The development team included John Hanke, who later founded Niantic, Inc. and codeveloped Google Earth and Pokémon Go.

The game was launched online in an early form on December 15, 1995, and released commercially on October 7, 1996, with a flat-rate monthly subscription.

Trip Hawkins, CEO of 3DO, recognized the forward-looking value of the game and the company, and 3DO bought Archetype in June 1996.

At the time, AOL was still charging per minute for online access, though a change to flat fees was anticipated.

In its early years it was commonly conceived of as a graphical MUD,[3][6] though this term, and Meridian 59's preferred "MMPRPG", was eventually displaced by the now-ubiquitous "massively multiplayer online role-playing game", a term coined by Richard Garriott of Ultima Online in 1997.

Near Death Studios was co-founded by former Meridian 59 developers Rob "Q" Ellis and Brian "Psychochild" Green.

A new rendering engine was added to the game in the Evolution expansion in October 2004, offering an alternative to its Doom-esque graphics.

This expansion also includes features like dynamic lighting, rebindable keys, mouselook, and other visual improvements.

In February 2010, Meridian 59 was turned over to the original technical developers, Andrew and Chris Kirmse.

On September 15, 2012, the team released the game to the public as freeware and most of the source code under the GPLv2 license.

The game is set in the 59th provincial colony of an ancient empire which explored the universe through portals in a magical nexus.

However, several hundred years ago, something went wrong and the young frontier colonies in Meridian 59 were separated from the Empire.

Political factions fight for territory and power, monsters, trolls, orcs, and the undead threaten to destroy all life, and the magical nexus is in a flux, causing disasters across the land.

Weaponcraft - Physical combat, including dodging, parrying, weapons skills, archery, shields, and disarming.

Mostly Area of Effect and Direct Damage spells based on lightning, ice, wind, fire, and other natural forces.

Players can join one of three political factions: Jonas D'Accor's rebels, the throne of Princess Kateriina, or that of her rival in Tos, Duke Akardius.

Players fight one another in the name of their respective factions either for territory or for control of tokens of power which may be used to sway the votes of the councilors of the land.

However, the publication noted that 3DO had changed its business model to rely on online shopping and microtransactions, and had seen monetary success despite its poor sales in stores.