Four players, one screen, and a voice announcing that the Wizard needs food badly.
Steve Jackson's Fighting Fantasy books as an app; Inkle's four parts.
The Nemesis system: orcs who remember killing you; Monolith's Tolkien.
A fifth-year student in 1890s Hogwarts; the wizarding world as an open world.
April Ryan between Stark and Arcadia; Funcom's 1999 epic adventure.
Every Warhammer faction on one Immortal Empires map; the biggest Total War.
Four-player co-op CRPG with elemental surfaces; Larian before Baldur's Gate.
The Land of Shadow, Messmer and the final boss argued about for months; the biggest From expansion.
Atlus's fantasy Persona: an election to become king; the 2024 JRPG.
Obsidian's Kickstarter revival of the Infinity Engine RPG.
Climb the monsters and hire other players' pawns; Capcom's cult open-world RPG.
Toussaint, a vampire and the best expansion ever made; Geralt's real ending.
Bigby Wolf, sheriff of Fabletown, in a 1980s noir; Telltale's Fables.
The Nameless One wakes on a mortuary slab; "what can change the nature of a man?"
Azeroth with millions; the MMORPG that swallowed a decade.
Cyrodiil, the Dark Brotherhood questline and Oblivion gates opening in a world that levels with you; Bethesda's 2006 breakthrough.
Six origins, the Blight and Alistair; BioWare's dark fantasy answer to Baldur's Gate.
A boy and a fairy in a Ghibli-animated world; Level-5 and Studio Ghibli.
Minsc, Boo and Jon Irenicus; the Infinity Engine RPG at its biggest.
Close the rifts, run the Inquisition; the biggest Dragon Age.
Vvardenfell, giant mushrooms and a world that explains nothing; the Elder Scrolls at its strangest.
A kingslayer, two mutually exclusive second acts, and the game that put CD Projekt on the map.
Heroes, four races and the custom map that became DotA; Blizzard's RTS peak.
Drangleic and the Bearer of the Curse; the divisive middle game, longest of the three.
Breath of the Wild plus sky islands, the Depths and a build-anything Ultrahand.
Three days until the moon falls, replayed until you have saved everyone in Termina.
Geralt's amnesiac first outing: Vizima, the Salamandra and a combat system nobody misses.
Lothric, the Lords of Cinder and the series at its fastest and most polished.
Hand-drawn metroidvania in a fallen insect kingdom (2017).
Bulgakov's satirical devil-in-Moscow masterpiece (1967).
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