• Vampire Role Playing Games Pc 2017

Jun 04, 2018  Dontnod's upcoming RPG, Vampyr, sees you take on the role of a military surgeon turned vampire in Britain.

The best RPGs on PC can deliver hundreds of hours of adventure. Since tabletop RPGs first started getting the digital treatment, the genre has grown into an intimidating, massive beast. Sure, you'll still find plenty of D&D-style, fantasy romps, but you can also head out into space, explore gothic underground oceans and even vacation in the town of South Park.

Whenever we sit down to argue our way through a list of the best games, our first step is deciding what “best” even means. In this case, we’re identifying which RPGs are fun right now. It's the same approach we take without our overall list of the best games to play today. We don’t ignore a game’s impact completely—innovation and influence just has a lesser weight under our criteria.

The RPG genre is tough to boil down: by the most literal definition, every game is a role-playing game. This list represents our best definition of the canonical RPG—games that likely emphasize story; that let you inhabit a customizable character through skill points, inventory, and dialogue decisions; that include complex, controllable relationships with companions or non-playable characters. Drawing these kinds of lines helps us provide a better service to you, we hope—though we've made some exceptions where we think it's worth it.

For more recommendations for the best games on PC, check out our round ups of the best strategy games on PC, the best FPS games on PC, and the best puzzle games on PC.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

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Release date: 2015 Developer: CD Projekt Red Humble Store, Steam

Many of the best RPGs focus on tales of lone, wandering adventurers, but few if any pull it off it with such artistry as The Witcher 3. That artistry is most apparent in the setting itself, which is so packed with breathtaking sunsets and wind-tossed groves of trees that, months later, I still find myself opting to go to destinations on foot rather than taking the fast travel points.

But the true strength of The Witcher 3 is that it populates these memorable landscapes with NPCs doling out humble but memorable quests (by the dozen) that help create one of the most human RPG experiences on the market. In decaying wayside towns, the witcher Geralt might find impoverished elves struggling in the face of local racism; elsewhere, he might help a self-styled baron reunite with his long-estranged daughter. These quests deftly navigate moral issues without being heavy-handed or offering obvious solutions

Through it all, much as in The Witcher 2, Geralt usually plays the role of just another character on this troubled world's stage. In the process, this tale of monster slaying and inter-dimensional raiders becomes strangely and poignantly relatable.

Divinity: Original Sin 2

Release date: 2017 Developer: Larian Studios Steam, GOG

Outside of tabletop games, there are few RPGs that boast the liberating openness of Larian's humongous quest for godhood. If you think you should be able to do something, you probably can, even it it's kidnapping a merchant by using a teleportation spell and then setting fire to him with his own blood. Almost every skill has some alternative and surprising use, sometimes more than one, whether you're in our out of combat.

You can enjoy this game of madcap experimentation and tactical combat with up to three friends, to boot, and that's where things start to get really interesting because you're not forced to work together or even stay in the same part of the world. Indeed, there are plenty of reasons to work against each other. The player is always in the driving seat, and with four players, collisions are inevitable. Just remember: if you freeze your friends and then start poisoning them, at least apologize after.

Pillars of Eternity

Release date: 2015 Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Humble Store, Steam

There's very little about Pillars of Eternity that's actually innovative; in fact, its whole Kickstarter-funded existence is based on appealing to the nostalgia for aging Infinity Engine CRPGs like Baldur's Gate II. That usually matters little, though, since Pillars of Eternity pulls it off so damned well.

The graphics lean a little too heavily on the 1990s, but the writing itself is masterful. Obsidian Entertainment uses it to weave a wonderful (if bleak and usually humorless) narrative that brilliantly touches on everything from religious conflicts to social struggles. It doesn't hurt that Obsidian infused almost every step of the world with its own story and smidge of lore, and a new patch introduced hours of additional voice work that make the experience even more enjoyable.

It's also brutally difficult in parts, and even its easier modes demand a dance of pausing and barking out orders to multiple party members that many contemporary of the best RPGs shy from. That's not such a bad thing, though, as Pillars of Eternity is a stark testament that such unforgiving designs still have widespread appeal in this age of accessibility.

Sunless Sea

Release date: 2015 Developer: Failbetter Games Humble Store, Steam

There's nowhere like the Unterzee. Sunless Sea's foreboding underground ocean is an abyss full of horrors and threats to the sanity of the crews that sail upon it. In your vulnerable little steamboat, you have to navigate these waters, trading, fighting and going on bizarre adventures on islands filled with giant mushrooms or rodents engaged in a civil war.

It's often strikingly pretty, but text drives Sunless Sea. Like Failbetter Games' browser-based Fallen London, it's drenched in beautifully written quests, dialogue and descriptions. And it's not restricted to gothic horror, though there's plenty of it. Your journey across the black waters is just as likely to be whimsical and silly. Always, though, there's something sinister lurking nearby. Something not quite right.

South Park: The Stick of Truth

Release date: 2014 Developer: Obsidian Humble Store, Steam

This really shouldn’t have worked. Most licensed games are bad on their own, but a role-playing game based on a crudely animated, foul-mouthed television show should be downright awful. Stick of Truth beats the odds, thanks to the way Obsidian applied the South Park license to some clever RPG tropes—party members are recruited through a Facebook-like interface, a quest sends you to retrieve “Mr. Slave’s Package,” status effects include being “grossed out,” etc. It’s not the deepest RPG on this list, but it’s one of the most immediately fun entries, and makes for a great introduction to the genre.

Anachronox

Release date: 2001 Developer: Ion Storm Dallas Humble Store, Steam

Former id Software designer Tom Hall had a vision for his first, and only, Ion Storm game. He wanted to make a turn-based RPG, like Final Fantasy, but with a distinctly Western voice. It’s that tone that makes Anachronox so brilliant: few other games of any genre have dialogue as funny as Sly Boots’ negotiation with a sock-chewing mutant warlord, and no other game we’ve played lets you add an entire planet to your party.

Ion Storm built the game on a heavily modified version of the Quake 2 engine, and it’s never looked like a normal game. But even today, the blocky character models still have personality, and the facial animations are surprisingly effective. Sly’s look of resignation as he’s thrown out of his own office window is brilliant, and he carries it with him throughout the adventure. The development cycle was plagued with issues and the final product rushed, but playing Anachronox now still feels like a revelation. It’s hard not to wonder what Hall’s planned sequels could have achieved.

