EVE Online

EVE Online runs one universe on one cluster, which is why the stories get out. When thousands of players commit to a battle over a single system, it is genuinely thousands of players in the same place, and the ships lost are gone permanently, which is what gives the numbers their weight.

Underneath the headlines it is an economics game. Nearly everything in space is manufactured by players from materials mined by players, priced on regional markets nobody controls, and hauled by players who can be intercepted. Combat exists to disrupt that supply chain. This is not a game with a levelling curve so much as a game with a career choice, and the interface will not help you make it. Twenty years in, it remains the most complete simulation of an economy in any game.