Which rpg should i play

Designer Paul Neurath originally conceived of a dungeon simulator that would turn traditional role-playing conventions on their head. Called Underworld, he and his team, the future Looking Glass Studios, built a game that rewarded real-world thinking to solve puzzles and please NPCs.

Ultima developer Origin Systems was so impressed by the three-dimensional engine you could look up and down! Characters that are normally enemies are friends in Underworld, and we love that you may not be able to tell. Underworld was a technological marvel in , but while the graphics are dated, the feeling of exploring the Stygian Abyss is just as exciting today. Divinity was a Kickstarter success story that still somehow took us by surprise. Larian designed encounters thinking that someone could always disagree, or ruin things for you, or even kill the NPC you need to talk to—meaning that quests have to be solvable in unorthodox ways.

The writing in Divinity is consistently top-notch. Alliances are made, then broken, then remade in the aftermath. Choices you think are good just turn out to betray other characters. The end result is possibly the most nuanced take on The Force in the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe, and definitely its most complex villains. A fan-made mod restores much of that content, including a droid planet, and fixes lots of outstanding bugs, showing yet again that PC gamers will work hard to maintain their favorite games.

The endgame includes some particularly sloggy dungeons, but no other game truly drops you into a Vampire world. This is truly a cult classic of an RPG, and the fanbase has been patching and improving the game ever since release. Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2 is currently in development. Read everything we know about it in preparation for what could be another addition to this list in Release date: Developer: Blizzard Battle. Adding all this to the already-tremendous feeling of wiping out hordes of baddies with a well-timed ability change, RoS is the defining action RPG for us.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura was astoundingly buggy when it came out, and many of its battles were as laughably imbalanced as its title. Patches and mods have alleviated some of that pain over the years, but even then they weren't powerful enough to hide what a great mix of fantasy and steampunkery thrived under its surface. That assessment holds up.

Arcanum was dark 'n' gritty before some such tendencies became all the rage, and its character creator allowed players to create everything from gnome gamblers who brandish self-explanatory Tesla-guns to outcast orcs lugging along rusty maces.

Toss in non-linear progression and multiple solutions for quests, and you've got a winner that holds up 14 years later. It also adds much of the humor that we loved from the classic games: How can you not appreciate a game that gives you a nuclear grenade launcher? It makes the game harder, but also more rewarding. Name any similar-looking RPG made in the past five years, and chances are good Dark Souls will be named as an inspiration for its design.

Still, Dark Souls 3 proves that no one does it quite so well as From Software. The spark of originality that was so compelling in Dark Souls 1 isn't quite as apparent here, the second sequel in just five years, but what remains is an impeccably designed combat-heavy RPG.

It's far more responsive than its predecessors, demanding faster action and reaction without sacrificing the deliberate play Dark Souls popularized.

Button mashing will get you nowhere but dead. Dark Souls 3 is the most approachable in the series thanks to frequent warp points, simplified online co-op and beautiful and hideous art that beckons you to explore every nook and corner. No game series manages to reward you so profoundly for scrutinizing its lore and unfurling its secrets, and Dark Souls 3's faster, tighter controls and animation make it the most fun Souls game to play.

The epic scale of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is remarkable, but it's the power of choice in an unrelentingly ugly world that makes it unforgettable. Moral ambiguity has never been so powerfully presented: the decisions you make actually matter, and the outcomes are often unforeseeable and rarely as good as you'd hope. One of the most impressive things about The Witcher 2 is the way it blends two very distinct experiences.

Early in the game, Geralt must make a choice that will take him down one of two separate paths, each offering a completely different perspective on the game's events. If you want to see it all, you'll have to play it twice—and there's more than enough to make it a worthwhile effort. You might expect all your toil and trouble to eventually lead to a just and happy ending for all, but it won't.

Geralt isn't a hero; he's really not much more than a bystander, trying to protect what little he has from the chaos that surrounds him. His quest is entirely personal, driven forward by a colorful, occasionally bizarre and surprisingly believable cast of characters that really brings the game alive.

