The folks at BigPoint are nearing an impressive milestone for their free-to-play MMO ‘Drakensang Online’, hitting almost 6 million registered users. The company even goes toe-to-toe with Diablo III and Torchlight II in a comparative chart.

The chart is from BigPoint, who did say they were “admittedly biased” with the promotion of their own title, yet they do strike up some interesting points. Diablo III just came out of a public beta over the weekend and while most of the gaming community is still punch-drunk over the gameplay, the fact remains that the free-to-play MMO has been slowly building steam over the last few years.

Even the giant ‘World of Warcraft’ entered into a free-to-play mode, up to a certain level, as a promotion to gain more subscribers. Bioware stood with the subscription model for their launch of ‘Star Wars the Old Republic’ while Sony saw an impressive improvement when switching ‘DC Universe: Online’ from a subscription service to a tier-based structure.

Obviously creating a game like Diablo III and even Torchlight 2 is a separate class of MMO, bigger budgets and more stable income from predictive launch sales can create a better game. The chart isn’t ment to say that hands down ‘Drakensang Online’ is better than these two games in every category, but it does put your $20-$60 in perspective. Even if you love the subscription model or it’s games, the fact remains that these free-to-play MMO titles create a sense of competition for larger developers. The more you get for free, the more they have to add to compete for your money.

BigPoint has stated that their title will be “free through any web browser, (and it) features PvP, immersive MMO environments, and much more. To check out the game you can head to Drakensang Online.