Are you looking for the finest RPG games on PC? This beloved genre’s variety is difficult to explain. You can have interplanetary exploration, lightsaber duels, bloodthirsty vampires, radioactive mutants that need to be thrashed with golf clubs, lizards who can talk to cats, and a lot of dice rolling, if that’s your thing. The breadth and scope of RPG games have never been greater, with technology finally catching up to developers’ expectations, allowing for previously unseen large, open worlds. So, assemble your companions and go forth, lovely adventurer. We’re about to see the top RPGs accessible on PC.
Neverwinter
Let’s get a few things out of the way first. Neverwinter is a free MMO, but it’s also one of the greatest free RPG games available. If you enjoy the narrative and history of D&D’s Forgotten Realms, this is a fantastic Dungeons and Dragons game. You can choose from eight classes, ranging from rogues and rangers to wizards and paladins.
You’ll get to go on incredibly unforgettable adventures across the primary campaign, dungeons, and raids, whether finding an unhappy demon a quiet place to repose or embarking on a 12-part crusade to fight Baphomet. Almost every significant area in the Forgotten Realms, from Ravenloft to Chult, is free, as is all material in Neverwinter, old and new. Just be prepared to work hard for some high-tier things.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
The Witcher 3 combines everything of the previous games’ moral ambiguity, complicated issues like racism and intolerance, and, of course, monster hunting and places it in a multiple setting with steamy sequences to rival the most lurid of sex games. The end product is an excellent RPG that sets the bar for open-world experiences.
Every mission is an opportunity to learn more about the war-torn regions and their inhabitants and become entangled in the tangled narrative. A simple contract, such as commanding series protagonist Geralt to murder a monster, may evolve into a complex chain of consequence-laden storylines spanning many hours.
Even when the stifling sorrow threatens to send you spiraling into melancholy, navigating this rich, gloomy fantasy world is a treat. With Hearts of Stone and Blood & Wine, CD Projekt Red created probably the best DLC ever, with an even greater mission than the basic game. The Witcher 3 is a game that should be consumed until nothing remains. While waiting for The Witcher 4 to be released, consider reliving the third installment with various fantastic Witcher 3 modifications.
Elden Ring
Elden Ring is a fantastic RPG but also checks many other boxes: it’s a fantastic open-world and stunningly realistic fantasy game. It incorporates intense fighting into the gameplay loop. Thus it leans more towards the action-RPG end of the spectrum if that’s essential to you. You can read not just our glowing Elden Ring review but also everyone else’s enthusiastic Elden Ring reviews if you need more persuading.
As a ‘Tarnished,’ you must not only explore the Lands Between and solve the riddle of what happened but also take on the realm’s fallen heroes to become the Elden Lord. You’ll need a ring to do so. Some think it’s an Elden ring. However, these are unsubstantiated rumors. If you’re going to endure the horrors of this area, you need to arm yourself with some Elden Ring starter advice, as well as guides to all of the Elden Ring bosses, the finest Elden Ring weapons and armor, and some Elden Ring Great Runes. I mean, just in case.
Disco Elysium
When you wake up, you have no idea who you are in Disco Elysium after an obliterative night of drinking. From there, you decide what kind of messy, dysfunctional, troubled detective character you want to play in this hidden detective game.
Disco Elysium, unlike many RPGs, foregoes traditional Combat in favor of conversation windows for all interactions. While the game’s opening sequence demonstrates that your swiftly formed brain isn’t exactly solid, Disco Elysium allows you to play with each strand of thought, develop it, and utilize it to your benefit as you investigate a grisly murder case.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Divinity: First Sin 2 is a love letter to vintage pen-and-paper RPGs, much like the original, which we also like. It’s a tactical RPG that, unlike many current RPGs, refuses to offer you easy binary options, instead immersing you in an enticingly complex environment.
The character generator teaches us to roleplay as someone other than ourselves. Thus you have a lot of leeways. Of course, you may create your hero, but there are also six distinct origin characters, each with their backstory, ranging from the haughty lizard, the Red Prince, to the new undead species. Every action counts because you’ll have to live with the repercussions, which provide an unsettling seriousness to each challenging situation. The gameplay is no less punishing: to gain an advantage in fighting, you must study and utilize the characteristics of the ground. If you fail to use the high ground to deliver more damage, brace yourself for a spanking.
“Divinity: Original Sin 2 stands as a stunning example of three genres: the traditional RPG, the online arena battler, and the tabletop-style adventure facilitator,” we noted in our review. We haven’t even begun to discuss the multiplayer side, which includes the Game Master mode, which puts the Dungeons & Dragons’ inspiration to the forefront. In terms of D&D, did you know Larian is working on an actual Baldur’s Gate 3?
