Torn is a text-based MMORPG sandbox adventure with over twenty years of development and lore tattooed on its back. Set in a crime-infested city that makes Tijuana look like Disneyland, players start out as ordinary street thugs, working their way through brutal missions and despicable crimes to carve out an identity. But this is no linear journey. There is no end to this game. Torn City cannot be beaten. It is a living, breathing world inhabited by 80,000 daily players, all of them fighting to make their mark.
Crime Does Pay
Starting with petty scams and opportunistic thefts, our citizens quickly get a taste for the dirty dollar and soon progress to high-level robberies, elaborate cybercrimes, and contract arsons for some of the worst bastards you’ll ever meet. Each crime outcome is described in grim, vivid detail, with over 20,000 text-based scenes written to date. If you’ve ever wondered how to con an old lady out of her pension, what you might find while burgling a funeral home, or what full-thickness third-degree burns smell like, you’re in for a treat.
The Blackest Market
Alongside our elaborate crime system is an equally complex economy managed by a degree-certified economist which sees billions of dollars change hands daily. Through the item market and their own personal bazaars, Torn citizens buy and sell everything they need to gain, train, and cause pain. Why do new players fly around the world to import and sell cute plushies? So they can load up on candy and ecstasy before they hit the gym, obviously.
Shady Deals
For those looking to go straight, thousands of player-founded companies provide pay, perks, and products to the people of Torn. Roles at strip clubs, oil rigs, and detective agencies are on offer to those with the right skills. Once they tire of exploiting their fellow citizens, fresh moneymaking opportunities await at the bank and stock market, with players able to invest in arms dealers, pornographers, and casinos. Filthy rich? These deals are plain rancid.
Strength in Numbers
Lone wolves don’t last long in Torn. Eventually, players must find their herd to stay safe, joining one of thousands of player-run factions, many more than a decade old. Organised groups often a hundred players strong, each faction develops its own distinct culture and identity, engaging in weekly wars, organized crimes, and territorial conquests to fulfil their members’ ambitions. Their long-storied histories have sparked vast, game-spanning conflicts drawing in every alliance in the game, with the outcomes often redrawing the city map for years to come.
Community Spirit
Every game has its own unique selling point, but nobody has a community quite like Torn. For twenty years we’ve built every update around collaboration, handing players the tools and watching them twist our work into something new. They’ve created their own metas, invented playstyles we never intended, and turned our crime simulator into a social experiment that never stops evolving.
Of course, close involvement with our playerbase comes with opinions. Loud ones. Guides, suggestions, and passionate rants pile up on the forums, all balanced by the kind of camaraderie that only exists when you’re not trying to cave someone’s skull in with a pole hook. The least insane contributors to these debates have been hired into key roles, including our current community manager and several members of the development team.
Sleek and Simple
Ever noticed how rich people dress in basic attire? That’s our style too. Torn is proudly low-fi, navigated through an intuitive system of tabs, maps, menus, and pop-ups. The few graphics we throw in are top tier, with expert modellers producing 3D renderings of weapons, drugs, and body parts at a level of detail we frankly don’t deserve. Nobody needs a fancy graphics card to play. The only ray tracing here is the outline drawn around someone’s bullet-riddled corpse.
Torn can be played on Android, letting citizens plan kidnappings or casino heists while they’re on the toilet at work. In keeping with our old school feel, many players still access Torn through a browser, you know, like your nan does when she logs onto Mumsnet to share her “reasonable concerns” about those people who moved in at the end of her street.
Speaking of nans, most of our players are old as shit, having grown with us over the course of our two-decade journey. Launched in 2004 alongside Facebook™, Shrek 2™, and Bird Flu™, Torn has evolved greatly from its humble beginnings, but our core beliefs remain the same. An outlaw among the microtransaction-riddled wastelands of AAA gaming, Torn keeps it basic and brutal, providing satisfying mechanics, unapologetically raw stories, and community-driven content that keeps people coming back for more.
Who Are You Freaks?
TORN was founded in 2004 by Joe Chedburn. A 16-year-old college dropout working part time at Greggs, Joe had no idea that his bedroom PHP project would evolve into the world’s largest text-based MMORPG. Over the next 21 years, Joe shared his vision with a team of dedicated coders and creatives spanning the UK, USA, Ukraine, Thailand, and beyond. TORN Ltd now employs around 40 staff in total. Probably. We haven’t stopped to count.
As our playerbase expands, so too do our team and our ambitions. Torn will never be finished. Our aim is to consistently release new content, features, and refinements indefinitely. Until we are all dead. TORN’s freemium model will remain in place throughout its eternal existence, allowing anyone with a browser and a thirst for crime to play with full access for free, forever.
And some people are still doing that today, twenty years after they signed up. Ha! Losers.
Relevant Links
Download the Torn App - Google Play
Torn Press Kit - Google Drive
21-year-old Computer Geek Makes $1m With Online Game - The Telegraph, Oct 2009
Home Office Civil Servants Addicted to Online Murder Spree - The Daily Star, Aug 2014
Torn Nominated for TIGA Games Industry Award - TIGA, Sept 2025