Live-service games are a dime a dozen these days. While the major triple-A releases will get tons of hype leading up to their launch, several new indie and mobile games that adhere to the "pay as you go" model are released every month. In fact, it has become the most profitable model for game development in the modern era.
What benefits these types of games is the ability to refine their content dozens of times post-release. Games that start as a bit of a mess can round into form through updates and fan feedback, and become something worth investing time and money into. This is the exception, not the norm, but these live-service games have used that formula to create a product that, today, is vastly superior to what was available upon their release.
8 Rocket League
The modern recreation of Psyonix's proof-of-concept Supersonic Acrobatic Rocket-Powered Battle-Cars, 2015's Rocket League has become one of the most popular eSports games in the world. There was nothing particularly wrong with the game at launch, but content updates have taken it from a fun experiment to the first true "video game sport."
Content updates including new cars, maps, and game modes have created a dedicated following of players, so much so that Rocket League switched to a free-to-play model in September 2020. Now including a battle pass and free updates, Psyonix's physics-based car soccer game continues to find new life, even as it approaches its 7th anniversary.
7 Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn
Upon its initial release in 2010, Final Fantasy 14 was a total flop. The game took forever to load, and while it looked gorgeous for the time, that aesthetic came at the cost of performance. Lag and significant bugs were a constant issue for players subscribed to what is now known as Final Fantasy 14 1.0. The game was shut down in 2012, with the developers quite literally blowing up the game world.
A year later, in August 2013, the game returned under the title Final Fantasy 14: A Realm Reborn. Bringing with it a more traditional Final Fantasy jobs system, graphical improvements that wouldn't crash the average player's PC, and a vastly improved storyline, A Realm Reborn found renewed success, and just released its biggest – and potentially final – expansion in December of last year. Boasting one of the largest player bases of any MMO, Final Fantasy 14 is a testament to what can happen when developers regroup, listen to fan feedback, and work to rescue their game from disaster.
6 The Secret World Legends
Initially released in 2012, The Secret World was an MMO set in the real world, something that was a rarity among the slew of fantasy and sci-fi-themed online multiplayer games that sought to capitalize on the World of Warcraft fervor. The Secret World brought something new to the table, with a fluid class system and lore based on real-world conspiracies that often required players to do research outside the game to solve its more complex mysteries.
The biggest hindrance for The Secret World was that it was a paid release, and when the market was being flooded with new MMOs, a full-price game that lacked "word of mouth" appeal was a tough sell. In the Spring of 2017, Funcom released The Secret World Legends, a free-to-play version of the original game. While microtransactions were present, the developers assured players that every item and weapon was accessible without spending money. Players can now sample the game first without making a financial commitment beforehand, and The Secret World is in a better place because of it.
5 Fortnite
Fortnite is a prime example of a happy accident. Initially billed as a co-op base-building game where players would work together to fight off hordes of AI zombies while building and maintaining their fort, Epic Games released a Battle Royale mode after the success of Player Unknown's Battlegrounds. It was an instant smash hit, so much so that the developers at People Can Fly completely changed direction and made that mode the game's primary focus.
Fortnite has become so much more since then. There have been concerts hosted in the game, and crossover events with Marvel, Star Wars, DC Comics, The Matrix, the NFL, and dozens more. Not to mention that Fortnite has invented dance moves, created international celebrities, and become the game of note for an entire generation of gamers. While some worthy competitors have cropped up since Fortnite's release, it's hard to see anyone taking its throne any time soon.
4 Destiny 2
When Destiny 2 was released in 2017, the biggest question surrounding it was the necessity for a full-price sequel to a live-service game that was only three years old. For a while, that question went unanswered beyond a pair of content updates that added some gameplay content but didn't justify the release of a sequel. Then, a year after its launch, Destiny 2 released the expansion Forsaken, and it all started to come together.
Forsaken introduced content across the game, from new campaign missions, status-quo shifting narratives, a new raid, more locations, gear, and PvP maps, to a PvP/PvE fusion mode and the game's first dungeon. It also brought with it Destiny 2's Annual Pass, an iteration of Fortnite's Game Pass which guaranteed a steady flow of content for players throughout the following year. While it took a bit for Destiny 2 to justify its existence, it has now eclipsed the original game in nearly every sense.
3 Warframe
The difference between Warframe at launch in 2013 and Warframe now is night and day. The launch build was a much slower, less expansive game, essentially a hallway shooter starring space ninjas. The game has since been updated thoroughly, several times a year, and what is now available is an almost unfathomable amount of content for a free-to-play game.
Warframe now boasts 14 planets with multiple missions on each, 25 different warframes (the game's equivalent to classes) that each brings their own unique playstyle, hundreds of hours of content, fantastic music, fully-voiced cutscenes and dialogue, and all of it is accessible for free as long as players are willing to spend the time getting it. While the sheer amount of grinding may turn some players off, there isn't a better "bang for your buck" game on the market than Warframe.
2 Sea Of Thieves
One of the main criticisms of Sea of Thieves at launch was how little there was for players to actually do in the game. It had plenty of charm, cool mechanics, and an idea to die for: an online co-op pirate game that allowed players to form a crew with their friends and set out on the high seas, pillaging the ships of other players, scouring islands for treasure, and engaging in ship-to-ship battles. At launch, it just lacked variety.
The developers at Rare listened to that criticism, and after solving the game's technical issues, they got to work on adding more expansive content for their players to enjoy. There were four major updates for Sea Of Thieves between 2018 and 2020, after which Rare switched to the Battle Pass formula. Since then, each season has added new content for players to experience, and Rare has stated that they expect 2022 to be their biggest year yet, with the introduction of Adventures – story-driven live events lasting for a few weeks – and Mysteries, which will be more drawn out events that will take place over several months.
1 GTA Online
Similar criticisms were said about Sea of Thieves as what was said about the launch of GTA Online, the online component to Rockstar Games' 2013 release Grand Theft Auto 5. Unlike Sea of Thieves, Rockstar has been cultivating GTA Online for nearly a decade, and the new content continues to flow at regular intervals even with the game now in its third console generation.
Since its initial release, GTA Online has received 40 content updates in 9 years. Much of those consist of new vehicles and guns, but there have also been new story missions, heists, content creation modes, and the ability for players to buy and run businesses, nightclubs, arenas, aircraft hangars, vehicle warehouses, motorcycle clubs, and to design and command their own criminal empire. There are few live service games with as much customizable content as GTA Online, and Rockstar doesn't appear to be done with the game just yet.