Cyberpunk 2077
To say Cyberpunk had a problematic start would be an understatement. As we mentioned in our Cyberpunk 2077 review, CDProjekt Red’s enormous Cyberpunk RPG has excellent potential, but its first year was challenging. The good news is that it improved, and the game is now ready to join our list of the best RPGs.
You play as V, a highly customizable mercenary outlaw entrusted with locating a one-of-a-kind implant that may contain the key to immortality. You explore the massive metropolis Night City, meeting a slew of eccentric personalities and embarking on many primary and side tasks.
Pillars of Eternity
Pillars of Eternity is a fantasy roleplaying game. It echoes the most remarkable features of earlier Infinity Engine games like Baldur’s Gate and Planescape: Torment (both of which are on our list) while forging its path with a fascinating fantasy tale and a highly drawn, unique setting. It’s no surprise that we rated it as one of the greatest games of 2015.
This is Obsidian Entertainment, with the studio’s signature gorgeous writing wrapped up in a polished adventure – a combo that the team has failed to capture. Despite being a large RPG with a bewildering number of options and Pillars of Eternity characters with plenty of choice and consequence, everything in Pillars of Eternity has been meticulously created down to the slightest detail. Religion, philosophy, class warfare, and the planet of Eora are rife with conflict and crises – every place on the map is teeming with issues just waiting to be discovered by curious travelers.
Rather than capitalizing on the success of its spiritual forefathers, Obsidian builds on those solid foundations to create a brand new experience that does need nostalgia to deliver its hits. It’s a significant step forward for this RPG style, and the entire experience is more evocative of tabletop RPGs than many D&D-based RPGs. It may have been a more iterative sequel, but our Pillars of Eternity 2 review concluded that it maintained the original’s feeling of adventure.
Wasteland 3
The population of this doomsday game, set in a frozen and desolate Colorado, falls into two camps: kind and well-meaning villagers or sadistic creatures out for blood. There is no proper middle ground, and everything has a cost. Like the precious Wasteland games, Combat is turn-based even in Wasteland 3, and survival in the wilderness can be difficult. Still, it’s a rewarding experience once you fall into solid habits.
This involves preserving resources whenever possible; engaging in pointless confrontations is the quickest way to deplete your ammo, medkits, and grenades or lose one of your greatest fighters to a gunshot to the skull. Doing favors for NPCs brings you high status with some groups and delivers precious resources. Still, it might irritate other people, so striking a balance is critical to completing the game.
Our Wasteland 3 review says the game “takes you on a moral trip and corrupts you, making everything you thought was impossible about an apocalypse seem so regular.” You may outfit your squad with all the greatest Wasteland 3 builds with so many different friends to acquire, but it’s fast thinking that keeps your group alive. If the looming hazard appeals to you, this is an RPG worth checking out.
Fallout: New Vegas
Obsidian took Bethesda’s 3D, first-person Fallout format and reintroduced everything that made the original isometric games unique, combining it with elements from the finest Western RPGs. You genuinely feel you’re forging your path across the wastelands rather than being pushed along by an unseen director.
Fallout: New Vegas casts you as one of the world’s unlucky survivors. After the first several hours, your mission’s leads run out, leaving you free to travel anywhere you want, interact with whoever you want, be friendly, evil, or everything in between to make New Vegas the most thrilling Fallout game yet. You can join the NCR, join the slave-loving Legion, defend New Vegas, or be a self-serving jerk. Then there are the vital Fallout: New Vegas modifications, which allow you to create your own game.
Baldur’s Gate II: Shadows of Amn
Baldur’s Gate II carefully recreates D&D’s Forgotten Realms regions. It’s brimming with beautiful surroundings, many of which are simply waiting to be discovered. And quests inside them! There are so many bloody quests. Hundreds of hours of defending communities, exploring mines, fighting crazy wizards, slaying Gnolls, and even a trip to the Planes – which is covered in greater depth in Planescape: Torment – and a dangerous expedition into the Underdark.
Baldur’s Gate II also includes one of the most acceptable adversaries in any game: Jon Irenicus, superbly portrayed by top-tier villain actor David Warner. Irenicus has all the characteristics of a classic villain: arrogant, intense, disfigured, and tragic, even though he is not there for most of the game.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
It’s difficult to tell which Mass Effect game is the greatest, but due to EA’s ‘legendary’ collection of all three, we don’t have to. This space tale contains everything you could want in an RPG: thrilling fights, an epic plot, and many Mass Effect Legendary Edition romance possibilities spread over all three games. You can play all three games sequentially, maintaining your ties with the characters across the trilogy, or you can leap into your chosen game.
