Party-based CRPGs: about the games
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a story-rich, party-based RPG set in the Dungeons & Dragons universe, where player choices shape a tale of fellowship and betrayal, survival and sacrifice, and the lure of absolute power. Players can pick from 12 classes and 11 races, or play as an Origin hero or the customisable Dark Urge, and take the adventure online with up to four players. The journey spans the Forgotten Realms, the Underdark and the city of Baldur’s Gate, where sneaking, climbing and jumping matter. In combat, the party can attack together or split up to act on its own.
The Thaumaturge is a character-driven adventure RPG in which your choices shape how the story ends. You play as Wiktor Szulski, a thaumaturge who can read emotions, uncover motives and hidden secrets, and summon folklore-inspired demons called salutors. You investigate mysteries, influence other characters, and fight tactical turn-based battles using both physical attacks and salutor abilities, while your own pride can lead you astray. The isometric game is set in an early 20th-century metropolis and features characters tied to the protagonist’s past, including his sister Ligia and his childhood friend Abaurcy, who turned to crime.
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire is an RPG in which the player pursues a rogue god over land and sea. As a ship’s captain you plot your own course through the vast, unexplored archipelago region of the Deadfire, discovering new places, meeting their inhabitants and taking on quests at every port. You build a party from 7 companions, assigning them multiple classes and deeper abilities, and watch their personal relationships and interactions unfold. The ship is your stronghold at sea: upgrade vessel and crew and choose which skills to improve so you can survive dangerous encounters along the way.
Kazuma Kiryu, a former member of the Tojo Clan, is pulled back into the yakuza world after the fifth chairman, Yukio Terada, is assassinated and war looms between rival clans. He must try to broker peace in Sotenbori, while Ryuji Goda, known as the Dragon of Kansai, is determined to get his war at any cost. The game offers full-contact brawling with combos, ‘heat action’ moves and dynamic environmental takedowns. Outside of fights, players can visit Kamurocho and Sotenbori for restaurants, bars, karaoke, cabaret or blackjack, and the game also includes a bonus scenario focused on Goro Majima.
Darkest Dungeon II is a turn-based RPG and strategy game: you form a party, equip your stagecoach and set off across a decaying landscape to avert the apocalypse. Four heroes and a stagecoach are all that stand between darkness and salvation. Beyond outside threats, the journey is decided by what happens within – heroes bond with one another or grate on each other‘s nerves, producing badly needed combat synergies or journey-ending dysfunction. A separate strategic mode, Kingdoms, has you defend a crumbling realm against incursions by new enemy factions, manage a persistent roster of heroes and gather resources; its progress is tracked separately from the Confessions core mode.
Set in the wacky heroic fantasy universe of Naheulbeuk, this tactical RPG puts you in charge of a team of clumsy, inexperienced heroes who must put up with each other to claim a dungeon's treasure. Turn-based battles, humour and absurd encounters shape the gameplay, while you escape traps and solve puzzles. The dungeon stretches from a cave to the luxurious chambers of the evil lord Zangdar, and alongside the main storyline it offers side quests.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister is a turn-based tactical RPG built on the SRD 5.1 ruleset, where you lead four heroes whose abilities complement one another. You create them as in a pen-and-paper game, choosing race, class and personality and rolling for stats. Exploring ruins and dungeons depends on light and darkness, since dangers lurk in the dark while a torch may draw monsters, some of which see in the dark and others flee from it; combat plays out in three dimensions, so heroes can climb, jump, fly, topple columns onto enemies or squeeze through tunnels too narrow for bigger foes.
Wartales is an open-world RPG in which you lead a band of mercenaries chasing riches across a vast medieval setting. A century after the Edoran Empire fell to an unprecedented plague, the land is full of mercenary jobs, banditry and theft, and honor has nearly disappeared. Players recruit companions with varied skills and personalities, take on bounties and contracts, explore abandoned mines, tombs and camps, and develop their camp. Combat is turn-based and tactical, and a group of up to four players can travel together.
A tactical RPG set in the dark medieval fantasy land of Gloomhaven, where you lead a band of mercenaries, deal with unsavoury characters and shape the fate of the region. It is a digital adaptation of the board game by Isaac Childres and features a branching campaign of 95 story missions. Each turn you select two ability cards per mercenary and use the top half of one and the bottom half of the other, fighting on a hex grid through dungeons, forests and caves. You can play alone or in online co-op for up to four players, with bands of 2 to 4 mercenaries chosen from 17 characters.
Torment: Tides of Numenera is the thematic successor to Planescape: Torment: a single-player, isometric, story-driven RPG set in Monte Cook’s Numenera universe. You are born a new mind in a body once held by the Changing God, a being who cheated death for millennia, and together with strange companions you must escape an ancient, unstoppable creature called the Sorrow. Your words, choices and actions are your main weapons; morality here is not a simple matter of right and wrong, and characters react to your reputation. Combat runs on the Crisis system, which adds environmental puzzles, conversation and stealth to the fighting.
Battle Brothers is a turn-based tactical RPG set in a medieval fantasy world. You lead a mercenary company in a procedurally generated campaign, choosing where to travel, whom to recruit, which contracts to take and how to train and equip your men. The world is fractured, the dead rise from their crypts, Greenskin hordes gather and Nobles prepare for war, so people turn to mercenary bands. You travel the land in real time, trade, seek recruits in taverns and accept dynamically generated contracts from settlements and Noble Houses; your deeds shape faction relations and your company’s renown.
Grand Chien, a country rich in natural resources and deeply divided politically, falls into turmoil when its elected president disappears and the paramilitary ‘Legion’ takes control of the countryside. The president’s family therefore turns to the powerful Adonis corporation and hires mercenaries to find him and restore order. The team is made up of mercs with distinct personalities and backstories, equipment can be collected and customized, and skills are chosen as characters level up. Tactically deep turn-based combat takes place in an open RPG structure where you control territory, train locals, and make decisions that shape the nation’s fate, and online co-op is also available.