11 Must-Play RPGs That Defined The Genre

The RPG genre has been home to some of the best games in the industry for a very long time, with many starting off as adaptations of tabletop rulesets on PCs. Despite all the decades that RPGs have been around, many new RPG titles are still award-winners, and it's clear that there will always be a hunger for the genre in the industry. It's the perfect place for innovative gameplay, storytelling, and some of the best music in gaming. With RPGs being such a breeding ground for innovation and impact, many RPGs over the years have helped define, then redefine the genre, changing how people perceive what can be done with games. Now, many games have RPG elements despite not strictly being RPGs, and it feels like the genre that is helping to push the industry as a whole forward. Still, it is interesting to go back and look through the impact some of the genre's best titles have had, especially because many are must-plays for RPG lovers. 11 Dark Souls Created An Entire Subgenre Prepare to die Okay, so obviously Demon's Souls was the original blueprint, but Dark Souls completely perfected the formula and gave birth to the entire soulslike genre. Without this punishing RPG, it's unlikely games like Hollow Knight, Bloodborne, Lies of P, Nioh, Death's Door would exist today — certainly not in the way they do, at least. Is this game as hard as a lot of people make it out to be? Perhaps not, but Dark Souls proved that modern audiences still had an appetite for games that don't hold your hand, and are unafraid of you spending hours fighting the same boss. This, plus a gorgeous decaying world with an ingenious interconnected map, made for an instant modern classic, and paved the way for a number of sequels and spirutual successors that ultimately led to the mighty Elden Ring. One Of Gaming's Most Legendary Titles Skyrim is one of the most impactful games ever. It pushed the envelope for what open-world games could be and produced the perfect playground for players to explore. While it's sometimes criticized for lacking depth, the sheer amount that players get to do and the variety of content make Skyrim special to this day. Just exploring and randomly coming across a quest by blindly wandering into a cave is an experience that other games still struggle to match. Skyrim also connected with its audience in a way that many other games have struggled to, helping to lay the path for future studios to work with their players through mods. Skyrim's innovation and impact on modding are unmatched, and this facet is mainly what has made the game seemingly immortal. Looking at the next-gen graphical capabilities of Skyrim in the 2020s is astounding, and this level of connection between a game and its modding community has had such a pivotal impact on RPGs specifically and how their shelf life can be extended. 9 The Witcher 3 Set A Whole New Bar For RPGs Titles Struggle To Reach That Bar A Decade Later Looking back, it almost feels like what The Witcher 3 achieved shouldn't have been possible. At the time, it had stunning visuals, a living, breathing world, morally complex quests with stellar writing, and some of the genre's best characters. Choices and the complexity of playing the role of Geralt of Rivia helped The Witcher 3 stand out, and it still stands as CD Projekt Red's magnum opus. The land of the Northern Realms remains one of the best open-worlds in the RPG genre. Geralt of Rivia was a self-proclaimed title for much of the books, but he was later knighted by Queen Meve of Lyria and Rivia after saving her army by holding a bridge. That's without mentioning how alive cities like Novigrad, Oxenfurt, and Beauclair are, or how memorable the dialogue and decisions of even minor content in the game can be. The writing of characters like Gaunter O'Dimm is stellar, while the main cast of Geralt, Ciri, Yennefer, Triss, and so on helps to give the game so much depth. Despite how good The Witcher 4 looks, it has a lot to live up to with how high a bar its predecessor set. 8 Persona 5 Proved Turn-Based RPGs Weren't Dead And The Turn-Based Boom Of Today Is Thankful Persona 5 is a great game, making the series more mainstream than ever and paving the way for remakes of other Persona and Shin Megami Tensei games. There have been many arguments about which game in the series is best, but there is no denying how important Persona 5 has been. While it largely continues the formula set by the series while making improvements expected of a sequel, its impact on the turn-based subgenre of RPGs has been so important to the genre as a whole, especially with franchises like Final Fantasy going away from it. With its flashing UI and stunning visuals, Persona 5 helped make turn-based combat cool again, and while it wasn't the only great game around that time using turn-based gameplay, it was the most popular. Without the success of Persona 5, games like Dragon Quest 11, Baldur's Gate 3, and Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 might not have taken off to the same degree, and that's without talking about how great Persona 5 is on its own merits. The characters, the stylized visuals, the combat, and the blending of school life with all the fighting helped make it so special. 