Pathfinder: Kingmaker Key Art
Image: Owlcat Games & Knights Peak

It's time for another genre intro, this time... RPGs! Oh, where to start on that epic hero's journey... well, there's way too much to cover in just one roundup, especially as the umbrella is just so massive that it'd make no sense to lump everything together. 'Role-playing game' can mean everything from a contemplative interactive novel to an almost wordless hack n' slasher, so let's break things up into five more manageable parts, befitting a sprawling fantasy epic.

While genre taxonomy is boring and largely vibes based, just to keep things readable, we'll be tackling five broad categories of RPGs:

  • Tabletop-inspired 'western' RPGs or 'CRPGs' (What we're doing today)
  • Diablo-inspired fast-paced action RPGs - high loot, low narrative
  • Theatrical and linear, systems-light eastern-inspired 'JRPGs'
  • Old-school dungeon crawlers - light on story, high on tension & systems
  • Modern action hybrid RPGs. From Mass Effect to Fallout 3 and Dragon's Dogma

And with that out of the way, let's assemble our party and venture forth, in no particular formation or order:

Baldur's Gate 3 (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/Baldurs_Gate_3/

Let's be real, we couldn't start this list with any other game. One of the biggest and undeniably the most polished of its kind, Baldur's Gate 3 applies every lesson Larian Studios learnt over the course of making the Divinity: Original Sin series (still well worth playing) and applies it to classic D20-rolling Dungeons & Dragons.

Playable solo or co-op, this one's a massive, hugely reactive adventure where every quest has multiple solutions, every turn-based tactical encounter feels distinct and every character is charming in their own way. While there are some plot hooks and returning characters from the original series (starting in 1998), this one's designed as a starting point for complete newcomers.

Solasta: Crown of the Magister (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1096530/Solasta_Crown_of_the_Magister/

Baldur's Gate 3 played a little fast-and-loose with tabletop D&D rules. For those wanting a more authentic grid-based experience, look no further than Solasta, from the fittingly named Tactical Adventures. Slightly more combat-focused than its peers, Solasta uses the full tabletop OGL SRD 5.1 rule-set. Basically everything D&D's 5th edition uses without the copyrighted names.

While a fine game in its own right, Solasta's true strength is that it's effectively a D&D Construction Set. You'll need the expansions and a community patch to run many of them, but its Steam Workshop is packed with full-game-length adventures. Just playing through the top handful would take you months. Curiously, the construction set aspect is missing from the upcoming sequel, currently in early access, which appears to be shooting for an experience closer to Baldur's Gate 3.

Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous - Enhanced Edition (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1184370/Pathfinder_Wrath_of_the_Righteous__Enhanced_Edition/

A great next pick for those who've finished Baldur's Gate 3 and want something even more grandiose. Based on the Pathfinder setting and using a very similar rule-set to D&D, Wrath Of The Righteous is a bombastic war story that throws you right into a cataclysmic demon invasion. As well as traditional party-based combat (playable in real-time or turn-based form), you'll often be strategically commanding larger forces against entire enemy armies, with your main character gaining powerful 'mythic' abilities.

WotR was big at launch and grew even bigger through two seasons of DLC and post-release updates, the final major update giving you the option to permanently become a gold dragon, potentially with a crew of lesser dragons in tow. Despite the military focus, there's no shortage of romance options either, with plenty of eligible party members to share candlelight dinners and cozy private moments with.

Disco Elysium - The Final Cut (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/632470/Disco_Elysium__The_Final_Cut/

Not party based, nor with any combat to speak of, but there's so much tabletop inspiration and dice-rolling going on here, it surely belongs here. A detective adventure RPG set in a slightly off-kilter '70s parallel Earth, Disco Elysium doesn't so much give you a party as a swarm of intrusive thoughts, spawned by a cataclysmic, personality-shattering night of drinking.

Every one of your 'skills' has its own voice and will roll their own dice for stat checks and intrude in your inner monologue, making for some truly unhinged inner roleplaying. This one was one of a kind, until imitators started popping up from aspiring and inspired indie studios. Now it's the originator of a whole new sub-genre, even as its own studio was consumed by controversy.

Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/560130/Pillars_of_Eternity_II_Deadfire/

Sequel to the excellent Pillars of Eternity (which recently saw some great updates, and you can import your party from), and the best in Obsidian's attempts to bring back the genre of epic RPGs that the original Baldur's Gate games defined in the '90s. While the first PoE felt a little more traditional in its fantasy (despite its fresh setting and unusual rule-set), Deadfire fully leans into the age-of-sail era.

