10 Best Fantasy RPGs Of All Time

I’d be surprised if this didn’t turn out to be my most controversial inclusion on this list, not just because not everybody was a fan of the Dragon Age threequal Inquisition but also because there’s an argument to be made that Dragon Age: Origins is the better game. 

For a couple of reasons I’m giving Inquisition the edge, the first being I think in 2024 it’s just a better end-to-end experience based on what BioWare learned after a strong start and a slightly middling sequel, and the second one is that it’s my favourite. I know, I’m pulling out the bias nice and early but hopefully you’ll forgive me.

This is the last game I remember absolutely devouring. Put off sleep and get up at the crack of dawn grade obsession that I hadn’t personally experienced since Skyrim came out three years prior. Inquisition came out in 2014, back in the BioWare golden age that was about to an end but we didn’t know that at the time. Though it was criticised by some for bearing some open world bloat, this was another game that illustrated that when it comes to the RPG genre, few developers know how to make you feel like the chosen one quite like BioWare. Putting you in the shoes of the titular Inquisitor, you have access to a bunch of interesting and varied character builds, and party-based combat which reincorporates the nuance of the first entry. All the while you’ll unravel the cause of a breach created between the real world and that of the mystical and mysterious Fade.

Where BioWare knocks it out of the park in particular is its excellent companions. Inquisition has returning characters from previous games, stellar new ones with wonderful personalities and backstories, and it even loops in your old protagonists.

When it comes to storytelling, Inquisition does something that The Witcher 3 also excels at; giving you a meaty narrative throughline that you can engage and disengage with at will while you pursue side objectives and explore at your own pace. Both give you enough freedom so that the experience rarely ever feels linear, but without so much that you lose sight of your purpose.