5 roleplaying games that define the genre

Born out of pen-and-paper party games like Dungeons & Dragons, for decades, role-playing video games have allowed players a means to escape into richly drawn fantasy and sci-fi worlds, providing a space to define their own journey. The best RPGs are known for their epic stories, which you can immerse yourself in for hundreds of hours.

Many of the best RPGs offer choices that dramatically affect the world around you; in some cases, you will see whole regions of the map destroyed due to your actions. You will also gain experience as you defeat enemies and complete quests, which you invest in unlocking abilities on your skill tree, letting you define a unique playstyle.

Some role-playing games are single-player solo quests, where it is on you to save the world. In others, you form a party of adventurers, with the game’s story shifting based on the characters you have around you. One game on this list even supports multiplayer co-op with friends. Unifying all of these games, however, are memorable stories and characters.

If you like the sound of rich worlds, dramatic stories, and a focus on player choice, read on for our list of the best RPGs.

Baldur’s Gate 3

The stakes are high in Baldur’s Gate 3: you play an escaped prisoner implanted with a parasitic tadpole that is burrowing its way into their brain. If you can’t find a way to extract the worm, it will transform you into a mind flayer, one of the tentacle-faced monsters currently attacking cities up and down The Forgotten Realm’s Sword Coast.

Built on the same rules as Dungeons & Dragons, Baldur’s Gate 3 captures the freeform nature of that pen-and-paper game, letting you tackle quests in any way you wish. Faced with a group of heavily armed dwarves, you could attack them head-on, sneak past them in the shadows, or use a polymorph spell to turn them all into wheels of cheese.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a rich game that deftly shifts between traditional fantasy, Lovecraftian body horror, and outright comedy. Loved by players and critics, it was one of the highest-reviewed games in 2023 and won five BAFTAs, including Best Game. 

Fallout: New Vegas

If you’ve watched the Fallout TV series on Amazon Prime and it’s got you itching to step into the radioactive wastelands of New California, you’re not the only one: following the show’s release, player counts exploded for every game in the franchise. Over 40,000 players logged into Fallout 76 to battle it out in West Virginia. Of all the games, though, we believe there’s no better starting place than Fallout: New Vegas.

One of the main differences between the scripted TV show and the games is that you’re free to ignore the main story and spend your time deep in side quests or simply looking for ways to rob, betray, or kill almost anyone you see in the world. New Vegas’ main story has multiple endings, but so do most of its quests, and you can skip whole sections of the game if you use your character’s skills to pick locked doors, talk your way past guards, or sneak into secure areas without being seen.

There are many Fallout games to choose from, but New Vegas – with its revenge story that starts with you shot and left for dead in the Mojave Desert and leads you into picking sides between the three major factions vying for control of the casino strip – shows the series at its anarchic best. It’s why it was awarded 2011’s Golden Joystick Award for Role-Playing Game of the Year.

While Fallout: New Vegas is a great place to jump into the series, if you want to put your PlayStation 5 or Xbox Series X|S through its paces, then look at Fallout 4, which just received a next-gen update. The RPG now runs at a higher resolution and frame rate, making it look better than ever.

The Witcher 3

Based on the Polish fantasy books by Andrzej Sapkowski, The Witcher games put you in the well-worn boots of Geralt of Rivia, a sword-for-hire who travels the land killing monsters. Sometimes, those beasts have vicious horns, sharp teeth, and whipping tails, but often, they’re of a more human variety.

You start The Witcher 3 at a time of major upheaval in the lands of The Continent. Two great nations are at war, and many cities and villages are caught between the conflict. As a Witcher, you aren’t aligned to either side, but the chaos and destruction of war create many opportunities for the creatures you hunt.

Looking more like an open-world game in the vein of games like Assassin’s Creed or Ghost of Tsushima, what makes The Witcher 3 stand firmly in the RPG camp is the impact you can have on the story. The game’s major quests offer difficult choices that will challenge your morals and your decisions create dramatic changes in the rest of the story. Saving a life in one moment can damn many others to death, and you will have to live with those consequences.

You don’t need to play the previous Witcher games to jump into this entry, and within, you will find some of the most memorable quests in any video game. It’s no wonder The Witcher 3 won so many awards when it was released in 2015, including The Game Awards Best RPG and Game of The Year. It’s also been recognised by game developers, winning Game Developers Choice award for Game of the Year.

Mass Effect 2

The plot of the Mass Effect games could have walked off the set of Star Trek. You play Commander Shepherd, the officer overseeing the SSV Normandy and its crew, and you travel between the planets of the Milky Way galaxy, solving the problems of their inhabitants.

Though the Mass Effect games’ quests capture the pulp episodic stories of the classic sci-fi series, the series builds a larger narrative with much darker outcomes. After all, an invading race of machines threatens to wipe out all organic life in the galaxy, and you are in charge of organising the defence.

While the first Mass Effect set up a rich world to explore, the series came together in Mass Effect 2. Looking to the Gears of War games, the Mass Effect team wrapped all their RPG progression systems around the skeleton of the cover-shooter genre, turning their sci-fi epic into a much more intense, combat-driven game. In battle, you charge into the fight, take cover behind scenery, and your AI-controlled party members will support you. You can also pause the action and activate the special abilities you’ve unlocked when levelling up your characters. These changes allow you to define radically different playstyles, creating a sci-fi epic that reflects how you want to play it.

That emphasis on choice doesn’t only appear in the skill tree. You are free to play Commander Shepherd as male or female, which was unusual for blockbuster games at the time, especially ones with fully-voiced dialogue. Another important choice is who joins your crew. Characters like Turian marksman Garrus Vakarian appear in all three games, and they remember your choices at key moments in the narrative. Spend enough time with these characters and your relationship can grow into a romance. Though, for some characters, your decisions can also lead to their deaths.

For its radical shift in direction from the first game, Mass Effect 2 received many awards, including BAFTA’s 2011 award for Best Game and both Best RPG of the Year and Ultimate Game of the Year at the Golden Joysticks. 

Elden Ring

For this open-world RPG, developer FromSoftware collaborated with Game of Thrones author George R. R. Martin to make a dark fantasy epic about a shattered kingdom called The Lands Between.

Once ruled by the immortal Queen Marika, the realm has fallen into disorder and is now fought over by her demigod children. You play a Tarnished, an exile returned to The Lands Between to restore order. Journeying across the world, you must defeat the demigods to collect the parts you need to reforge the Elden Ring.

As with its previous games, most notably Dark Souls and Bloodborne, FromSoftware makes steep demands of its players. Elden Ring’s combat requires practice and skill, with any hits you receive causing huge damage. As you gain experience, the skills you upgrade and the equipment you choose to wield allow you to create significantly different character builds, from swift-moving rogues who dispatch their enemies with close-range melee attacks to magic-wielding sorcerers who conjure powerful allies to do the fighting for them.

You have to work to unlock Elden Ring’s story, too. It isn’t presented to you but must be discovered in cryptic conversations with other characters, hints buried in item descriptions, and by reading the marks left in the architecture and geography of the land. By the game’s end you will feel you’ve become part warrior, part archaeologist.

FromSoftware’s approach has been loved by players and critics over the years, and that was reflected in the sheer number of awards Elden Ring received in 2022. It received Game of the Year Awards from The D.I.C.E Awards, Famitsu, The Game Awards, Game Developers Choice Awards, The Golden Joysticks, and a host of other Best RPG awards and accolades for its design and art direction.

Elden Ring’s story is set to continue with the release of the Shadow of Erdtree expansion releasing on June 21st, 2024. It will feature a new location, The Land of Shadow, and more new powers to unlock

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