Eh, even without the EQ element, "solo" MMORPGs are really kind of the future. And it's the biggest thing THJ capitalized on, even if EQ nostalgia did a good chunk of the heavy lifting. The gameplay loop is really what sold it. There have been plenty of "solo" EQEmus, but THJ caught on the way it did because of the gameplay most of all.
I think the traditional MMO model is already running on inertia at this point. The heavy reliance on forced grouping made sense back in the EverQuest era, where simply existing in a shared world was novel enough that players were willing to tolerate friction. But that novelty is gone, and the expectations players bring into these games have completely changed. What's replacing it isn't "MMOs becoming single-player games," but something more nuanced. A "solo-first", multiplayer-enhanced structure.
Games like Erenshor and Ancient Kingdoms are good early examples of this shift. They're not successful because they abandon MMO design, they're successful because they strip out the parts that waste your time while keeping the parts that make the world feel alive. In older MMOs, your ability to engage with the game at all was often tied to other people. Want to run a dungeon? Find a group. Want to kill a boss? Find a guild. Want meaningful progression? You guessed it, find other players. That structure doesn't create social interaction so much as it forces it, and there's a big difference between those two things.
The newer approach flips that completely. You can log in and run dungeons on your own time, take down bosses without scheduling your night around other people, and progress your character consistently, regardless of population or time of day. And then, if you want to (this part is key) you group up, socialize, or engage with others because it's actually enjoyable or beneficial, not because the game has you by the throat.
At the same time, the "MMO" part still matters. A fully solo experience misses the point just as much as forced grouping does. The world still needs to feel populated. Seeing other players, having a functioning economy, spontaneous interactions, even just the background presence of real people. Those are what gives these games their identity. So the goal isn't to remove multiplayer, it's to decouple it from basic gameplay access. And this lines up pretty cleanly with how people actually play games now. Most players aren't logging in thinking, "Who can I coordinate with tonight?" They're logging in thinking, "What can I get done with the time I have?" If the answer is "wait around for a group," that's where you lose them.
That's also why EQ nostalgia only goes so far. Projects that lean on that style can get initial traction, but the long-term sticking power comes from modernizing the structure, not recreating the friction.. So when people say "solo MMORPGs are the future," it's not really about making MMOs less social (even though all the shut-ins want you to believe this, because they hate the idea of others not being forced to interact with them) it's about making them more playable.
Anything still built around mandatory interdependence as a core loop is probably going to stay stuck appealing to a shrinking niche instead of evolving with the rest of the player base.