Geralt works alone, but he feels more like "one among many" than the savior-protagonists of other party-based RPGs. It's a fantastic and well-told tale, layered over very solid mechanical underpinnings: A flexible character development system, glorious eye candy, intense combat and more than enough secondary content to camouflage its very linear nature. It's dark, it's dirty, it's sometimes flat-out depressing—and it's brilliant. Ferelden evokes much of the Forgotten Realms without feeling like a rehash, and your relationship with your team has that old BioWare magic.

The darkspawn feel like the kind of world-consuming threat that demands our attention, even if most of them are faceless hunks of evil for us to cut down. We love how Dragon Age treats magic in its world, in particular the quests that force us to choose how to best handle abominations, the result of a renegade mage succombing to demonic possession.

That loneliness is key because Shock 2 is all about taking things away from you. Think twice before you walk into that radiated room. But the biggest thing Irrational takes away, right at the halfway mark of the game, is hope. Irrational made games where the environment is the central character, and here, that character is the Von Braun.

It creaks and moans as you pad quietly down its corridors. Every door you open yelps. Its security systems attack you as if you hurt their feelings. Some play through with all guns blazing, but the psionics skills balance well with combat, and Tech skills open new areas later in the game. The Guardian was one of the most terrifying things our young minds had ever encountered. His massive stone face emerging from the screen, with his actual, real-life voice taunting us, both tempting us to play more and horrifying us.

It was a technological marvel at the time, but Ultima 7 stands the test of time because of the interactivity of Britannia. This is without a doubt the best installment of one of the most legendary RPG franchises ever. Do you want to run in the firefight, guns blazing, or do you want to sneak around and flank? Do you want to snipe? Or maybe you want to hack some terminals and get droid reinforcement?

Intergrade includes the Yuffie-centric Intermission episode , a photo mode, a new ending cutscene, and some major visual upgrades. For those looking for a choice-heavy game where your decisions have real meaning, Divinity: Original Sin 2 scratches that itch wonderfully. Characters leave or stay in your party based on your decisions, and your choices factor into the final encounter and ending. You can play through it co-op with one of your friends. Intelligent Systems put more social elements into this entry, and it paid off, especially in giving you a personal stake in the story by being a professor of your chosen house.

Having the ability to shape and mentor your allies forges an even stronger connection to them. The most recent game on this list, Tales of Arise, had a tall order to fill: reinvent the long-running Tales series and appeal to a wider audience. Everything you love about RPGs is here: a big world full of discoveries, ridiculously huge and intense bosses, a satisfying progression system, and wonderful character interactions.

The action battle system shines with team attacks alongside flashy aerial strikes and last-second dodge bonuses. However, where it really impresses and sets itself apart is with its loveable goof of a protagonist, Ichiban Kasuga, and a turn-based RPG with depth beyond throwing your fists around.

Up until this point, Yakuza had been an action-centric series, but developer Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio went all-in with its RPG inspiration to great effect. Ichiban is a diehard Dragon Quest fan, and you bond with party members Persona-style.

What games on this list do you enjoy? Let us know in the comments! If you enjoyed this list, be sure to check out our other recent genre lists by clicking on our list hub below. Join Sign In. Post Tweet Email. It does this via vast and flexible skill trees, and the regular addition of new leagues, new enemies, new items have only made the options available more rewarding to experiment with.

Torment is the tale of a man and his regrets, and whether he can ever be a better man. If you do not pet your cows every day in this beautiful country life sim, you are playing it wrong. Not just because they're cute, but because if you don't they will produce substandard milk, and therefore you will make lower quality cheese.

For many of those who disappear to Stardew Valley, the fishing and farming will become a ritualistic second life. Irrefutable proof that the ultimate cubicle-escaping fantasy for an entire generation is not to become a superhero in a long coat and mirrorshades, but to be a carrot baron.

