RPGs have been a mainstay of my gaming life since I spent hours (and hours and hours) playing ROGUE and DND back in college. (We’d call both of those roguelikes today). The earliest of them were based off of Dungeons & Dragons, but as time went on they would become a way to tell all sorts of stories.
Here’s the five best I played this year.
Erenshor (Beta)
Almost every OG EverQuest player loved the game, loved the people, but wanted to just adventure themselves occasionally. Erenshor makes the dream real.
Log on to Erenshor, and you’ll find a world populated with simulated players (SimPlayers) chatting, looking for groups, offering trades, and genuinely eager to group with you and do whatever you want. There’s a limited number of classes at the moment, but no matter which you choose, you’ll be able to make a well-balanced group.
The demo just takes you through the tutorial island, but the full game will bring you to max level and introduce you and your guildmates to the world of raiding. If it were in early access, it would definitely rate higher on this list. As it is, the demo is a polished gem that left me wanting to see more of the world of Erenshor.
Lord of the Rings: War in the North (2011)
Lord of the Rings: War in the North is set in Middle-Earth during the ending of the Third Age. The Fellowship is focused on keeping Sauron distracted while Frodo and Sam head to Mordor to destroy the One Ring, but they have no armies to spare to keep Sauron’s army in the north from from flanking them and overrunning the lands of the Elves, Dwarves and Men, allowing Sauron to meet the danger that is closing in on him.
That job falls to three lesser known heroes: Eradan, a Ranger; Farin, a Dwarf fighter; and Andriel, an Elf Loremaster. Any or all of the heroes can be played by players simultaneously. I suspect the matchmaking servers are long since shut down, but you and a friend can play together locally.
The game tells a fairly tight story, with plenty of chances to find how the Fellowship is doing while you work on keeping the Southron sorcerer Agandaûr from rallying the orcs of the North and bringing to bear legendary weapons of war. Each member of the group has their own special abilities that allow them to find secret, hidden areas with better treasure. The game is largely linear, though the game does reward retrying levels with different characters, and has some challenge maps for grinding and better rewards.
It’s good fun, and though it has been removed for sale on Steam, it can still be played on the PS3 or XBox.
Dragon’s Dogma II (2024)
Like its predecessor, Dragon’s Dogma 2 emphasizes the “world” in “world-building”. As before, you play a character whose heart was ripped out by a dragon, leaving you somehow alive but connected to the dragon who keeps your heart. In your country, someone who has become dragon-touched is known as the “Arisen” and becomes king. Unfortunately for you, someone claiming to be the one the dragon touched has taken the title of “Arisen” and plans to become king. And plans to make sure that you aren’t around to tell a different story.
In both Dragon’s Dogmas, you build a unique character of certain classes and hire Pawns — spirits of heroes from other realities — to fill out your party. Each has the gear and skills they left their home with, and you can send them back with a present for their master when you’re done with them.
The game itself shuns fast travel so that it can give you plenty of time to come across random adventures. A griffon attacking. Weird zipline runs to follow. Dragons who know you. Little problems you can solve along the way. Only occasionally will time become a factor; most of the time, you’re free to adventure in the world and make your own fun as you build your character. And then your camp gets surrounded by orcs and in the flickering firelight, you suddenly are forced to fight for your life…
Dragon Age: The Veilguard (2024)
The world is in peril. Solas, the elf god from Dragon Age: Inquisition, has decided to merge the magical realm of the Fade with the material world, setting magic (and demons) loose in the world and giving elves back their immortality.
Some people have a problem with that, and hire you to join a group that will stop Solas’ mad scheme. The plan goes haywire, and at the end, Solas is banished, the Fade is about to tear itself open, two evil gods have been let loose, the Blight is resurgent, and it’s all your fault.
Now it’s up to you, the other two members of your crew and those new friends you meet along the way to set things right.
It’s a great story with plenty of replay potential. The developers consider it akin to last year’s Baldur’s Gate 3, and I think that’s valid. The characters are fun; the adventure is real; the builds can get a little overpowered if you let them; and the game does not outstay its welcome.
Some say the game strays from the lore of the Dragon Age series; I disagree. Veilguard felt like coming home and I look forward to playing it again.
Star Wars Outlaws (2024)
I’m not a huge fan of the direction the Star Wars films have taken lately; I’m old enough to have seen the original film in the theaters (many times), was blown away by Empire Strikes Back, and disappointed by Return of the Jedi. It wasn’t until I was coerced into watching the Disney+ series Andor that I thought the Star Wars universe was interested in telling a story I wanted to hear. A story where the hero’s last name isn’t Skywalker, one without Jedi or Sith or the Force.
Star Wars Outlaws is set between Empire and Jedi and tells the story of Kay Vess, a thief whose mother abandoned her in a bar when she was 12 to go adventuring on her own. The story opens with Kay being betrayed and left with a price on her head by the rebellion; to clear her name, she has to take on One Last Job and gather a crew who can do it aided only by her pet Merquaal, Nix, and her droid minder, ND-5.
Kay has to build alliances among the various criminal cartels that rule her section of the galaxy — the brutish Hutts, the secretive Crimson Dawn, the mafioso Pykes, as well as some other minor factions. Get in good with them, and they’ll help Kay out, in their way.
This is not a “save the universe” story. This is not a “Kay is secretly a Jedi” story. This is the story of someone who has nothing, trying to stay alive, and never giving up no matter what the galaxy throws at her.
The missions can sometimes get a little repetitious. Though the game prizes stealth, there’s going to be at least one time in every major quest where you’re forced to get into a shooting battle with a bunch of enemies. Your only chance then is to hope you’ve upgraded your gear enough to answer the threat. There’s no experience points or levels in Outlaws. You have to craft your upgrades with parts you find, quest for, or outright steal from the cartels.
The finale of the game was masterful. I’d love to see the Star Wars Outlaws movie.
It took awhile for me to decide if Outlaws or Veilguard was going to top this list; but it was clear when I finished painting Kay Vess and her starship, the Trailblazer, that this was going to be the one.
Next time: the best Survival Crafting games.
They all sound awesome!
It was a great year for RPGs!
Thanks for this! I’ve heard mixed things on 3 of these games: DD2, Veilguard and Outlaws.
But if you enjoyed them, I’m pretty sure I will enjoy them. So adding all 3 to the old wishlist (I’m trying to catch up on my ‘recent backlog’ before I buy any new stuff!)
I’m not sure what people didn’t like about DD2; if they played DD1, it’s just more of the same, bigger and better.
Veilguard was hated by GamerGaters because your character could be trans and one of the companions is non-binary. I didn’t play as trans, but apparently if you do, you can help that companion with your experiences. I’m assuming those people who were saying, “butbutbut not lore accurate!” were just trying not to sound like GGs.
Outlaws was pretty buggy at release, and people weren’t in love with the stealth mechanics. TBH, I was pretty tired of stealthing everywhere and as my gear improved, was more likely to start shooting if I thought I could get away with it. I didn’t hit any deal-breaking bugs. I think I got stuck somewhere once and lost a few minutes from having to restore from the latest autosave.