After your adventures in the first game concluded, you've ended up as captain of a ship, exploring the titular Deadfire Archipelago, on the tail of a rogue god. Piratical shenanigans ensue, with cutlass and flintlock being a common weapon pairing. Hopping between magical islands also gives this one an inherently episodic nature, with each new location being a self-contained story, and many (DLC included) open to be tackled in any order. Also worth checking Avowed, the first-person, action-RPG spinoff, which we'll definitely be featuring in a later RPG roundup.

Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2186680/Warhammer_40000_Rogue_Trader/

"Suffer not the Xeno to Live." is one of those much-repeated absolutes in Warhammer 40,000. Most often by the towering, genetically engineered Space Marines that enforce the Imperium of Man's will. It is also one of the first things you'll discover is a huge lie in Rogue Trader. Turns out the Imperium is fine trading or hanging out with aliens. They've even got a special corps of independent gunboat diplomats - Rogue Traders - to handle that stuff.

You are the latest captain to be granted that title, when everyone else in the line of succession above and below you gets murdered. So begins a titanic (and still expanding) RPG set across the 40k galaxy as you roam planets, choose what form of imperial will to impose upon them, and grow your personal retinue of oddballs, renegades and yes, even aliens. Who you can smooch on. On top of regular party-based combat (loosely based on the Rogue Trader tabletop RPG rules), there's also naval encounters, dramatically pitting your flagship and hangers-on against enemy fleets.

Wasteland 3 (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/719040/Wasteland_3/

Before Fallout, there was Wasteland. Less '50s paranoia, more '80s Mad Max apocalyptica with a dash of pulp comic adventurousness. While you can play the original in remastered form, and 2014's series reboot on Steam, Wasteland 3 really carves out a niche for itself. You're captain of a squad of Arizona's finest wasteland rangers, sent on a scout mission into frozen Colorado.

Naturally, you end up drawn into a messy conflict between a bunch of unhinged factions, including a cult called the Gippers that worship Ronald Reagan. There's plenty of dialogue and multiple solutions to many quests here, most of them involve applied sci-fi hyperviolence, and Wasteland 3's snappy, often-spectacular turn-based combat hits all the right notes. While Wasteland 3 makes some nods and references to the original two games, this one's a perfectly fine place to start, and tells a largely self-contained story.

Shadowrun: Hong Kong - Extended Edition (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/346940/Shadowrun_Hong_Kong__Extended_Edition/

The last in a trilogy of standalone adventures set in the classic Shadowrun tabletop universe, playable in any order. Shadowrun is an alternate timeline cyberpunk Earth where magic returned in 2012, which means once the dust settled, there were cyborg elves hacking into the internet and dragons running corporations. While my personal favorite of this series is Dragonfall (set in politically divided Germany), all three of them are great, accessible RPGs with light but satisfying tactical combat.

Each of the three games is set in a different part of the world with a whole new cast of characters, although the original Shadowrun Returns does reference the venerable old SNES game in a few places. The icing on the cake for the trilogy is full Steam Workshop support, letting people create and share new campaigns, of which there are tons to pick from across the three games.

UnderRail (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/250520/UnderRail/

At the intersection of classic Fallout, immersive sim and The Witcher lands UnderRail, a popular solo-developed post-apocalyptic RPG set in the tunnels beneath the ruins of civilization. Tough and uncompromising, you're largely on your own on this adventure, relying as much on stealth and your stash of consumable tools (grenades can go a LONG way) to even the odds against larger packs of enemies.

Identifying threats early, preparing and planning for them is order of the day, and while there's many different classes and viable play-styles, you'll probably want to pick one and commit to it. Similar to immersive sims like Deus Ex, the compulsion to quicksave/load is high, as is the replay value. It's well worth checking out the game's two expansions, which add some significant side-quests and add some really big guns to the loot pile.

Dragon Age: Origins - Ultimate Edition (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/47810/Dragon_Age_Origins__Ultimate_Edition/

Now considered on the border of being retro, Dragon Age: Origins is an important game - the first real big push to bring back 'classic' style RPGs to the mainstream, fresh after the success of Mass Effect a couple years prior. While some of its design decisions are questionable (blood-splatter absolutely covering your party and staying even in dialogue), it really defined much of the current RPG formula, reactive approval ratings from party members, casual banter and more. Plus, offering a slightly smoother and more accessible take on Baldur's Gate's passable real-time combat.

The 'Ultimate' edition regrettably still carries a lot of old bugs and quirks that EA never saw fit to have patched out. Fortunately, this unofficial patch hammers out the worst of the kinks and buffs out some unfortunate marks. Fun fact: The world of Dragon Age is called Thedas, which is short for 'The Dragon Age Setting'. No, really.

Banquet for Fools (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3172700/Banquet_for_Fools/

A recent indie release, and deliciously weird. Set in a strange and swampy fantasy world, you're leading a party of Vollings (chimeric pseudo-elves, some with bird-feet, some with snakes for hair, some born as towering yeti) on an expedition to find out why a nearby farming town went silent. Your party are entirely custom, and your quest largely led by your own intuition.