Stardew could have left it there, a straightforward life-swap about buying organic seeds and feeding the cat. But it also turned the whole surrounding town into a neighbourhood of gentle hobos, friendly fishermen, thick-skinned drunks, and more. There's never been a better time, either, as the 1. There are loads of updates and improvements on the farm as well. If you have never dropped the weekly numbercrunch for the crunch of a good parsnip, you owe yourself a trip to the valley.

Yakuza: Like A Dragon is a fresh start for the series, making two important changes. One, it swaps the action brawling of the previous games for a new turn-based combat system; two, it trades wrestledad protagonist Kiryu Kazuma for puppyish newcomer Ichiban Kasuga. This makes it the perfect time to start playing the loveable series.

For all it changes, Like A Dragon maintains everything great about previous games, and it's still a warm hearted journey through the underworld of Japan. Ichiban is younger and less serious than Kiryu, and his playful personality quickly net him allies in the city of Yokohama. These friends become an RPG-like party, helping you in fights and elsewhere, and they're a likeable bunch including ex-detective Adachi, a former nurse who can summon crows called Nanba, and Saeko, a formidable hostess club manager.

Despite being set among the flick knives and popped collars of a criminal underworld, there's little gritty about a Yakuza game. Ichiban dreams of being a hero and spends most of his time helping his friends and other people around the city. You can take on odd jobs, turning Ichiban into a dancer or Saeko into a J-Pop idol.

Even the fights are mostly silly, as you battle against 'city slickers' who literally drip with oil and spank you with lilos. Is this even an RPG? Only the amorphous and inscrutable machines of the future could tell you. The truth is, Nier: Automata is hard to boil down to a single paragraph. On first glance, this is an action-heavy sci-fi story about reclaiming earth from destructive robots.

On second glance, it is something else entirely. On third glance, you will find a tin man with the name of a 17th century mathematician, and you will start to wonder how many more glances it will take to truly know what this game is doing.

This homebrew RPG is laced with more jokes than a giant novelty Christmas cracker. Even its form and structure qualifies as one big laugh at the JRPGs too many of us think of as profound and timeless, while also somehow being a love letter to the same genre. You walk around and get in random battles, complete with a menu featuring the options to fight, use items, or flee. This is a tale about vanquishing terrors with comical kindness, not violence.

Baddies like the TV creature who seems terrible, but really only wants to become fabulous and famous. System Shock 2 is one of the best games ever made , whatever the chosen category might be. Few games, whether set in the depths of dungeons or the depths of space, have captured the claustrophobia that comes from being surrounded by death. You're never allowed to forget that a skin of metal separates you from extinction and that the interior spaces that the universe is pressing against from the outside are filled with corrupted and corrupting organisms.

That sense of dread and doom makes Irrational's masterpiece one of the greatest horror games and, as a sci-fi horror RPG, it is unique. Character creation is in the form of a prologue and tutorial, guiding you through initiation into your chosen branch of service in the Unified National Nominate, and then, during the maiden voyage of the Von Braun, something goes horribly wrong.

Shock 2 is a first-person survival horror game — a rare enough thing in and of itself — but it's the use of RPG mechanics such as inventory management and character development that allow it to retain its power on repeated visits. There is no other RPG so tightly designed, so terrifying and yet so open to experimental play. The two things Elder Scrolls games do well are landscape and what we'll call choiceyness.

Skyrim has both in spades. Where Oblivion was criticised for being trad-fantasy to the point of blandness, Skyrim is a far more interesting world to explore. Huge mountains with snow-covered peaks roll into forests, marshes, bogs, ice caves, and each town and city has something unique about it.

It's a game in which you want to go on an adventure, and where you can feel like you're on a grand journey simply by endeavouring to walk from one end of the world to the other. The choiceyness comes from Bethesda's continued commitment to covering their world with a dozen equally-engaging activities. Yes, you're the Dragonborn, the one and only, and the world depends on you to save it, but also there's a mage's guild to lead, a fighter's arena to conquer, the murderous Dark Brotherhood to join, and so on.