Kingdom Come: Deliverance

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Release date: 2018 Developer: Warhorse Studios Steam, GOG

In this historical RPG set in the muddy fields of Bohemia, 1403, you play as a peasant called Henry who gets swept up in a war for his homeland. It's a detailed RPG, with a deep sword fighting system, hunger and thirst systems, crafting and more than a dozen equipment slots to fill with meticulously modeled gear inspired by the raiments of the time. It's also surprisingly open-ended. If you want to wander into the woods and pick mushrooms for meagre coin then off you go, just be careful of bandits as you explore the pretty rural locales.

It's by no means perfect—there are plenty of bugs and wonky moments—but this is an RPG in the Elder Scrolls vein. A few bugs can be excused when the wider experience is this atmospheric.

Grim Dawn

Release date: 2016 Developer: Crate Entertainment Humble Store, Steam

If you’ve rinsed Diablo 2 for every magical trinket and are looking for a modern fix, here is your game. Grim Dawn is a gritty, well-made action RPG with strong classes and a pretty world full of monsters to slay in their droves. It’s the distant brooding son of Titan Quest, sharing some designers and mechanics with that fine 2006 Greek myth ARPG. Like its cousin, Grim Dawn lets you pick two classes and share your upgrade points between two skill trees. This hybrid progression system creates plenty of scope for theorycrafting, and the skills are exciting to use—an essential prerequisite for games that rely so heavily on combat encounters.

The story isn’t bad either, for an ARPG. Don’t expect twisting plots and decisions with consequences—this is very much a game about single-handedly destroying armies—but there is a neat faction reputation system that spawns harder mobs and villainous nemesis heroes as you become more hated by the criminals, cults and monsters that rule the wilderness. The local demons and warlords that terrorize each portion of the world are well sketched out in the scrolling text NPC dialogue and found journals. Ultimately, it’s about the monster-smashing and sweet loot, though, and Grim Dawn delivers on both effectively.

Final Fantasy XII: The Zodiac Age

Release date: 2018 Developer: Square Enix Steam

The smartest Final Fantasy game finally got a PC port in 2018. The game can't render the sort of streaming open worlds we're used to these days, but the art still looks great, and the gambit system is still one of the most fun party development systems in RPG history. Gambits let you program party members with a hierarchy of commands that they automatically follow in fights. You're free to build any character in any direction you wish. You can turn the street urchin Vaan into a broadsword-wielding combat specialist or a elemental wizard. The port even includes a fast-forward mode that make the grinding painless.

Legend of Grimrock 2

Release date: 2014 Developer: Almost Human Games Humble Store, Steam

We loved the original Legend of Grimrock and the way it embraced the old Dungeon Master model of making your party—mostly a collection of stats—explore the world one square at a time. The one drawback is that it was too literal of a dungeon crawler. The enemies might change, but for the most part you kept trudging down what seemed like the same series of corridors until the game's end.

The sequel, though, focuses on both the dank dungeons and the bright, open world above, resulting in a nostalgic romp that's immensely enjoyable and filled with even deadlier enemies and more challenging puzzles. As with the first outing, much of its power springs from the element of surprise. One moment you'll be merrily hacking through enemies with ease, and the next you might find yourself face-to-face with an unkillable demon. And then you'll run, and you discover that there are sometimes almost as many thrills in flight as in the fight.

Undertale

Release date: 2015 Developer: tobyfox Humble Store, Steam

Play only the first 20 minutes, and Undertale might seem like yet another JRPG tribute game, all inside jokes about Earthbound and Final Fantasy coated with bright sugary humor and endearingly ugly graphics. But take it as a whole (and find out that it isn't all bright and sugary after all), and it's an inventive, heartfelt game. It's a little unsettling how slyly it watches us, remembering little things and using our preconceptions about RPGs to surprise and mortify and comfort. More than a tribute to RPGs, it’s a tribute to RPG fans and an exploration of our relationship with games.

Undertale certainly sticks out among all these cRPGs, but looking past its bullet hell-style combat and disregard for things like leveling and skill trees, it's got what counts: great storytelling and respect for player decisions.

Tyranny

Release date: 2016 Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Humble Store, Steam

It isn't quite the accomplishment of its cousin, Pillars of Eternity, but Tyranny's premise sets it apart from other RPGs. Playing as an agent of evil could've been expressed with pure, bland sadism, but instead Tyranny focuses on the coldness of bureaucracy and ideological positioning.

As a 'Fatebinder' faithful to conqueror Kyros the Overlord—yep, sounds evil—you're tasked with mediating talks between her bickering armies and engaging with rebels who fight despite obvious doom, choosing when to sympathize with them and when to eradicate them, most of the time striking a nasty compromise that balances cruelty and political positioning. The latter is achieved through a complex reputation system that, unlike many other morality meters, allows fear and loyalty to coexist with companions and factions.

As with Pillars, Tyranny's pauseable realtime combat and isometric fantasy world are a throwback to classic cRPGs, but not as a vehicle for nostalgia—it feels more like the genre had simply been hibernating, waiting for the right time to reemerge with all the creativity it had before.

Path of Exile

Vampire Role Playing Games Pc 2017

Release date: 2013 Developer: Grinding Gear Games Official site

This excellent free-to-play action RPG is heaven for players that enjoy stewing over builds to construct the most effective killing machine possible. It’s not the most glamorous ARPG, but it has extraordinary depth of progression and an excellent free-to-play model that relies on cosmetics rather than game-altering upgrades. It may look muddy and indistinct, and the combat doesn’t feel as good as Diablo 3, but if you enjoy number crunching this is one of the brainiest RPGs around.

Path of Exile’s scary complexity becomes apparent the moment you arrive on your character’s level-up screen, which . As you plough through enemies and level up, you travel across this huge board, tailoring your character a little with each upgrade. Gear customization is equally detailed. Path of Exile borrows Final Fantasy VII’s concept of connected gem slots. Every piece of armor has an arrangement of slots that take magic gems. These gems confer stat bonuses and bonus adjacency effects when set in the right formations. Ideally you’ll want to build synergies between your gemmed-up gear and leveling choices to create the most powerful warrior you can. Doing so requires plenty of planning, but it’s an engrossing slow-burn challenge.

Darkest Dungeon

Release date: 2016 Developer: Red Hook Studios Humble Store, Steam

You might begin Darkest Dungeon as you would an XCOM campaign: assembling a team of warriors that you've thoughtfully named, decorated, and upgraded for battle. How naive! Inevitably, your favorite highwayman gets syphilis. Your healer turns masochistic, and actually begins damaging herself each turn. Your plague doctor gets greedy, and begins siphoning loot during each dungeon run. A few hours into the campaign, your precious heroes become deeply flawed tools that you either need to learn how to work with, or use until they break, and replace like disposable batteries.

