Most Revolutionary RPGs Every Fan Needs to Experience

There are certain games that fall under the category of "must-play." In the RPG world, those games span decades, as they consistently represent a genre that keeps evolving and changing throughout the years.

While just about every game seems like an RPG these days, the genre used to be very specific. That genre then became a breakout hit, and suddenly, it evolved more and more, becoming completely mainstream. That's why it's now the most popular single-player genre that there is today.

We're going to take a look at the games that caused this to happen. These are the RPGs you can't miss, and the ones that redefined the gaming space.

The Breakthrough

The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion released in 2006 and blew the rest of the gaming world out of the water. While Morrowind was a decent enough success, it didn't exactly hit the mainstream audience. Oblivion changed all that. It was the game that would take the open world RPG into the next era.

It was incredible. The first moment that you burst through prison gates out into the world, let me tell you (in case you weren't there for it), everything in the gaming world changed. This ability to go anywhere, do anything, and be anyone was a feeling I'd never felt before, and a watershed moment in mine and many others' gaming lives.

The wonder and the ability to take the story at your own pace were things rarely explored to this point. From here on out, The Elder Scrolls became one of the most popular names in all of gaming.

7 Fallout 3

The Beautiful Wasteland

Fallout 3 is another landmark moment in RPG history. I had no experience with the franchise when it dropped in 2008, so all I knew was that Bethesda was behind it, and back then, they couldn't miss. The vault opening experience after the intro was similar to the one Oblivion gave us, but here, it also just felt... different.

This sprawling, terrifying wasteland was mostly devoid of life, leaving you to find the small hovels of people who are struggling to survive in a terrifying post-apocalyptic world that has been ravaged and thoroughly changed by nuclear war. The reason this one is a must-play is that before this game, first-person shooters were not open-world games. They were linear as all get out. Fallout 3 took first-person shooting and mixed it with RPG mechanics in a brilliantly realized world, and it was something that really hadn't been done like this.

It went on to inspire countless first-person RPGs that aimed for a similar feel, though few achieved the same success.

6 Mass Effect: Legendary Edition

A Story of Galactic Proportions

While this is technically a trilogy, these days, you can get all three games for the price of one in Mass Effect: Legendary Edition. That's important, because honestly, it's hard to choose what the best one is. For my money, it's Mass Effect 3, but there are legions who swear by Mass Effect 2, and others who prefer the more open-ended nature of Mass Effect 1.

The bottom line is that Commander Shepard's journey to save the galaxy from the terrifying force that is the Reapers is one of a kind, and basically functions as the video game world's Star Wars. It's that in-depth, with that level of lore, polish, and, if you ask me, even better writing and characters.

The exploration is great, and the characters are seriously all-time for a sci-fi game. From Garrus to Wrex and Jack to Tali, they're some of the most real-feeling companions I've seen in a game, despite how alien they can look. The combat is another standout, mixing third-person shooting with different abilities and powers, and the ability to command your squad in the heat of battle.

It redefined what an RPG could be. Before Mass Effect, the thought of an RPG with Gears of War-style shooting while using magic powers seemed like a distant dream. BioWare thankfully brought that dream to life in one of the best trilogies ever made in fiction.

5 Dragon Age: Origins

The Darkspawn Cometh

Dragon Age: Origins is a game that holds up today despite paying tribute to games 10 years its senior when it released. It's an incredibly well-done story that feels a lot like the video game world's answer to Lord of the Rings. The war against the Darkspawn is both chilling and powerful, and the cast of characters by your side still has yet to be topped when it comes to a fantasy RPG.

The combat is real-time with pause, and it allows you to set up individual character behaviors that give you an insane amount of options when it comes to strategizing. The real magic of the game is in the options you have in the various quests. From the main story to the side quests, you have a ton of ways to go through this amazingly written and considerably dark journey.

The graphics were nothing special, but there is a grittiness to them that makes the adventure feel all the more desperate and dire. The voice acting is on point here, too, with some standouts being Alistair and Morrigan. It's one that you really must play if you're a fan of either fantasy games or RPGs in general.