None of these activities is as fleshed-out as they might be in a more focused game, but the variety and number of possible experiences is the whole point. Skyrim is a game to lose yourself in. And then, of course, there's the mods. It's not commonplace for Elder Scrolls games to receive tens of thousands of updates from its players, but keep in mind how remarkable it is that Skyrim's audience have written whole new questlines, re-balanced combat, introduced new genres, and prettified the entire world far beyond what Bethesda could hope to accomplish on their own.

Buy Skyrim today and you could be playing it for the next decade. Watch on YouTube. If you're looking for a beautifully written RPG which offers something different in its setting, which grapples meaningfully with what it means to be human, you are no longer limited to Black Isle's year-old classic Planescape: Torment.

Disco Elysium marries a novel set of mechanics with a funny, human, well-written script and an original setting to explore not tied to any existing media property. The mechanic is that your skills are internal voices of your protagonist that you can engage in conversation, and that you can internalise ideas you encounter in exploring the world in ways that can help or hurt your character. The setting is Revachol, a city on an island still marked by a failed communist revolution. These two things work together to create a game all about what kind of person you are, who you want to be, and what it means to really change.

Disco Elysium strays close to being a game about how cool it is to be a fucked-up, renegade cop, but does an admirable job of holding a mirror up to the real harm that person can cause, and giving you the tools to make amends. It's also, finally, the rarest of all things: a meaty, narrative RPG that contains no combat whatsoever. If you wished your explorations of Rapture or Skellige weren't constantly interrupted by the need to shoot a Splicer or stab a Drowner, then Disco Elysium's for you.

And even games like Anthem have a lot to Anthem was terrible. JC Denton is a lovely man to be. He's enough of a blank slate that it seems reasonable to approach each of his missions and escapades in a manner of your own choosing, and his body is a cyber-canvas that allows you to plug-and-play with all kinds of devices. He's an outlet in which to plant peripherals and, as all the best RPGs do, Deus Ex understands that the player is the most important peripheral of all.

Ion Storm never tell you how to play or admonish you for taking the path less-trodden. There are constraints and boundaries built into the world, of course, but each area is constructed with an eye toward those constraints. Deus Ex wants you to discover the edges of its possibilities and to push up against them, because its designers are interested in your solutions and recognise that the most interesting ones are the ones that they didn't necessarily predict.

Next to its brooding classmate Thief, Deus Ex is a remarkably bright and airy, a literally well-ventilated game. Where Garrett is defined by his own limitations, Denton is defined by the limitations of his world. Each area is a box of problems and the player has a Swiss Army Knife of a character with which to probe at those problems, and to craft solutions.

It's the essence of roleplaying — inhabiting a character and setting, and making them your own. It once seemed like the epic RPG might have been finished.

The Witcher had come out two years previously, but was divisive and didn't manage the scale of a Baldur's Gate. And while Dragon Age had been known about for years, and was in development for more perhaps even more than a decade , expectations were dampened by a bad marketing campaign what on earth did Marilyn Manson have to do with the Darkspawn?

So when one of the best RPGs of the 21st century was released, it was perhaps something of a surprise. Despite following a very traditional structure visit four different enormous regions, building up to a climactic battle , the overwhelming volume of history, lore, culture and conflict that was in place from the very start let Dragon Age define itself as a massive new world.

With six different openings, each providing a significant insight into the varying races and cultures and their fraught co-existence, there was this incredible sense of place, and of a place in time. The story of which you were a part - the re-rise of an ancient army of specialist warriors, the Grey Wardens, in response to the return of Darkspawn to the lands of Thedas - began a thousand years ago, and stretches wide around you.

This was combined with a superb real-time combat system, where you could pause at any time and give orders to your party, or even pre-program their AI to behave in ways useful to you.