With Lovecraft's hell as your workplace, Darkest Dungeon is about learning how to become a brutal and effective middle manager. Your heroes will be slaughtered by fishmen, cultists, demons, and foul pigmen as you push through decaying halls, but more will return to camp with tortured minds or other maladies. Do you spend piles of gold to care for them, or put those resources toward your ultimate goal?

Darkest Dungeon is a brilliant cohesion of art, sound, writing, and design. The colorful, hand-drawn horrors pop from the screen, showing their influence but never feeling derivative. It's a hard game, but once you understand that everyone is expendable—even the vestal with kleptomania you love so much—Darkest Dungeon's brutality becomes a fantastic story-generator more than a frustration. 'Overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer,' as its narrator reminds.

Mount & Blade: Warband

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Release date: 2009 Developer: TaleWorlds Humble Store, Steam

There are few games that get medieval combat right, and fewer still that add a strategic, army-building component. Fostering an army of farmers into warriors is great, but we love that Mount & Blade gives us the agency to be a hero figure on the battlefield and shape the outcome of a battle ourselves with our marksmanship or fast riding. The metagame of alliance-making, marriage, looting, and economics underpinning these battles makes Warband a satisfying game of gathering goods, enemies, and friendship. Even when the base game wears thin, Mount & Blade’s mods and multiplayer give you more to do, with some even moving the action to a .

Neverwinter Nights 2

Release date: 2003 Developer: Obsidian Entertainment GOG

We loved BioWare's original Neverwinter Nights from 2002 (and especially its expansions), but as a single-player experience, Neverwinter Nights 2 was in a class all of its own. Whereas the original had a fairly weak main campaign that mainly seemed aimed at showing what the DM kit was capable of, Obsidian Entertainment managed to equal and arguably outdo BioWare's storytelling prowess in the sequel when it took over the helm.

Bareme irg salaire algerie. The whole affair brimmed with humor, and companions such as the raucous dwarf Khelgar Ironfist still have few rivals in personality nine years later. And the quality just kept coming. Shades of The Legend of Zelda: A Link to the Past reveal themselves in the masterful Shadow of the Betrayer expansion's focus on two halves of the same world, but Obsidian skillfully uses that familiar framework to deliver an unforgettable commentary on religion.

Gothic 2

Release date: 2002 Developer: Piranha Bytes Humble Store, Steam

Few games are as staunchly open-world—and unforgiving—as Gothic 2. The first time we played it, we left town in the wrong direction and immediately met monsters many levels higher than us, and died horribly. Lesson learned.

It sounds like Gothic 2 is too punishing, but we love the way it forces us to learn our way through its world. Enemies don’t scale with your level, as they do in the Elder Scrolls series, and you’ll have to pay close attention to quest text and NPCs to find your path. Once you do—and overcome the awkward controls—there’s a huge, sprawling RPG at your fingertips, and while you may have felt weak and powerless at the beginning, you’ll be a true badass by the end.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Release date: 2012 Developer: Bethesda Softworks Humble Store, Steam (Special Edition)

Pick a direction and run. You’re almost guaranteed to discover some small adventure, some small chunk of world that will engage you. It’s that content density that makes Skyrim constantly rewarding. A visit to the Mage’s Guild will turn into an area-spanning search for knowledge. A random chat with an NPC will lead you to a far-off dungeon, searching for a legendary relic. You could be picking berries on the side of a mountain and discover a dragon. Oops, accidental dragon fight.

And if you somehow exhaust all of Bethesda’s content, rest assured that modders have more waiting for you in Steam Workshop—that lively community has kept Skyrim in the Steam top 100 since its release, and given us endless ways to adventure through a great world. Some on the PC Gamer team keep a modded-up Skyrim install handy, just in case they feel like adventure. That’s some high praise.

Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire

Release date: 2018 Developer: Obsidian Entertainment Steam

The sequel to the marvellous Pillars of Eternity ventures to the archipelago of Deadfire. You, and your party of adventurers, need to pursue a rampaging god, but to reach it you first you need to learn to sail the high seas aboard The Defiant. On the ocean you can explore and can plunder enemy vessels for loot, which you can then use to upgrade your ship. When you dock at a port the game switches back to classic top-down cRPG view and you're treated to elaborate and beautifully rendered locations.

Ultima Underworld: The Stygian Abyss

Release date: 1992 Developer: Blue Sky Productions (aka Looking Glass Studios) GOG

Designer Paul Neurath originally conceived of a dungeon simulator that would turn traditional role-playing conventions on their head. Called Underworld, he and his team, the future Looking Glass Studios, built a game that rewarded real-world thinking to solve puzzles and please NPCs. Ultima developer Origin Systems was so impressed by the three-dimensional engine (you could look up and down!) and first-person combat that it bought the rights to the game, and suddenly the Avatar was trapped in the Stygian Abyss instead of some faceless schmuck.

Characters that are normally enemies are friends in Underworld, and we love that you may not be able to tell. Attacking a goblin might be a bad move, because he’s just as likely to be your friend. The first time we popped popcorn with a campfire and an ear of corn, we knew we weren’t in any old dungeon crawler. Underworld was a technological marvel in 1992, but while the graphics are dated, the feeling of exploring the Stygian Abyss is just as exciting today.

Divinity: Original Sin

Release date: 2014 Developer: Larian Studios Humble Store, Steam

Divinity was a Kickstarter success story that still somehow took us by surprise. Unlike most RPGs, it’s designed with co-op in mind—you even control two protagonists in the single-player version, roleplaying different motivations through conversations. Larian designed encounters thinking that someone could always disagree, or ruin things for you, or even kill the NPC you need to talk to—meaning that quests have to be solvable in unorthodox ways.

The writing in Divinity is consistently top-notch. Sure, sometimes you’ll have to destroy a goblin riding a giant mechanical robot, or talk to a dog to solve a quest. But that dog may have a heartbreaking story for you, and maybe you’ll cry just a little bit like we did. Larian commits to Divinity’s world, and that commitment pays off. This is the kind of freeform, epic, party-based RPG we haven’t had since the days of Ultima, and it’s exactly what we love from an RPG.

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic 2

Release date: 2005 Developer: Obsidian Humble Store, Steam

While BioWare’s first KOTOR is a Star Wars classic, KOTOR 2 takes the franchise in a bolder direction. Instead of focusing on the Light or Dark sides of the Force, the Jedi Exile of Obsidian’s sequel deals in shades of gray. Alliances are made, then broken, then remade in the aftermath. Choices you think are good just turn out to betray other characters. The end result is possibly the most nuanced take on The Force in the entire Star Wars Expanded Universe, and definitely its most complex villains.

