Age of Empires: Online

VS

Ark: Survival Evolved

Age of Empires: Online was originally released in 2011 and officially shut down in 2014, but the game lives on through the fan-run Project Celeste servers. As a niche fan revival, its daily player base is small—likely in the low thousands—sustained by a dedicated but limited community and not benefiting from mainstream publisher support. Its activity is well below peak original levels.

Ark: Survival Evolved is a popular survival sandbox game released in 2017 and available on nearly all platforms. Its peak was several years ago, but it maintains a stable community thanks to official and community servers, modding, and occasional event content. While numbers have declined since launch, the game still sees tens of thousands of daily players across PC and consoles, especially due to its ongoing updates and active mod scene. However, it is not an MMO as it does not feature a single, large-scale persistent world—servers are capped and players are sharded.