BioWare's incredible ability to write fleshed out, memorable companions was in full effect, among them the marvellous Alistair, troubling Morrigan, and really peculiar Leliana.

Oh, and the officious Sten, and hilarious stone golem Shale. At over hours long, each location is enormous, packed with quests, and bursting with character. Looking back on Origins is like remembering a year of your life, those weeks you spent under the Frostback Mountains, the political machinations of your time in Denerim, visiting the rebellious elves in the Dales. Or remembering the horror of the elven slavery at the hands of the Tevinter Imperium, or the disturbing treatment of magic users by the religious rules in the Chantry.

Or simply camping under the stars with your friends, listening to a song from Leliana, and maybe having a flirt with Zevran.

Its enormity never feels like filler well, maybe it does in The Fade , and its scale is justified by quite so much to do, change, or meddle with. Its characters feel like friends, its battles like something that genuinely mattered.

Dragon Age: Origins is an extraordinary creation, unmatched since in terms of its meticulously detailed vastness. Although, bloody hell, Oghren was a dick. Yes, much of what purists consider an RPG to be has been excised in favour of direct action and on-the-spot decision-making, but in terms of spirit, playing a roving space captain trying to restore peace to the galaxy one planet at a time and in her own sweet time has never been bettered.

It all culminates in one of the most thrilling and potentially tragic third acts in recent memory. I am the very model of a scientist salarian indeed. What astounds most about The Witcher 3 is how human it can be. Where other RPG epics often lose their character's humanity among the fantasy heroics, Geralt and his friends continually draw the focus back down to earth. In the quiet non-sexy moments when they're alone between quests, and the playful banter as old friends reunite, you slowly realise how much you enjoy spending time with these people.

That's still too rare, even among other well-written RPGs. Not all the time, but there is a great deal of humanity scattered across The Witcher's vast and beautiful dark fantasy land, too. In terms of being a roleplaying game, The Witcher 3 absolutely masters the wandering adventurer fantasy. The creators of the mechanical populations in Elder Scrolls and Fallout should regard it with some anxiety. A lot of parts of The Witcher 3 could be described as best-in-class, in fact.

The sheer volume of systems interacting with each other and the top notch graphics should have crippled the Sony's little system. But somehow, we got to experience Yasumi Matsuno's dungeon crawling masterpiece mere months before the PS2's US launch.

Heavy stuff for a PSX game, but it's handled masterfully through beautiful art direction and some extremely impressive localization. You can also craft gear, chain abilities in combat, explore a massive dungeon called "The Iron Maiden," target specific body parts on enemies, employ super moves, solve puzzles in degree environments, and take on some of the toughest enemies Square Enix ever created.

Vagrant Story is the definition of a cult classic, and is undisputedly worthy of the number nine spot on this list. Made both accessible and engaging by its unique classes and skills, the endless satisfaction of its kill and loot gameplay, and its near limitless equipment variety and character customization, Diablo II's cooperative play and item trading helped to successfully foster not only a communal spirit in each procedurally generated level of each dank dungeon, but one of the greatest roleplaying experiences of all time.

During the s, developer Squaresoft was the undisputed king of JRPGs, and Secret of Mana was one of the most dazzling jewels in its crown. Even now we still remember the action RPG fondly: its bright, candy-colored world was a joy to explore, the action-based combat was easy to learn and fun to do, and its inventory ringlets made navigating menus refreshingly simple. Then there was the breathtaking soundtrack, celebrated for its mix of cheerful tunes and haunting melodies.

But the most memorable feature was the multiplayer. Secret of Mana would let up to three players participate in combat, so long as they had an extra controller or two lying around and the correct peripheral accessory for the SNES. Even if WoW never evolved past this vanilla state, it would still be remembered fondly as an incredible RPG filled with epic dungeons, surprisingly compelling Player vs.