Like many Obsidian early games, KOTOR 2’s truncated development meant that whole areas had to be cut out. A fan-made mod restores much of that content, including a droid planet, and fixes lots of outstanding bugs, showing yet again that PC gamers will work hard to maintain their favorite games.

Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines

Release date: 2004 Developer: Troika Humble Store, Steam

It’s all about atmosphere—from the goth clubs where you meet contacts, to the back alleys where you scavenge for rat blood, to the haunted Ocean House Hotel (one of the best quests in the game). Bloodlines’ ambitious use of White Wolf’s Vampire universe means it looks and feels different from the other sword and sorcery games on this list.

Unfortunately, that signature Troika ambition also means lots of bugs and some mechanics that just don’t mesh well. The endgame includes some particularly sloggy dungeons, but no other game truly drops you into a Vampire world. This is truly a cult classic of an RPG, and the fanbase has been patching and improving the game ever since release.

Diablo 3: Reaper of Souls

Release date: 2014 Developer: Blizzard Battle.net

Let’s face it: the real-money auction house was a bad idea, one of a few in the original Diablo 3 release. Blizzard nixed the cash auctions right before Reaper of Souls’ release, but it’s the addition of Adventure Mode that turned the game around from disappointing sequel to crowning achievement for the series. Instead of rehashing the game’s acts, Adventure Mode’s task-based milestones and randomized areas make the game feel fresh for much longer. It’s a standout mode, and it’d be hard to imagine playing Diablo 3 any other way.

But RoS added another feature that changes the way we love our action RPGs: guild support. Having friends to talk to as you grind through a dungeon, even if they’re not with you, makes the game far less lonesome, and it’s that kind of small touch that justifies Blizzard’s always-online philosophy. Adding all this to the already-tremendous feeling of wiping out hordes of baddies with a well-timed ability change, RoS is the defining action RPG for us. It’s a game we’ll be playing for a long, long time.

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura

Release date: 2001 Developer: Troika Games GOG

Arcanum: Of Steamworks and Magick Obscura was astoundingly buggy when it came out, and many of its battles were as laughably imbalanced as its title. Patches and mods have alleviated some of that pain over the years, but even then they weren't powerful enough to hide what a great mix of fantasy and steampunkery thrived under its surface. As we said in our enthusiastic review in 2001, 'If you can’t find something to love about this game, dump your computer in the garbage right now.'

That assessment holds up. Arcanum was dark 'n' gritty before some such tendencies became all the rage, and its character creator allowed players to create everything from gnome gamblers who brandish self-explanatory Tesla-guns to outcast orcs lugging along rusty maces. Toss in non-linear progression and multiple solutions for quests, and you've got a winner that holds up 14 years later.

Fallout: New Vegas

Release date: 2010 Developer: Obsidian Humble Store, Steam (Ultimate Edition)

While Fallout 3 was successful, it was a different beast entirely from Interplay’s classics. Obsidian’s take on the franchise moves the action back to the West Coast, and reintroduces elements such as reputation and faction power struggles. Obsidian expands on nearly every aspect of Bethesda’s take, making the game less about good or evil, and more about who you should trust. It also adds much of the humor that we loved from the classic games: How can you not appreciate a game that gives you a nuclear grenade launcher?

New Vegas’ “Hardcore” mode makes survival in the wasteland more interesting, limiting the power of RadAway and Health Stims. It makes the game harder, but also more rewarding. If that’s not your thing, there are plenty of additional mods and tweaks available, including game director Josh Sawyer’s own balance-tweak mod. What we love the most about New Vegas is how it adds the Fallout feeling back into Bethesda's first-person RPG framework.

Dark Souls 3

Release date: 2016 Developer: From Software Humble Store, Steam

Name any similar-looking RPG made in the past five years, and chances are good Dark Souls will be named as an inspiration for its design. Still, Dark Souls 3 proves that no one does it quite so well as From Software. The spark of originality that was so compelling in Dark Souls 1 isn't quite as apparent here, the second sequel in just five years, but what remains is an impeccably designed combat-heavy RPG. It's far more responsive than its predecessors, demanding faster action and reaction without sacrificing the deliberate play Dark Souls popularized. Button mashing will get you nowhere but dead.

Dark Souls 3 is the most approachable in the series thanks to frequent warp points, simplified online co-op and beautiful (and hideous) art that beckons you to explore every nook and corner. No game series manages to reward you so profoundly for scrutinizing its lore and unfurling its secrets, and Dark Souls 3's faster, tighter controls and animation make it the most fun Souls game to play.

The Witcher 2

Release date: 2011 Developer: CD Projekt Red Humble Store, Steam

The epic scale of The Witcher 2: Assassins of Kings is remarkable, but it's the power of choice in an unrelentingly ugly world that makes it unforgettable. Moral ambiguity has never been so powerfully presented: the decisions you make actually matter, and the outcomes are often unforeseeable and rarely as good as you'd hope.

One of the most impressive things about The Witcher 2 is the way it blends two very distinct experiences. Early in the game, Geralt must make a choice that will take him down one of two separate paths, each offering a completely different perspective on the game's events. If you want to see it all, you'll have to play it twice—and there's more than enough to make it a worthwhile effort.

You might expect all your toil and trouble to eventually lead to a just and happy ending for all, but it won't. Geralt isn't a hero; he's really not much more than a bystander, trying to protect what little he has from the chaos that surrounds him. His quest is entirely personal, driven forward by a colorful, occasionally bizarre and surprisingly believable cast of characters that really brings the game alive. Geralt works alone, but he feels more like 'one among many' than the savior-protagonists of other party-based RPGs.

It's a fantastic and well-told tale, layered over very solid mechanical underpinnings: A flexible character development system, glorious eye candy, intense combat and more than enough secondary content to camouflage its very linear nature. It's dark, it's dirty, it's sometimes flat-out depressing—and it's brilliant.

Dragon Age: Origins

Release date: 2009 Developer: BioWare Steam, Origin

Capturing that old Baldur’s Gate feel was goal number one for Dragon Age, and it comes pretty close. Ferelden evokes much of the Forgotten Realms without feeling like a rehash, and your relationship with your team has that old BioWare magic. The darkspawn feel like the kind of world-consuming threat that demands our attention, even if most of them are faceless hunks of evil for us to cut down. We love how Dragon Age treats magic in its world, in particular the quests that force us to choose how to best handle abominations, the result of a renegade mage succombing to demonic possession.

