In this classic PC Gamer magazine feature, writer Quintin Smith learns how hard life is in fantasy MMO Wurm Online. I'm bleeding to death. I've got six minutes before I'll be too exhausted to do anything but lie down and die. I wish it was the worst of my problems. But it's not. The real problem is that… gamers are bastards. Lost. In the middle of a dense forest, crowded with ravenous mountain lions. I'm kind of ravenous myself, since Egg and I had all our belongings taken away. Egg's my only friend in the world, and right now he's staring death in the face over a mile away. I just don't know in which direction. This is Wurm Online. It is a very good game for redefining your concept of a bad day. From the archives: This feature was originally published in PC Gamer magazine #1201 (UK, June 2009). It appears as originally written, with only minor changes in formatting and presentation. It's somewhat rare for features from old issues of the magazine to feel timeless. Previews read quaint when they posit long-answered questions; interviews speak optimistically about games that ended up canceled or have long since faded away. Reviews of online games capture a brief moment in time that no longer represents the game years or decades later. But this feature about Wurm Online, an MMO you can still play today (on Steam no less), could pretty much be written today, 17 years later. Except, well, writer Quintin Smith has moved on to bigger things in the years since 2009, like founding beloved board gaming site Shut Up & Sit Down and his own tabletop-focused channel Quinns Quest, and reporting on the games industry with People Make Games. But he clearly had a knack for storytelling right from the start—just read the first few paragraphs of this feature and I bet you'll be sucked in, even though these events happened around the time most MMO players were busy with World of Warcraft's second expansion, Wrath of the Lich King. Enjoy! Slitted sunlight shines down on me from th