Beyond the great pseudo-claymation aesthetics, what really stands out here is the combat. Fights are intentionally messy brawls, with you directly controlling your lead character in real-time, but pausing to target attacks and abilities. There's a big focus on knockbacks, stuns and controlling the terrain while your party members intelligently assist, including grappling or pinning enemies for you to get a free hit on.

Fallout 2: A Post Nuclear Role Playing Game (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/38410/Fallout_2_A_Post_Nuclear_Role_Playing_Game/

Fallout was a very different beast before Bethesda took over. Not just the turn-based combat, pre-rendered art and hex-based world, but tonally. Fallout 2 is a grimier, tougher, darker experience than anything that has come since, with character builds and decisions really defining your route through the world and how you engage with each conversation, encounter and perilous hike through the overworld. It's still excellent, too, with an active mod scene still cranking out new adventures with the old engine.

War never changes, and neither does Fallout's reputation as a buggy mess. Fallout 2 was rushed out the door early and while it got patched up a bit over the years, if you pick it up on Steam or GOG, we HIGHLY recommend grabbing either the Unofficial Patch or the Restoration Project. The former addressing just bugs and technical issues, while the latter tries to polish the game up more to modern spec, including restoring a lot of cut content and orphaned quest-lines which Black Isle never got a chance to finish.

Moonring (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2373630/Moonring/

First off: Moonring is free, so you've no excuse not to try it. Secondly, Moonring is an excellent open-world RPG inspired by the early single-character Ultima games, made by one of the key developers on the Fable series. Set in a strange fantasy world where everyone dreams of a god that determines their path in life, except for you. You're Dreamless, and thus unbound, trying to figure out what that means as you explore a hand-crafted overworld and procedurally generated dungeons.

This one's surprisingly non-linear with a keyword-based conversation system (type in concepts to get reactions!), quite replayable and has a great magic system governed by the wills of the (very real) gods. While the main game is free, there's a single piece of optional DLC adding a hundred-floor endgame mega-dungeon for players who really want to push their character builds to the limit. There's a sequel in the works, too.

SKALD: Against the Black Priory (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1069160/SKALD_Against_the_Black_Priory/

A rich cocktail of retro RPG inspirations, designed to look and feel like a long lost DOS-era gem, but with modern quality-of-life improvements plus smarter balance and tuning. Looks a lot like classic, early party-based Ultima games, but with a dark Lovecraftian theme, so expect strange cults, cursed seaside towns and unspeakable horrors lurking in the caverns below.

This one's relatively short for an RPG, around 15 hours for a first playthrough, and a well-paced story to boot. It makes it a less intimidating prospect than starting many of the 70+ hour epics here, and lends the game some replay value to boot. The game's soundtrack deserves an additional note. Moody dungeon synth jams, courtesy of Surt R, composer for many an indie RPG.

Betrayal At Club Low (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1885750/Betrayal_At_Club_Low/

The smallest game here, playable in a single evening, but you'll probably want to go through a couple more times just to see how differently things could have gone. Inspired by solo tabletop RPGs, this one's a comedy spy adventure set in the bizarre Off Peak City, creation of quirky indie developer Cosmo D. You've been tasked with infiltrating a nightclub, disguised as the pizza delivery guy, and extracting a fellow spy that's potentially in danger.

Everything here requires a throw of the dice, but your dice pool changes based on what toppings you baked onto the pizzas you prepare, because you're a very good spy and take the pizza disguise seriously. There's so many bizarre situations and memorable characters here, and even weirder decisions you can make that WILL have repercussions. Also, don't miss out on the upcoming sequel (currently in early access), Moves of the Diamond Hand, which aims to expand Club Low's mechanics to a full-length adventure.

Neverwinter Nights: Enhanced Edition (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/704450/Neverwinter_Nights_Enhanced_Edition/

One of the oldest games here (originally released in 2002), and still almost unique, providing a unique spin on the 3.5th edition D&D rule-set. While the main campaign of Neverwinter Nights is a bit shoddy, MANY of the official and user-made campaigns built using its robust toolkit are well worth your time. Better yet, Beamdog's tuned-up re-release of the game includes many of the best, with more available as DLC or via the Steam Workshop and other community hubs.

Similar to Solasta, this is primarily a D&D construction kit that relies on the community for its content. Unlike Solasta, the focus here in on multiplayer, with real-time combat, single-character control and the possibility to create dynamic, live MMO-like living worlds capable of supporting up to 64 active players. Worlds that can be altered in real-time by a human Dungeon Master to provide adventures and enrichment for the players within.