But it’s the combat that feels most familiar, and most fun: the satisfying tactical depth of pausing your combat, issuing orders, and reacting to the results works like a modern Infinity Engine game should. It’s sad that BioWare will never make an RPG like this again—Dragon Age 2 was too streamlined, and Inquisition’s more open world—so in many ways, this is the last hurrah for the old BioWare, and a fitting end for its classic design.

System Shock 2

Release date: 1999 Developer: Irrational Games GOG

Lonely. That’s the defining emotion of Irrational’s debut game. You’ll hear audio logs from fascinating characters, many of whom are struggling to survive in a battle against the bio-terror creatures called the Many. But you won’t meet those people, because they didn’t make it.

That loneliness is key because Shock 2 is all about taking things away from you. Ammo? Check: you’ll probably waste those on an assault droid when you should have saved them for later. Hypos? Yep. Think twice before you walk into that radiated room. But the biggest thing Irrational takes away, right at the halfway mark of the game, is hope. It’s the reveal of insane AI Shodan that turns your expectations on their head, and it’s one of our favorite moments in gaming.

Irrational made games where the environment is the central character, and here, that character is the Von Braun. It creaks and moans as you pad quietly down its corridors. Every door you open yelps. Its security systems attack you as if you hurt their feelings. Staying on the good side of this character is hard, but Shock 2’s leveling system of earning experience points through exploration balances the risks and rewards. Some play through with all guns blazing, but the psionics skills balance well with combat, and Tech skills open new areas later in the game. There’s a lot of balance to be found in what on the surface looks like a streamlined action RPG skill system.

Ultima VII: The Black Gate

Release date: 1992 Developer: Origin Systems GOG

The Guardian was one of the most terrifying things our young minds had ever encountered. His massive stone face emerging from the screen, with his actual, real-life voice taunting us, both tempting us to play more and horrifying us.

It was a technological marvel at the time, but Ultima 7 stands the test of time because of the interactivity of Britannia. Most anything could be picked up or talked to, and as we painted a portraits of ourselves in the game, we wondered if we’d ever finish the game’s plot. But Ultima’s story sucks you in, starting first with a double homicide to solve and expanding into a religious battle for Britannia’s soul. Black Gate’s dialogue design still hold up today, and inspired Divinity: Original Sin a great deal—particularly the way it handles new converts to the world’s competing religion. This is without a doubt the best installment of one of the most legendary RPG franchises ever.

Deus Ex

Release date: 2000 Developer: Ion Storm Austin GOG

Do you want to run in the firefight, guns blazing, or do you want to sneak around and flank? Do you want to snipe? Or maybe you want to hack some terminals and get droid reinforcement? Or, what if you talked to that NPC guard over there and convince his team to take a lunch break? Deus Ex’s world is so freeform that the choices seem endless.

While it looks like a shooter, Deus Ex is all about role-playing elements. Fire a gun you’re not skilled in and your aim won’t matter—you’ll most likely miss. The leveling system rewards experimentation, and some of the later upgrades make your Denton feel like a superhero. Even the weapons you use can be modified and “leveled up,” turning a standard issue pistol into an unstoppable killing tool. The attention to detail here is perfect, and no one element of the game ever truly feels forced.

Deus Ex’s world is built to reward exploring every dark alley and ventilation system, because you never know where you’ll find a new clue. And there are a lot of clues—every note you find or sign you see seems to hint at some new conspiracy, and we love how the alliances in the game feel constantly in flux. The NPCs you meet are just believable enough to make this conspiracy-laden world feel lived-in. Human Revolution looks better, but this is the smarter, more open-ended game.

The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind

Release date: 2002 Developer: Bethesda Game Studios Humble Store, Steam

The release of Fallout 4 demonstrated that some cracks are starting to appear in Bethesda's usually reliable open world model, but that model seemed earthshaking back when Morrowind hit literal shelves way back in 2002. There was a magic in knowing you could tromp all over the island of Vvardenfell without even encountering a loading screen save upon entering buildings, and in seeing that the NPC population seemed to have lives beyond their interactions with you.

Plenty of other games have achieved similar effects in the years since, but the wonder of Morrowind is that it still holds up all these years later—even more so than its technically superior successor Oblivion. A lot of that appeal springs from the delicious surrealism of Vvardenfell itself, where racist elves hang out in twisty mushrooms like smurfs in an acid dream, and where the more traditional castles of occupying foreigners clash with the landscape like pueblos in Scandinavia. The AI might often seem primitive by today's standards, but the stories the tell often rival those in prettier contemporary RPGs.

It thrives still, thanks in part to its own strengths and a dedicated modding community that creates countless new adventures and keeps it looking more modern than it actually is (even going so far as to port the entirety of Morrowind into newer game engines).

Mass Effect 2

Release date: 2010 Developer: BioWare Steam, Origin

BioWare’s first Mass Effect felt like a KOTOR clone, and not in a good way. The universe was a place we wanted to live, but there were too many systems and menus to dig through to get there. Still, it terrified us to hear that BioWare had streamed back so much and put more emphasis on the shooting mechanics. Turns out, it was for the better: Mass Effect 2 trims just enough fat to let you focus on what matters: the optional Loyalty missions for your team.

Instead of an exercise in galactic exploration, Mass Effect 2 plays out like a sci-fi Ocean's Eleven or Dirty Dozen. Recruiting a team to take on the Collectors puts the focus on small, interesting stories. Each Loyalty mission gives you insight into your companions’ motivations, making every member of the Normandy's crew an unusually deep character. Once you've grown to know and love them, the endgame suicide run is one of the tensest final missions ever. It's rare for a game to spend more time on character arcs than its central driving narrative, but Mass Effect 2 pulls it off. This is some of the best writing in BioWare's history.

Dark Souls: Prepare To Die Edition

Release date: 2011 Developer: From Software Humble Store, Steam

Yes, Dark Souls breaks a cardinal rule of RPGs: you can beat it without leveling. But only if you’re really good, and only if you understand its systems perfectly—that its crafting system matters, that certain items can be obtained only by fulfilling obfuscated quests. In a genre where systems are king, Dark Souls reigns because it’s all about systems. Just learning how each stat affects your character’s build is a process deeper than most D&D-themed RPGs, but it’s ultimately just as rewarding.

So is discovering the rich lore of Lordran, which is told through cryptic conversations and subtle environmental clues. The depth of Dark Souls' world carries over into exploration, too. Everything is connected brilliantly, and secrets and shortcuts—including massive hidden areas and features—await the most dedicated adventurers. Dark Souls' summoning system is also unlike anything else in RPGs, but you can unplug and beat the whole game solo, or learn to love being invaded and fighting off another player. Don’t let the rumored difficulty keep you away from one of our favorite RPGs.

