The Most Ambitious RPGs of the PS4 Generation

The first console I ever got was a PlayStation 4. I was really late to the game — I was a PC gamer through my teen and college years. I've since returned to PC, but I remember the time with my PS4 fondly. As an RPG gamer, I remember the exhilaration of finally being able to play console exclusives, and there were more on the PS4 than the PS3.

Like the PS3, there aren't many Western RPG exclusives on the PS4, but the ones that are there were considered essential to play by many RPG gamers. The new technology that came with the PS4 enabled developers to push the limits of the genre, and RPGs that would have once only been released on PC or badly ported to consoles did well on the PS4.

10 GreedFall

An Ambitious Game From a Small Studio

GreedFall didn't do anything new in the RPG genre, but it earned a spot on this list because its developer punched above its weight. Spiders was a developer that had mostly ported games, and was at best an AA developer when it began creating GreedFall. What it produced was a serviceable AAA open-world action RPG, where many other games were canceled during development.

GreedFall's story and characters were fine, but it had interesting combat and options for building your character. It leaned on traditional RPG systems to do this, and the options for approaching combat alone made it worth playing. That Spiders envisioned a AAA game with so many constraints, including a tight budget and very little experience, made GreedFall an ambitious project, even before considering its satisfactory performance on the PS4.

9 Kingdom Come: Deliverance

A Historical Epic

Considering the success of Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, it's hard to believe that Kingdom Come: Deliverance was once a long-shot from a new developer and relied on Kickstarter funding to get off the ground. New developers creating games of this scale and pulling it off are rare, and the ambition of what Warhorse wanted to achieve is plain to see.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance had the struggle of being set in the real world, a burden that fantasy RPGs don't typically have, and Warhorse was determined to make it historically accurate. It included an overwhelming amount of detail, which was both criticized and praised. This was a massive undertaking from a new studio, and it paid off. Kingdom Come: Deliverance was followed by DLCs and a sequel.

8 The Outer Worlds

Obsidian Venturing Outside Its Box

Obsidian is a respected developer that makes narrative-heavy games that often challenge your viewpoints and morality. Their games are often smaller in scale, opting for narrative rather than spectacle. The Outer Worlds was both a new IP for Obsidian and a departure from its more restrained game design.

The Outer Worlds is vast and vibrant, and applies that Obsidian narrative design to something akin to Fallout in space. My biggest impression from The Outer Worlds was the sheer amount of color in it. After experiencing game after game where the color saturation was turned to grayscale to convey despair and a dark narrative, The Outer Worlds was bright even when things were going wrong. This is a beautiful, ambitious game from Obsidian, and it was a brave deviation from its usual fare.

7 Fallout 4

New Systems for an Old Formula

We were all well-acquainted with Bethesda's formula by the time Fallout 4 was released. Starting out in a Vault, escaping into a post-apocalyptic world, and putting off the main quest for as long as possible to do random side quests is the modus operandi for playing a Bethesda Fallout game.

Fallout IV had a world bigger than ever, set in the Boston area, a place rife with history. What Fallout IV really excelled in was its innovative settlement-building tool. This had been introduced on a far smaller scale in Skyrim, but here it really showcased what this tool could do. Creating settlements was my favorite part of Fallout IV, and I found myself neglecting all the quests, main or not, just to build the most beautiful or wacky towns possible.

6 Dark Souls III

Tweaking What Works

Concluding a beloved series is as difficult as starting one, and FromSoftware stuck the landing here. Dark Souls III is the culmination of its predecessors, and it wasn't afraid to shy away from what worked, giving us more of the lore and gameplay that made the first two so successful.

FromSoftware already had a winning formula in its gameplay and combat — the developer could have left it at that, and no one would complain. But Dark Souls III pushed its combat even further with the introduction of Weapon Arts, which gives you more control over your build and adds more variety to combat than ever before. Making even minor adjustments to such a finely tuned system could have sent it all sprawling, but it worked for Dark Souls III.

5 Divinity: Original Sin 2

Bringing CRPGs to Consoles

The last time isometric, real-time turn-based combat was this big was Dragon Age: Origins. Nearly ten years later, Divinity: Original Sin 2 came along and not only created a genuinely great CRPG in a world that thought it had moved on from the format, but it translated the dense CRPG design to PS4.

CRPGs live on PC for a reason. Adapting them for consoles was always a challenge because of the controller and power of the system, but Larian embraced it and made CRPGs more accessible. Divinity: Original Sin 2 is a dense, narrative-heavy game with complex systems that all work with each other and react to player choice. Building this on PS4 was an ambitious undertaking, and Larian succeeded.

4 Dragon Age: Inquisition

Emphasizing Scale on a New Engine

Dragon Age: Inquisition was a major departure from its predecessors. Partly because of the backlash from the limited dungeon maps in Dragon Age II, partly because of the influence of Skyrim that started a trend of everything becoming open-world, Dragon Age: Inquisition featured massive, open-world maps set within two countries.

Alongside the sheer scale of Dragon Age: Inquisition, BioWare was also developing an RPG on EA's in-house Frostbite, which had been created for sport games, shooters, and racing games, not RPGs. BioWare had to create everything from the ground up, and launched a game rife with political intrigue, a war table, and a fascinating dissection of the intersections between religion and history and what goes into the creation of a myth.

3 Bloodborne

Death is Around Every Corner

FromSoftware took notes on the difficulty of Dark Souls and turned the intensity all the way up with Bloodborne. This game knows who it's for and isn't interested in mass appeal.

Despite this, Bloodborne found its audience, and they stuck around because Bloodborne does the job very well. Set in a visually dark but stunning world plagued by monsters, Bloodborne gives you the kind of high you only get from close encounters and knowing you're only a few short steps away from oblivion. Its ambition in scope and fearlessness in making a difficult game earns it a place on this list.

2 Horizon Zero Dawn

A New Face for PlayStation

Many of the RPGs released during the PS4 era were sequels or adaptations. Horizon Zero Dawn was a completely new IP set in a post-apocalyptic world, but made to appear as a paradise. However, it wasn't Horizon Zero Dawn's gameplay, combat, and setting alone that made it an ambitious project, but its lead character.

Any list about PS4's RPGs would be remiss to leave out Aloy as an iconic protagonist. Non-optional female protagonists were rare in the PS4 days, and Guerrilla Games' design of Aloy as a practical, non-sexualized woman was incredibly brave. Aloy stands alongside FemShep as compelling video game protagonists who have paved the way for the more diverse gaming we see today. Aloy was so beloved as a character that she's one of PlayStation's flagship characters, in a risk that paid off.

1 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

The Game that Changed Everything

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt perfected the open-world game. It included a vast landscape, varied biomes, and environmental storytelling that players could get lost in.

Choice is a powerful tool in RPGs, and The Witcher 3 had it in spades. Each choice you make as Geralt influences some part of the story, be it who shows up for major battles, who lives or dies, the fate of a settlement, or deciding the new monarch of a country. All of these decisions come together to weave a coherent story with emotional impact.

I remember my bated breath at the end of The Witcher 3, just waiting to see if I had been a good dad to Ciri and had guided her on the right path, and the relief I felt when I saw my actions had paid off was indescribable.