4 Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

The Force Has Never Been Stronger

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic is one of the all-time great moments in video games. This game proved that Star Wars didn't have to be an action game or one that retreads the movies for the 1,000th time. Instead, it was a brand-new world, free of the well-known cast of the movies, and introduced us to an era far in the past, where Jedi and Sith were all still around.

It's an amazing RPG that has the best storytelling of any Star Wars story to date. That's a hot take, I know, but the story here has a twist as good as Darth Vader, characters better than Han, Luke, and Leia, and it all feels so incredibly authentic that it fits right in with the universe as comfortably as possible.

In particular, the Light Side, Dark Side mechanic that lets you deal with situations as you see fit and shift the journey of your character because of it is an incredible thing that managed to shape the path of RPGs for the next few years.

3 Elden Ring

Rewriting the Formula

Elden Ring managed to take a formula that had gotten stale and inject an entire new life into it. The open world game had been oversaturated by 2022 to say the least, so Elden Ring rewrote the rulebook on it. Suddenly, the open world was there to explore, but it was unguided. It was all up to you and what POIs on the map you'd like to explore, sometimes based solely on the topography of the in-game map. It turned you into a real-life navigator, and no matter where you turned, something fascinating to discover was waiting.

The journey to become Elden Lord is a harrowing one though, with some of the toughest boss fights ever conceived, but the ability to face them at whatever pace you wanted gave Elden Ring a sort of freedom that the previous Soulsborne games did not afford. If one boss seemed unbeatable, you could go another route and gain more weapons, better armor, and higher stats until you could take it down. Then there are the Ashes of War, which grant unique abilities to different weapons and shields, allowing you to interchange them to create endless combinations.

As far as RPG combat goes, Elden Ring stands alone, with hundreds of weapons to find, abilities to discover, and one of the best magic systems I've seen in a game as well. There are also mysterious side quests to follow, amazing characters to encounter, and maybe the best final boss an RPG has ever seen. It's a grueling adventure, but you can also bring along a friend or two to various encounters to make it easier. It's simultaneously one of the more difficult Souls games, and one of the more accessible ones. Either way, it's a must-play of the highest order.

2 Baldur's Gate 3

Revenge of the Nerds

Look, I don't care if you didn't like DnD, or if you never liked role-playing games and thought CRPGs were the most niche thing ever. Baldur's Gate 3 broke down every single barrier in the gaming world to create one of the most brilliant experiences ever. Suddenly, people who hated turn-based games were talking about D20s, and those who scoffed at DnD were talking about how cool the Mindflayers are.

It's a game that broke barriers in the RPG world, featuring an incredible adventure with so many paths to take, great writing, incredible characters, beautiful graphics, and some of the best combat any turn-based game has ever seen. The creativity you can use for any encounter is nearly endless, and it's the first game of its kind that really feels like a true DnD campaign come to life.

There are also amazing villains, shocking twists, and a ton of variations to how each character's story plays out. You can play the entire game with multiple friends, too. As far as the DnD dreams of the '80s went, they finally came true in 2023 with this behemoth of a game that stands strong as one of the best RPGs ever made.

1 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Game of Thrones of Video Games

The Witcher 3 came from a franchise that was known, but only really had one successful game to that point. That all changed in 2015 when The Witcher 3 unleashed yet another game-changing moment. The cinematic flair, the voice acting, the visuals, and most importantly, the game world, changed everything for RPGs.

Geralt's journey to find Ciri has so many twists and turns, so many permutations to just about every quest, and so many amazing characters that it's hard to believe this was done by what wasn't a huge studio at the time. Yet, they achieved absolute brilliance, with to this day, the best side quests any game has ever had, and some of the best writing as well.

The main story is great, but then you've also got two absolutely incredible DLCs that add a full game's worth of content onto what you already played. There is a reason The Witcher 4 is so hyped: it's trying to follow what, in many people's eyes, is the most important RPG of all time.