Three people, one Windsor Street duplex, and a spreadsheet that got out of hand
Delfontiax isn't a studio or a media outlet. It's three PC players in Halifax, Nova Scotia, who kept better notes than they meant to.
November 2019. Priya Bhatt was playing an entirely different MMO — one we won't name — when a server merge wiped three years of a guild bank Colton Fournier had spent almost as long stocking. No warning, no rollback, gold and gear just gone. Priya, annoyed enough to do something about it, started a shared spreadsheet the next week: a short list of free-to-play worlds that had already survived at least one studio crisis without erasing anyone's progress. Path of Exile and EVE Online were the first two rows.
Colton joined in properly a few months later, mostly to argue with the RuneScape recommendation ("it's not even new"). He was right that it wasn't new, and that turned out to be the point — a twenty-year-old world with a subscription tier had already proven it wasn't going anywhere. Albion Online got added in 2020 after Colton got obsessed with its player-run market and wouldn't stop talking about it during Wednesday LAN nights.
2021. Mireille Tanguay moved into the same rented duplex on Windsor Street that Priya and Colton were already sharing, needing something to do on weeknights that wasn't marking essays for her Grade 10 English classes. She picked up RuneScape within a month and has since finished more quest lines than either of the other two combined. She's also the one who actually built this website, in 2023, because the spreadsheet had grown a "notes" column nobody else could parse.
We update the list every couple of weeks. We don't chase every single patch, and if a game goes quiet for a season, honestly, so do we — this is a hobby project run around day jobs, not a newsroom.
The three of us
Priya Bhatt
Started the list, 2019Software QA tester by day. Plays Path of Exile every league launch and has three EVE Online alt accounts she insists are "for logistics, not hoarding."
Colton Fournier
Joined 2020Electrician's apprentice turned journeyman. Runs a small Albion Online guild focused on resource routes and checks the in-game market more than he'll admit.
Mireille Tanguay
Joined 2021, built the site in 2023Teaches high school English. RuneScape completionist working through quest cape requirements one free evening at a time. Keeps this site's copy and screenshots current.
How the list grew
The spreadsheet starts
Priya adds Path of Exile and EVE Online after a guild-bank wipe in a different game convinces her that "free forever" and "actually persistent" aren't the same thing.
Albion Online joins
Colton won't stop talking about full-loot risk during LAN nights, so it gets its own row — and eventually its own guild.
Mireille moves in, RuneScape gets added
A twenty-year-old world turns out to be the most "persistent" thing on the whole list.
The spreadsheet becomes a website
Mireille builds the first version of delfontiax.com so the notes column stops being unreadable to everyone but her.
Still four games, still no ads
The list has stayed at four titles on purpose — we'd rather re-verify four well than half-track ten.
One honest limitation: we're three people with day jobs, not a research team. We re-verify pricing and monetization before every update, but we can miss a patch note, and we don't cover games outside this specific free-to-play, no-lootbox lane. If that's not what you're after, this probably isn't the right site.