Fallout 2

Release date: 1998 Developer: Black Isle Studios GOG

The original Fallout was a huge success for Interplay, but it’s not as big of a world as you’d expect. The sequel expands that world considerably, and adds more moral ambiguity to a game where right and wrong are already hard to tell apart. Playing as a tribal villager instead of a native Vault dweller gives you a different world perspective—you’re not as naive to the world and its dangers, which makes it all the darker when you start twisting people’s expectations and motivations.

The search for the Garden of Eden Creation Kit (GECK) fits the warped 1950s feel of the wasteland more than the macguffin of a water chip in the first game. And it’s nice to not have such a time limit hanging over your head: you can take your time and get to know the people of the wastes, instead of rushing to an abandoned vault. If you’ve never played the classic series, we recommend you start here, and then the original.

Baldur’s Gate 2

Release date: 2000 Developer: BioWare GOG (Enhanced Edition)

One problem with AD&D is that low-level characters are pretty boring. Baldur’s Gate 2 solves that problem by letting you carry over your party from the first game, or start fresh with level 7 characters. It makes a huge difference: instead of wimpy fighters and frail wizards, you get powerful, useful spells and warriors that can take a punch.

It also helps that the scope of Amn is enormous, with more quests and content than most other comparable RPGs. BioWare’s Infinity Engine handles the quests and the combat perfectly, highlighting the game’s focus on strategy and tactics in combat. It’s hard to imagine controlling a six-person party without pausing and giving orders, and any newer game that relies on real-time decisions makes us long for the Infinity Engine.

Yes, this is where RPG romances come from, but the courtships never feel contrived here, and BG2 still has some of the most memorable companions of any game. If for some reason you’ve never played a table-top RPG, Baldur’s Gate 2 captures the sword-and-sorcery experience almost perfectly. If you have the original version, you can easily mod it to run at modern resolutions, or you can try the Extended Edition that also includes new content.

Planescape: Torment

Release date: 1999 Developer: Black Isle Studios GOG

There is no other story in gaming like the Nameless One’s. His is a tale of redemption in the face of countless sins, a tale of not knowing who you are until you become the person you’re trying to be. The tattoos the Nameless One wears are marks to remind him of who he is, who he was, and who he wants to be.

That open-endedness is central to what makes Planescape: Torment so captivating. At a literal level, you spend the game trying to discover who the Nameless One is, but your actions also help to define him. It’s one of many RPG tropes that Black Isle sought to subvert—others include the fact that rats are actually worthy foes, humans are often worse than undead, and you don’t have to fight in most cases. Most importantly, that your goal is not to save the world, as in countless other RPGs. You simply need to figure out who you are.

The Nameless One’s companions are some of the best written, most enjoyable NPCs ever coded. Most have been affected by your past incarnations: pyromaniac mage Ignus was once your apprentice, though it’s more impressive that he’s constantly on fire. Or Dak'kon, who swore an oath of loyalty to you, even though you’re not sure why. Others are just interesting, well-rounded characters: Fall-From-Grace is a succubus cleric who prays to no god and, though a creature of evil, wants to do no harm. The best is Morte, a floating skull whose sarcastic wit is sharper than his bite attacks (skulls can’t equip swords, of course).

These characters would be odd in any normal high fantasy world, but Torment uses the Planescape AD&D campaign setting, the strangest world TSR ever designed. And so it’s fitting that Torment is light on conflict and heavy on story—though when combat does erupt, BioWare’s Infinity Engine handles as well as in the Baldur’s Gate series. This is the one role-playing game we’d recommend to anyone interested in the genre, a game that best represents what we love about RPGs.

Arx Fatalis

Release date: 2002 Developer: Arkane Studios GOG

Arkane’s goal with its first game was to create a dungeon experience as detailed as Ultima Underworld, right down to the magic system, which required you to memorize runes and draw them in the air with your mouse. Stealth is critical, as is the crafting system that takes Underworld’s “everything is important” ethos and expands it. Arx is slow and deliberate, forcing you to consider encounters from different angles: should you use force on the snake women, or sneak past and avoid conflict?

Many of the design seeds that show up later in Arkane’s Dishonored are planted here, but there are a lot of old fashioned mechanics we’d love to see more of. The mouse gesture magic system seems awkward to use, but we love tracing a rune and watching our foes crumble in the aftermath. We’d love to see Arkane revisit the dungeons again, bringing what it’s learned from making Dishonored (and the sublime melee combat from Dark Messiah of Might & Magic) to an Arx Fatalis sequel.

September 2018 Update: We’ve added a number of titles into the list.

Vampire-themed games don’t get much love these days, and the much-awaited and highly anticipated World of Darkness massively multiplayer online RPG from CCP Games, the makers of EVE Online, has been cancelled. Since 2011, the game’s development had been on-going with a significantly reduced team, and it wasn’t until April of 2014 that the studio decided to finally axe the game. Much like EVE Online, the World of Darkness MMORPG was to be a sandbox experience set in the universe crafted by White Wolf, which has spawned several vampire-themed games for the PC including Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines. In any case, with the end of World of Darkness, it’s hard to see where the genre will go next. We’ll keep this article updated in case of new developments.

Vampires have invaded the mass-media, but it’s not necessarily a recent phenomenon. Ever since Bram Stoker’s portrayal of Dracula, there’s been movies, TV series, books, comic books and even plastic teeth dedicated to these creatures of the night with as many different properties as you can get. Yes, their portrayal has even bled into video games, though we haven’t had any sparkly ones yet (except in The Sims). Without further ado, here’s best vampire games available for the PC, PS3, Xbox 360 and older consoles.

2018 Additions:

Buffy The Vampire Slayer

• Developer: The Collective, Inc
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Platforms: Xbox
• Release: August 18, 2002

Normally when a video game is developed that’s based off a television program or film the expectations are usually dropped for it being any good. That doesn’t mean all video game adaptations are bad as there are a few titles that seem to hold their own much like Buffy the Vampire Slayer.

Buffy the Vampire Slayer is a television program that lasted a number of years and it’s had a few video game titles developed during its heyday. One of those titles is Buffy the Vampire Slayer, a 2002 video game released exclusively on the original Xbox platform.

Overall, this is a beat ‘em up style video game where players take the role of Buffy who ends up having to fight off a slew of creatures such as vampires, demons, and zombies. If you’re a fan of the series then you’ll also spot a few locations featured in the show along with a variety of iconic characters.