Mass Effect also seamlessly blends the subgenres of speculative fiction and space games, and it is BioWare’s crowning achievement in terms of world or, rather, galaxy creation. Star Trek’s exploration and pseudo-science, Battlestar Galactica’s cinematic action, and Star Wars’ fantasy aspects are all on display and beautifully mixed in this stressful (and ultimately suicidal) expedition to rescue the galaxy.
Dramatic set-pieces and professional squad-based Combat are interspersed with BioWare’s usual great dialogue. And merely strolling about foreign environments, putting your nose where it doesn’t belong – because, allegedly, that’s what people do in space – adds to the total package. It’s the most excellent method to play the trilogy now that all Mass Effect Legendary Edition modifications are accessible.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is a lot more than simply one of the finest PC RPGs; it’s a PC institution. It’s remained topical and easily playable long after its 2011 release, relentlessly luring players back in with its mage robes. Of course, with the assistance of several Skyrim modifications and console instructions.
The mood is contagious, reinforced by maybe the best musical theme in any gaming. Skyrim is a game that begs you to solve every puzzle and leave no stone unturned, whether you’re battling colossal dragons atop the Throat of the World as its icy mountain peaks pierce the sky or merely answering the cryptic chime of the Nirnroot plant at a river’s side.
The Elder Scrolls V survives not just because it provides an engaging fantasy story and fulfilling freedom of choice but also because few other games capture and follow how an adventure feels like in Skyrim. If you’ve done everything in the wondrous realm that Skyrim has to offer, here are several Skyrim-like games that could satisfy your magical craving – you’ve got some time to spend before the Elder Scrolls 6 release date, after all.
Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II
Whereas its predecessor – created by BioWare rather than Obsidian – is a brilliant contribution to the Star Wars world, replete with a twist worthy of The Empire Strikes Back, KOTOR II takes the venerable IP and pushes it in an entirely new direction, making it one of the best Star Wars games on PC. The continual conflict between the Dark Side and the Light Side, Republic vs. Empire, is no longer the center. Instead, we get a story about the nature of the force and what it means to be cut off from it. Its plot of misfits and traitors seems like a cross between Star Wars and Planescape: Torment.
Shades of grey permeate the whole experience, forcing the Exile – KOTOR II’s protagonist – to consider every decision and how good actions might beget horrible ones, pushing him ever closer to pragmatism. Star Wars KOTOR focuses on personal development as it does about gallivanting throughout the galaxy, getting into lightsaber battles, and wielding the force – though there’s enough of that.
Shadowrun: Hong Kong
Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a nostalgic trip back to the 1990s. Shadowrun: Hong Kong is a neo-noir cyberpunk mystery with plenty of magic, magical themes, and action reminiscent of strategic games like XCOM, based on the original tabletop roleplaying game. Shadowrun: Hong Kong promised to check a lot of boxes and managed to deliver on all of these things. Set in a future Earth when science and the world of the occult coexist and species like elves and trolls roam the streets alongside humans, you take on the role of a shadowrunner, a dirty mercenary skilled in espionage.
A freeform character builder allows you to create classes ranging from spirit summoners who can enter a digital domain and battle computer programs to samurai who rush about with a swarm of remote-controlled robots. Investing in charisma unlocks affinities for other individuals, such as corporate security, fellow showrunners, or street gangs, which opens up additional discussion choices and routes in your research.
Hong Kong expands on the previous two games, lavishing upgrades on the franchise such as revamped decking (hacking) and fully developed, appealing characters. It’s also a more intimate game as you investigate your foster father’s death alongside a motley crew of Shadowrunners. You become entangled in intrigues, magical happenings, and a mystery involving dreams that haunt the entire city.
Deus Ex
Deus Ex is more of a stealth FPS/RPG combination and one of the finest cyberpunk games on PC, but it’s still deserving of a spot on our list – even after 18 years, it’s a delight to play and one of the best PC games ever designed.
Every level is a complicated sandbox ripe for exploration, whether playing as one of the finest FPS games or a simple stealth game. Every encounter can be played out dramatically and differently if you participate rather than slink through it. Secret passages, hidden caches, informants waiting to be bribed, and secret information opening up new routes litter the levels, making it feel like you’re talking about two different games when you share your experiences with another player. They may not be as memorable as earlier editions in the series, but our Deus Ex: Mankind Divided review demonstrates that choice in the game’s moment-to-moment gameplay is as powerful as ever.
Diablo III
We didn’t even consider Diablo 3 when compiling this ranking. Blizzard had gone astray, creating a ludicrous economy and eliminating the necessity to hunt for the most significant rewards. Playing Diablo 3 back then was unsatisfying. Diablo has come a long way and made many exciting decisions, and now it has released the third part of a fantastic game, one of the most influential PC games of all time. Everything changed after that (when the Fire Nation attacked).
