I know, and understand why, the general reaction you get from players when you start telling them about a live service game is a massive groan. The reality is that the biggest examples players have for live service titles are the ones that do everything they can to gouge their player base.

It's heartening to know, however, that not every live service game is built the same. There are live service games out there that consistently provide their players with fun and engaging content on a regular basis, and don't try to shove an ad for the battle pass or a new skin to buy every five minutes you're spending with the game.

These four games are some prominent examples that deserve to be shouted out for showing that there are other ways forward beyond monetizing a game in to the ground.

4 No Man's Sky

The sky isn't the limit, it's just the beginning.

The story of No Man's Sky's awful launch is practically a bedtime story for gamers. We've heard it so much over the years, but that's how the story began, not how it ended. No Man's Sky developer Hello Games never gave up on achieving the vision it had for the original game, and while it may not have begun as a live service title, it slowly molded into one of the best live service games today.

It is now undeniable that No Man's Sky is one of the best massively open-world multiplayer games, with exploration potential that is quite literally unmatched across the rest of the industry. For nearly a decade now since its launch in 2016, No Man's Sky has constantly improved, with new expansions and gameplay updates that turned one of the biggest upsets the industry ever saw into one of its greatest success stories.

If you jumped into No Man's Sky today for the first time, you'd jump into a truly overwhelming amount of content to play through, and Hello Games shows no real signs of stopping. Perhaps when its next game, Light No Fire, finally releases, we'll see some slowdown for No Man's Sky. But until then, you can expect to see more content come to No Man's Sky, for free, like everything else.

3 Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn

Everyone deserves a second chance.

Similarly to No Man's Sky, when Final Fantasy XIV first launched, it was not at all what players expected. It was awful, for lack of a better word, and Square Enix accepted that. The studio accepted that to the point of even taking the game down, and re-releasing it as Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn.

Now, it's one of the world's biggest and most beloved MMO's, with deep content updates that are satisfying in new gameplay and narrative ways that keep bringing fans back. It's borderline insane just how popular this game continues to be, even after being brought back from the dead.

Plenty of game publishers around the world are trying to make the next big live service game each year, and each year live service games get shut down because it's actually not as easy as some executives think, to make the next Fortnite or, in this case, Final Fantasy XIV: A Realm Reborn. Besides Final Fantasy XIV, the number of online games that are making a successful return after shutting down their servers is a nice giant goose egg. Final Fantasy XIV remains in a league of its own, and remains as one of the better live service games to play that isn't trying to drain you of every penny you have.

2 Sea of Thieves

The real booty is the friends we made along the way.

Sea of Thieves is Rare's most successful game yet, and will probably remain the company's most successful game ever as it shows no signs of slowing down. The pirate adventure from one of the industry's most storied studios, being its biggest and most successful, is no small feat, and it didn't come from Rare churning out loot boxes. And even before it became part of the first batch of games from Xbox to be ported over to PlayStation, it surpassed 40 million players worldwide.

It came from Rare consistently working with its community to improve the game, listening to its player base while also never compromising on the vision it had. There's no pay-to-win structure, there's no predatory monetization, just a good game that keeps you coming back to have more pirate-filled adventures with your friends. Like the other games on this list, the work that Rare has put in, and the conscious effort to ensure it was never taking advantage of its players is commendable, when the industry is filled with so many games that use predatory tactics.

1 Deep Rock Galactic

Rock and stone!

The numbers on this list aren't meant to indicate one of these games as better than the other, but when I think about live service games that are doing right by their players, Deep Rock Galactic is always my first thought.

A co-op, first-person shooter, with procedurally generated mines to explore, bugs to kill and shiny stones to collect. Top that off with one of the best communities in gaming, and camaraderie between dwarves you won't see elsewhere save for Lord of the Rings, and a battle pass that is always entirely free, and you have one of the best live service games in the industry today.

Developer Ghost Ship Games is extremely committed to giving players tons of things to do, without making them pay a dime more if they don't want to. There's a reason why it's kept an "Overwhelmingly Positive" rating on Steam across 265,000+ reviews. It's also got one of the best lighting systems in games, with how light from your flares dance around a dark mine as you begin exploring.

That's just a personal favorite point about the game, but it's far from the only reason to love it. Deep Rock Galactic is not just a fun game to play with your friends, it's one of the best live service games to play in this industry because it really does value your time and money.

Live service games don't have to be evil

One thing I have to point out, is that none of these games are free-to-play. There's a cost to jump into all of them, which is definitely a factor as to why they are generous with the content players get. It's a different economic model than what the most popular live service games follow, but the biggest live service games are also the most predatory.

Live service doesn't mean free-to-play, and while these games aren't free-to-play, they are live games continually being updated by their developers. They're showing up the rest of the industry that you don't need loot boxes to be a commercial and critical success. You just need to give players real reasons to keep coming back.