EverQuest II

EverQuest II is a 3D fantasy massively multiplayer online role-playing game (MMORPG) originally developed and published by Sony Online Entertainment for Microsoft Windows PCs and released in November 2004. It is the sequel to the original EverQuest, released five years earlier, and features updated graphics and more streamlined gameplay compared to the previous entry, as well as an abundance of voice acting with contributions from actors such as Christopher Lee and Heather Graham. In February 2015, Sony Online Entertainment's parent corporation Sony Computer Entertainment sold it to investment company Inception Acquisitions, where it continues to develop and publish the game under its new name, Daybreak Game Company. The game is set in an alternate future 500 years after the events of the first EverQuest, and is meant to run alongside its predecessor without interfering with the original story. It features characters and locations from the original that have been altered by centuries of war and cataclysmic destruction. While the title did receive favorable reviews upon release, it was notably less influential to the genre than the previous installment, and it faced heavy competition from other MMORPGs, such as World of Warcraft, which was released two weeks after EverQuest II. While originally subscription-based since its launch, a free-to-play version with its own dedicated server was released in July 2010 called EverQuest II Extended. In November 2011, the subscription service was cancelled in favor of making all remaining servers free-to-play with microtransactions as the revenue stream.