super sheep and a huge concrete statue of a donkey. The games are typically 2D, but a few are 3D. With the release of Worms 2 in December 1997, the series gained online multiplayer as one of its selling points.
My favorite entry is Worms Armageddon. Released in 1999 (that’s two decades ago!), the game has received numerous fan patches made official by the series’ developer, allowing the multiplayer to continue thriving and kicking. The best part is that even the owners of the original physical copies of the game can download and install these fan patches and play the same games that GOG and Steam players are playing – by itself a rare sight when it comes to other games.
There are other old Worms games with multiplayer support like Worms Forts Under Siege, but they require GameSpy patches to replace the dead master servers with new ones.
Star Wars Battlefront 2 (2005)
Released: October 2005
Available on: GOG, Steam
Developer: Pandemic Studios (shut down)
Publisher: Disney
Just like the current Star Wars Battlefront installments by EA, the original Battlefront series include the ability to play as any of the movie series’ cast against others in on-foot or spaceship battles.
For a while, the only way to play the game multiplayer was through a GameSpy fix. This changed with a recent update that restored the multiplayer functionality to Steam and GOG Galaxy players, with Galaxt Crossplay support (it was my first game where Crossplay allowed me to play against a Steam friend of mine). Thanks to this update, the servers are well populated.
In Conclusion
Not all multiplayer games wither away and die. Thanks to efforts on the community’s and the developer’s part, these games remain playable and just as fun as they were back when they released.
Looking for games that run well on a weak computer? Check out our Good Games for Bad PCs!