Darkwatch

• Developer: High Moon Studios
• Publisher: Capcom, Ubisoft
• Platforms: PS2, Xbox
• Release: August 16, 2005

Darkwatch is one game that we hope is picked back up on today’s latest generation consoles. The video game was developed by High Moon Studios where it was supposed to kick off a media franchise with more video game installments and even a film adaptation. Unfortunately, only one game came out of this franchise and its actually a bit of an underrated gem.

Players take the role of Jericho Cross during the 19th-century. Living as an outlaw gunfighter in the west, Jericho finds himself becoming a vampire and tossed into a secret organization that is tasked with hunting down monsters. You’ll find that this game is a first-person shooter with a bit of an RPG element to it.

The game would present a series of choices that would result in various powers and reception for your character. Speaking of powers, because you’re a vampire, powers are only available at night which means during the day, you’ll have to go through missions with more of a reliance on firearms. As mentioned, there were other installments planned for this franchise that would have acted like the Assassin’s Creed series. Players would follow this secret monster hunting organization through different time periods and settings, but unfortunately, it was canceled.

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing

• Developer: NeocoreGames
• Publisher: NeocoreGames
• Platforms: PC, PS4, XBO
• Release: May 22, 2013

The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing is a bit of a classic now with it spawning a few sequels over the years since the original title’s initial release. Developed under Neocore Games, The Incredible Adventures of Van Helsing tells the story of Van Helsing, which is the son of the legendary vampire hunter, Abraham Van Helsing.

This is an action RPG title where players the developers aimed to provide a video game based on the novel Dracula by Bram Stoker. Instead of being a more direct adaptation, the game simply takes place in the same universe where gamers are tossed into a gothic-noir capital of Borgovia. Players will be hunting down beasts and monsters that flood the city as Van Helsing attempts to keep the legacy his father started alive.

InFamous: Festival of Blood

• Developer: Sucker Punch Productions
• Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment
• Platforms: PS3
• Release: October 25, 2011

Set as a standalone expansion, InFamous: Festival of Blood follows Cole into a new adventure that deals with an unusual Pyre Night. The game starts off with Zeke telling a story to entice a girl at a bar which features Cole as a vampire. As the story begins, players are put into the shoes of Cole where our protagonist hero is transformed into a vampire.

Set with new powers and abilities, Cole has one night to stop a resurrection of a powerful vampire known as Bloody Mary and save the city. Otherwise, if Cole fails, the city will be destroyed and he will remain a vampire forever, under the control of Bloody Mary.

Being that this is just a standalone DLC expansion to InFamous 2, the game is relatively short. On average, players will complete the game in about three hours.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim – Dawnguard

• Developer: Bethesda Game Studios
• Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
• Platforms: PC, PS3, X360, PS4, XBO, NS
• Release: June 26, 2012

You’ve likely already played through The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim as it a massive video game that released back in 2011 and is still going strong today. Bethesda has practically ported the game to everything that could possibly run the title.

The game features a DLC expansion known as Dawnguard which adds on a new chapter for the Dragonborn to endure. With Dawnguard, players will find two new factions going against each other over an ancient prophecy. On one side of the faction is a group of vampires known as the Volkihar Clan while the opposing Dawnguard faction is attempting to prevent the ancient prophecy ritual.

Much like the base game, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, players will have the final say on which faction comes out on top by aligning themselves to either the Dawnguard or Volkihar Clan.

2016 Addition:

Vampyr

• Developer: Dontnod Entertainment
• Publisher: Focus Home Interactive
• Platforms: PC, PS4, XBO
• Release: June 5, 2018

The makers of Life is Strange are producing a new vampire-themed game in which you play the role of a vampire who stalks the city of London amidst the outbreak of the 1918 Spanish flu epidemic. This third-person game puts you in the role of Jonathan E. Reid, a vampire doctor whose thirst for blood forces him to seek out innocents in order to satisfy his bloodlust. In doing so, he must gather information on his targets, study their habits and maintain relationships with the inhabitants of London before stalking them and killing them. The game is quite unlike other vampire titles, in that it follows vampire lore. For instance, Reid can’t enter houses uninvited, so there’s huge social element involved in the game.

Original Article:

The Castlevania Series:

While the Castlevania series doesn’t feature vampire games per se, it is the most popular game series that features them pointy teeth doomy dudes. In addition, it features the most iconic vampire of all time. Hailing all the way from Transylvania, Romania, at varying heights and varying weights like a pointy toothed Christian Bale, in the blue corner, scourge of humanity, Dracula!

Castlevania

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: NES, Arcade, C64, GBA, PC
• Release: September 26, 1986

Debuting in Japan in 1986 on the NES, Castlevania was a typical platformer where you played as Simon Belmont. As should be common knowledge to anyone with gamer-cred, Belmont = vampire slayer. It’s in the scriptures, look it up. Simon goes to Castlevania, Dracula’s castle, and destroys both it and its owner. The shot where Simon looks on as the demonic castle crumbles in the distance is one that would reappear in other games of the series.

Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: NES, PC
• Release: August 28, 1987

The second game, Castlevania II: Simon’s Quest, was a large departure from the first game both in scope and design. The linear gameplay was foregone in favour of a non-linear design similar to Metroid while being more open-ended, featuring new elements like a world map. In addition, a few staples of RPG design have made their way into the game, like allowing the player to purchase supplies, equipment and weapon upgrades in the various towns he could visit. You may also remember the popular “What a horrible night to have a curse!” message appearing when night fell. A highly ambitious game with a large amount of nonsensical elements attached, Simon’s Quest didn’t however review very well.

Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: NES, PC
• Release: September 1, 1990

The open-ended design of the second game was scrapped in favour of returning to form, with Castlevania III: Dracula’s Curse coming out on the NES in 1989. Despite not having the open world map that allowed you to visit whatever any longer, the new game allowed the player to take branching paths as well as select between multiple characters. Well received as it was, it paved Castlevania’s way to the 16-bit console generation.

Super Castlevania IV

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: SNES
• Release: SNES

Super Castlevania IV brings you back behind the whip of Simon Belmont as he does the same damned thing as in all the other games, killing Dracula and bringing his castle down, but this time it is in glorious 16 bit! You also get wonderful directional whip swinging, sort of like a short ranged Spiderman that doesn’t use his web to shoot himself up, a greatly expanded upon control scheme because there are more buttons on the SNES controller to choose from, and the very unrealistic fact that Simon can be controlled in the air. He’s sort of like an upright, whip swinging, vampire slaying, hairless cat. Highly praised by critics, the series was solidified and was here to stay.