7 Final Fantasy 7 Is Still One Of The Best RPGs Ever And The Game That Made JRPGs Global Irrespective of what people think is the best Final Fantasy game, whether that's FF6, 7, 8, 9, or 10 (all representing the franchise's golden era), it's impossible to deny that Final Fantasy 7 is the one that had the biggest impact. Without taking its influence into account, FF7 is a stellar title with amazing characters, surprisingly heartfelt writing, an intriguing world, innovative (for the time) combat with its 3D animations, and one of the most heart-wrenching, shocking moments in gaming. Decades later, the fate of one major character is still talked about as if it's fresh. On top of all that is the impact the game had. While JRPGs were popular in Japan and the Eastern market, they hadn't truly conquered the global market until Final Fantasy 7 hit shelves. It introduced far more players in the Western market to the complexities of the JRPG genre and accustomed them to many mechanics that are still used to this day. Many still call FF7 the greatest game they have ever played, and regardless of how people feel about the direction the Remake project has taken, the original is unmatched. 6 Baldur's Gate 3 Made CRPGs Mainstream And Showed A Level That Hadn't Been Reached Since The Witcher 3 Baldur's Gate has always been a series known for its impact on the gaming industry, and while BG1 was one of the first great RPGs on PC, Baldur's Gate 3 leveraged the popularity of Dungeons and Dragons to appeal to a massive audience. It helped return the RPG genre to classic form and made the CRPG subgenre popular again thanks to innovations like added depth in 3D environments, great combat, and one of the best casts an RPG can hope for. BG3 truly proved to be a worthy successor to the franchise. Baldur's Gate 3's party members have produced a fan base on their own, and the sheer volume of quality content, witty yet heartfelt storytelling, and ability to capture incredible performances by its stellar cast have helped to make it such a unique and powerful experience. While Larian has had a run of quality with the Divinity series, BG3 has helped cement its status at the forefront of the genre. Now, all CRPGs are being compared to the impossible standard Larian has set. 5 Fallout 3 Made Blending FPS and RPG Titles Popular And Made The Post-Apocalypse A Trendy Place To Set An RPG While the modern perceptions of Fallout 3 are more mixed, it shouldn't be denied how important the title was for future games that blended FPS shooters with RPGs. Sure, games like Paths of Darkness did it first, but Fallout 3 made it popular, and it also made the post-apocalypse a common place to set these FPS shooting RPGs. Fallout 3's influence can be felt directly in games like Atomfall, Atomic Heart, and The Outer Worlds. Fallout was acquired by Bethesda in 2007 from Interplay Productions. Fallout: New Vegas may be the better RPG, but Fallout 3 is the one that got the ball rolling. It was the first Bethesda Fallout title and pivoted the series away from its isometric, more traditional CPRG roots to an FPS RPG. While some fans might argue this has been for the worse for the series, it's been for the better as far as the gaming industry as a whole is concerned. 4 Pokémon's First Generation Started A Billion-Dollar Franchise And Made Pokémon One Of The Biggest IPs Ever Pokémon Red & Blue was the start of something truly astounding, and while the game alone was groundbreaking with its elemental match-ups, hundreds of Pokémon, and turn-based mechanics, what it eventually did for pop culture is difficult to comprehend. Everyone knows what Pokémon is now, and everyone knows a Pikachu when they see one. The games alone have spawned many copycats, such as Temtem and Palworld. Pokémon has now become the highest-grossing media property of all time, and it's interesting to go back and see its humble beginnings. Pokémon is one of those rare titles that has transcended the gaming industry and probably doesn't even need its games anymore. It makes enough money just selling merchandise, but it began as a game, and with the Let's Go titles being solid remakes of Gen 1, the era is easy enough to revisit. 3 World Of Warcraft's Prime Was Unmatched The Biggest MMORPG Ever Although it's struggling a bit now, World of Warcraft's impact on gaming shouldn't be overstated. It made the MMORPG genre bigger than ever, and its prime had over ten million players at once during the Wrath of the Lich King expansion. While there were plenty of MMORPGs before World of Warcraft, like Runescape and Everquest, WoW was the one that took the formulas from before and improved on them to make the quintessential MMO experience still enjoyed today. It also helped that it took all the good work from Warcraft 3 and brought these strengths to life in a massive, vibrant world that allowed millions of people to connect to one another. The idea of splitting players into two factions, the Horde and the Alliance, is something copied by a few MMOs to this day, such as Star Wars: The Old Republic, and has helped spur a rivalry between the two factions. Despite all the negative criticisms it has suffered, WoW was once a beacon of what an MMORPG could be, and many have followed its formula. 2 Dragon Quest Shaped RPGs As We Know It A JRPG Classic Dragon Quest is one of the longest-running RPG series ever, and the original game, made all the way back in 1986, has been critically important in shaping the RPG genre as we know it today. For one, it helped make the humble slime an icon in Japan, but it also helped introduce many core JRPG mechanics, like random encounters, the turn-based combat formula, text-based menus, and so on. Without it, games like Final Fantasy might not be the way they were during their golden era. Dragon Quest is still going to this day, with its latest title, Dragon Quest 11, still showing the series' appeal in the modern age. Dragon Quest 1 & 2 are getting HD remakes, so now is the perfect time to not only get into the series, but also visit the game that made the JRPG what it is today. Almost all JRPGs and RPGs as a whole owe at least something to the original Dragon Quest, and while these mechanics might seem simple now, they might not be around without this title.