Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen is an aggressively old-school MMO that hates hand-holding so much it won't even give you a map—but a certain type of player might just love it

"What the heck is a Dire Lord?" I asked myself, staring at Pantheon: Rise of the Fallen's character creation screen. This was my first inkling that I was about to start playing an MMO that would rarely tell me anything I needed to know. From the absence of practical information about classes and races, to the lack of any in-game map, Pantheon is aggressively against any sort of hand-holding, which makes for an excruciating new player experience.

Amongst the veteran MMO crowd, though, Pantheon's been making waves.