Soul’s Remnant Arrives on Steam as a Free-to-Play MMORPG Built by a Tiny Two-Person Team
Soul’s Remnant has officially entered Steam Early Access, bringing a surprisingly large free-to-play MMORPG to players after nearly a decade of development. Created by a small team led by developer Chaomoon, the game launched on August 13 and is already drawing attention for its old-school MMO charm, flexible character progression, and extremely lightweight system requirements.
The project began in April 2016, with Chaomoon working on the game solo for eight years. During that time, the developer held regular public playtests to keep the community involved and gauge interest. In 2025, a second developer, Rajah, joined the project, turning Soul’s Remnant into a two-person studio effort. Despite that tiny team size, the Early Access version is packed with content.
Soul’s Remnant offers more than 72 skills spread across melee, ranged, magic, and faith-based progression paths. Instead of forcing players into fixed classes, the game lets them build their characters freely, making it easier to experiment with different playstyles. Whether players want to focus on close-range combat, ranged attacks, spellcasting, support abilities, or a hybrid approach, the system is designed to stay flexible.
The amount of content available at launch is also notable. Soul’s Remnant includes over 1,000 items, more than 700 crafting recipes, 19 bosses, three dungeons, over 200 maps, and more than 150 quests. For a free-to-play MMORPG developed by only two people, that is a substantial Early Access foundation.
The game also features a fully player-driven economy. Instead of relying only on NPC shops, players can trade through an auction house and set up their own shop stalls. This gives the world a more social, community-focused feel and encourages crafting, gathering, trading, and market competition.
Another standout feature is the real day and night cycle. When night falls, most maps become darker for about 22 real-world minutes, making light sources genuinely useful rather than just cosmetic. It is a small detail, but it adds atmosphere and gives exploration a more immersive feel.
Chaomoon also composed more than 40 music tracks for the game, further showing how much personal effort has gone into the project. Soul’s Remnant clearly wears its classic side-scrolling MMORPG inspirations proudly, especially for players who enjoy nostalgic online RPGs with colorful worlds, skill grinding, boss fights, crafting, and social trading.
One of the biggest advantages of Soul’s Remnant is how easy it is to run. The game only requires Windows 7 or later, 2 GB of RAM, and around 400 MB of storage space. That makes it accessible to players using older laptops or low-end desktop PCs. The client was built in GameMaker and also has macOS and Linux versions, although the macOS build has a known incompatibility with macOS 10.15 Catalina.
Full controller support is already included, which should make the game more comfortable for players who prefer a gamepad. Verified Steam Deck support is not available yet, but it is listed as a planned feature for the full 1.0 release. Considering the game is being developed by such a small team, that roadmap seems reasonable.
The developers expect Soul’s Remnant to remain in Early Access for around six to twelve months. The pricing model is also expected to stay the same: free-to-play with optional cosmetic and convenience purchases. Importantly, permanent character wipes have now ended, meaning players can invest time into their characters without worrying about future seasonal resets deleting their progress.
Soul’s Remnant was originally planned to launch on August 5, but the release was pushed back by one week to avoid overlapping with Nexon’s MapleStory Classic World closed test, which ran from August 4 to August 12. Given the game’s clear inspiration from classic MapleStory-style MMORPG design, the delay appears to have been a smart move.
For players looking for a free-to-play MMORPG with low system requirements, flexible character builds, crafting, bosses, quests, and a player-run economy, Soul’s Remnant may be worth watching closely. Its Early Access launch already offers a large amount of content, and with the developers planning more updates on the road to version 1.0, this small-scale MMO could become a standout choice for fans of classic online RPGs.