Player encounters, satisfying non-combat crafting and social gameplay, and more well-written, hand-crafted quests and adventures than it felt possible for a single RPG to contain. The game has never stood still. Completely new worlds, revamped old worlds, balanced and well-integrated new classes, risky storytelling, and an almost impossible-to-count volume of quality-of-life improvements have made an already amazing game experience even more amazing, more than a decade later.

Having the creature follow you on your journey helped further transform the monsters from simply being a team of fighters to a team of your best friends. But the real stars of the game were the characters and the story. And remember, go for the eyes! Compared to its cheerfully optimistic brethren, Final Fantasy VI is a breath of fresh albeit bleak air. It eschews the myopic viewpoint of a single, designated protagonist in order to tell a larger, more emotionally-charged tale.

Its unconventional gameplay is another reason: FFVI casts off the rigid class system of previous Final Fantasies and allows any one of the 14 heroes to use magic so long as they equip magical shards. Nothing feels redundant or wasted in Final Fantasy VI. Did you know?

The seamless transition between the world map full of visible, avoidable enemies and combat was a revelation in a time where most RPGs featured jarring random battles, and even today makes monster encounters a joy instead of a chore. The plucky courage and determination of its adolescent heroes combined with the memorable art style of Akira Toriyama makes for instantly memorable characters.

Start at Get Started! Developer Sony Online Entertainment. Release Wizardry 8. Developer Sir-Tech. Titan Quest.

Developer Iron Lore Entertainment. Fable II. Developer Lionhead Studios. Torchlight II. Developer Runic Games. Pillars of Eternity. Developer Obsidian Entertainment. Front Mission 3. Developer Square. The Bard's Tale. Developer Interplay Productions. Betrayal at Krondor. Developer Dynamix. Freedom Force.

Developer Irrational Games. Divinity: Original Sin. Developer Larian Studios. Dragon Age: Inquisition. Developer BioWare. Darkest Dungeon. Developer Red Hook Studios. Developer Nihon Falcom. Kingdom Hearts II. Developer Square Enix. Jonathon Dornbush Kingdom Hearts 2 considerably ups the combat possibilities of its predecessor, introducing new forms — and snazzy new suits — for Sora to wear. Chrono Cross. Dragon Warrior VII. Developer Heartbeat, ArtePiazza.

Chris Reed Some people like short games: get in, have fun, and move on. Final Fantasy. Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss. Developer Blue Sky Productions. EVE Online.

Developer CCP Games. Developer AlphaDream. Star Ocean: The Second Story. Developer tri-Ace. Illusion of Gaia.

Developer Quintet. Chris Reed When the spirit of the earth asks you to do something, you do it. Valkyria Chronicles. Developer Sega. Icewind Dale II. Developer Black Isle Studios. The Legend of Dragoon. Disgaea: Hour of Darkness. Developer Nippon Ichi Software. The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings. Neverwinter Nights 2. Jade Empire.

Fire Emblem Awakening. Odin Sphere Leifthrasir. Developer Vanillaware. Developer Toby Fox. Ni no Kuni: Wrath of the White Witch. Developer Level Mike Rougeau Ni no Kuni: Wratch of the White Witch follows the adventures of Oliver and his companions, who include an oddball fairy named Drippy, as Oliver tries to save his mother.

Pool of Radiance. Developer Strategic Simulations, Inc. Lunar: Eternal Blue. Developer Game Arts, Studio Alex. Phantasy Star Online. Developer Sonic Team. Breath of Fire III. Developer Capcom. Lunar: Silver Star Story. Shining Force II. Developer Camelot Software Planning. Golden Sun. Lufia II: Rise of the Sinistrals.

Developer Neverland. Tales of Vesperia. Developer Namco Tales Studio. Shadow Hearts: Covenant. Developer Nautilus. The World Ends With You. Developer Jupiter, Square Enix. Phantasy Star IV. Final Fantasy VII. Stardew Valley. Developer Eric Barone. Persona 5. Developer Atlus. Xenoblade Chronicles.