Caves of Lore (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2227130/Caves_of_Lore/

One of the least-known games in this roundup, but a great pick for fans of classic party-based RPGs. Another one styled to look like a long-lost DOS game, chunky interface, grid-based combat and all. All this developed by one person over the course of six years (plus several more years of patching and updates), this one's all about exploration. The thrill of delving into a complex warren of interconnected dungeon branches, each hand-crafted and filled with odd creatures and secrets.

Piecing together the history of the world piece by piece (hence the lore in the title) is a key part of the enjoyment. Everything's a mystery at first, and most of the characters seem as lost and confused as your amnesiac protagonist. Lots of room for creating fun party compositions, training party members into new roles and rejigging your gear gives this one real depth that extends into its recently-added New Game Plus loop.

Avernum 4: Greed and Glory (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/3882020/Avernum_4_Greed_and_Glory/

Few people have made more RPGs than Jeff Vogel. Under the Spiderweb Software banner, he has produced around 27 full-length RPGs (and several remakes) almost solo. And they're all good, satisfying old-school party-based adventures. Avernum 4: Greed & Glory remakes the original Avernum from 2005, part of a long-running series set in a vast underground fantasy empire. An entire dungeon world, full of treasure and traps and (of course) party-based tactical combat.

What it lacks in graphics, Avernum (and all other Spiderweb games for that matter) is the kind of game that someone with deep mechanical appreciation for the genre would make. While the writing is no slouch, the series shines best when you're pushing your luck, delving into a new and unexplored corner of the mega-dungeon, identifying and evading traps, luring enemies into chokepoints and slowly carving out each of your party member's niche using its classless progression system. Any character can eventually fit into any role, but you're encouraged to specialize within whatever niche you pick.

Tyranny (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/362960/Tyranny/

An undersold but fascinating RPG experiment from prolific studio Obsidian. Set in a dark fantasy world where a war was fought for the fate of all life, and the bad guys won. You've been appointed as a front-line agent bearing the evil overlord's authority, sent to suppress rebellions, keep the rival clans in line and generally hold the empire together when it starts to crack.

Whether you do that is up to you, but be warned that there is no easy path to heroism, with most answers to problems being some manner of morally grey (or dried-blood black) compromise with your own ethics. In a genre where most games give you five different ways to be the hero and one cursory 'kick the puppy' villain option, flipping the script makes for a refreshing (if dark) experience, even if the Baldur's Gate 1/2-eque real-time-with-pause combat is familiar.

Expeditions: Rome (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/987840/Expeditions_Rome/

The third in an ongoing series of historical RPGs, starting with Conquistador and Viking. As with its predecessors, they play fast and loose with history here, giving you a chance to create and play your character (and their relationship with other cultures) how you see fit, rather than as a Good Roman Soldier would back in the day. Lots of choices to make here, narratively, and some crunchy hex-based tactical combat, plus it ain't a bad game to look at.

Befitting the ancient roman setting, army-scale conflict is represented here, with you commanding legions of infantry, cavalry and artillery through a card-based autobattler system, with you juggling the morale of your troops as well as their physical wellbeing while trying to force the enemy force to rout and scatter if you can. On top of that, there's a single piece of DLC - Death or Glory - that adds gladiator arena battles to each region of the main story, plus a Gladiator class with three sub-classes. The next game in the series, Expeditions: Samurai, launches just launched into Early Access, and despite the studio rebranding as Campfire Cabal, most of the original Logic Artists crew are still on board.

Horizon's Gate (PC)

https://store.steampowered.com/app/1224290/Horizons_Gate/

And one last game for the road. Or the high seas. Horizon's Gate is the biggest game yet from prolific solo RPG studio Rad Codex. While all of their RPGs share a Final Fantasy Tactics-inspired combat engine, each one has a different structure. Kingsvein is more story-driven, Voidspire Tactics is a single mega-dungeon, Alvora Tactics is a roguelike, but Horizon's Gate is the most open by far.

Set in an original fantasy age of sail setting (with nary an orc or goblin in sight), while you've got a ship, a crew, a quest, but also a whole world to sail around and explore, full of towns to trade with, enemy fleets and sea-monsters to fight and buried treasure to dig up. Despite the SNES-styled retro graphics, this one is very modern, very deep and highly replayable. Even moreso considering its modular nature. We highly recommend the Prominence Mod Pack, a gigantic mordular expansion by a single modder that expands the world in just about every way possible.

And that's our crash course wrapped up for the day! Play through even a few of those, and it'll build character. Or at least teach you what a character build is. We realize that most of these games are massive time investments, and that this is far from a comprehensive list, but we hope that it'll give you some insight and help you pick your first (or next) grand adventure.

As ever, if you think we're missed something truly vital or just want to share a recommendation on a favorite fantasy yarn, we want to hear from you in the comments below. Give us your best Epic Shout - we'll let you roll with advantage.