Castlevania: Bloodlines

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: Sega Genesis
• Release: March 17, 1994

Castlevania: Bloodlines came out on the Genesis in 1994. Standard fare for Castlevania, there’s levels, special weapons, chunks of levels with mini-bosses at the end, yada-yada. But there’s something odd about this game. It doesn’t happen exclusively in Dracula’s castle, nor in Romania for that matter. The first level does, but then there’s Athens, Pisa, a weapons factory in Germany, Versailles and even a fictional castle in England. In addition, you aren’t Belmont anymore, at least not in the name – bridging the story between Bram Stoker’s book and the Castlevania series, you play as John Morris, the whip dude and as Eric Lecarde, the spear dude. There’s a lot of intricacy added to the simple “go to castle and kill the vampire” story, but even though it does get a bit hard to follow at times, it does anchor the series into something more significant than Whack-a-Vamp.

Castlevania: Symphony of the Night

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: PSX
• Release: March 20, 1997

A major turn for the awesome, the next game of the series was a literal game-changer. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night released to great acclaim in 1997 on the Playstation and later on the Sega Saturn, and it was such a great game that it partly coined its own term that is in use even today: “Metroidvania”. A template followed by many games since then, Symphony of the Night is a game that still looks amazing today because of the extremely fluid animations applied to the beautifully crafted characters designed by Ayami Kojima. The game has been re-released on the PSP since. The beginning is an especially tantalizing prospect – the intro of the game is actually a straight up fight against Dracula. But enough talk, have at thee!

Castlevania and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: N64
• Release: November 30, 1999

Later on we get into the 3D era, with Castlevania and Castlevania: Legacy of Darkness for the Nintendo 64. Like most early 3D games in the late 90s, they were heavily criticised for bad camera controls and generally clunky gameplay, but they still moved the story forward and added to the series’ roster.

Castlevania: Lament of Innocence

• Developer: Konami
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: PS2
• Release: October 21, 2003

In 2003 we’ve got the next Castlevania title, Lament of Innocence. Very similar to Devil May Cry and the later God of War, this title went heavily into the hack and slash spectacle fighter genre. This time you play as yet another member of the Belmont family – Leon, as he searches through the cursed castle for his kidnapped girl. He starts with a whip, but it’s not the Vampire Killer that we all know and love from the earlier games – he does get it near the end of the game though (spoilers!). Of course, eventually Leon too has to kill Dracula. Have you noticed a pattern yet?

Castlevania: Lords of Shadow

• Developer: MercurySteam
• Publisher: Konami
• Platforms: PS3, X360, PC
• Release: October 5, 2010

Fast-forward quite a few more years and you get to 2010, the year in which we get Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. The ridiculously deep plot that intertwined the several titles of the series has been rebooted and moved into the third-person action-adventure game genre. Now we play as Gabriel Belmont, who also has a whip. This time it’s also a holy cross, though, and apparently it’s made for combat. It’s a Combat Cross. The game is a great departure from the older game of the series, but keeps some mainstays – vampires and werewolves are still in the game while adding dark fantasy elements to it, as is fitting of a reboot of a game with vampires in it. We get trolls, goblins and whatnot to kill with the whip for experience points. The story veers from vampires and castles to God and Satan and limbo and religion and stuff. Oddly enough, there is no Dracula in this game until the very end. Pleasant twist, I won’t spoil it.

The Legacy of Kain Series:

A series that has achieved cult status for the extremely interesting atmosphere and vast lore, the Legacy of Kain series features uncharacteristically mature games for their time, not for nudity or sexuality, but for the complex story in which you actually play the anti-hero as well as wondrous voice-acting.

Blood Omen: The Legacy of Kain

• Developer: Silicon Knights
• Publisher: Crystal Dynamics
• Platforms: PSX, PC
• Release: November 1, 1996

Released on the Playstation in 1996 and later on the Windows PC, the first title of the Legacy of Kain series puts you in control of the eponymous anti-hero, a newly-resurrected vampire. Initially on a blood path against the assassins that killed him, Kain goes from seeing his revival as a curse to seeing it as a blessing. Unlike what most players have come to expect from The Legacy of Kain, the first title was actually a two-dimensional action-adventure game with a bird’s eye view perspective.

There is some creative liberty taken with vampire lore in the series. Kain as a vampire won’t evaporate in sunlight, but he does less damage while touched by it. I guess he just has really good sunblock. Aside of that, these vampire can suck remotely, being able to absorb the blood of enemies like through an invisible straw from great distances. That’s a staple of the Legacy of Kain games.

It’s a game that you may deem interesting to play, and if you do, it will take you a while to finish, some players clocking over 50 hours in it.

Hopefully eventually you’ll get used to Kain’s battle cry. VAE VICTIS!

The Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver

• Developer: Crystal Dynamics
• Publisher: Eidos Interactive
• Platforms: PSX, PC, DC
• Release: August 16, 1999

After Crystal Dynamics (of the recent Tomb Raider reboot fame) won the Legacy of Kain IP from Silicon Knights in a lawsuit, they have taken the idea and moved it to the next level and next dimension. Soul Reaver is the image of the Legacy of Kain series in most players’ minds – it’s a third person action-adventure game where you control Raziel, a fallen vampire revived by an The Elder God into wraith form. After being killed by Kain and the passing of 500 years, our hero becomes the interesting odd ghostly form people know him for now. He also lacks a lower jaw, which makes his soul-sucking all the more strange-looking.

Although the game features combat and all that good stuff, the focus is on puzzles more than anything. In addition, because of Raziel’s relationship with the world (he’s both ethereal and real), he is able to switch between the material and spectral realm, adding both to the atmosphere and the variety of the game. The same location may be quite different between the two realms, and to progress you are usually required to switch between the two.

A great game that may turn you off because the polygons may get in the way, Legacy of Kain is still an enthralling story with a rather unsatisfying cliffhanger ending, but that’s alright, there’s a sequel to it!

Soul Reaver 2

• Developer: Crystal Dynamics
• Publisher: Eidos Interactive
• Platforms: PS2, PC
• Release: October 31, 2001

After the generally lackluster ending of the first Soul Reaver, fans were eager to see how the story of Raziel continued. And that’s exactly what the sequel does – it starts with an abridged version of the ending of the first game and moves on from there. Our hero still wants to kill Kain, but his objective is superseded by a quest for knowledge that moves him through history, making him uncover more of his background and predestined fate.

Combat in the game has changed a bit, getting strong attacks and the ability to finish people off with your bare hands as well as execution moves with weapons, like lopping heads off when using swords and whatnot. The graphics are crisper and more defined, but that’s standard considering the better technology of the time.

Despite continuing the wraith’s story and the good sale numbers, the developers did not feel that the final product was up to their ambitions, and it was criticised for lacking replay value and a definite ending, but this wouldn’t be the last we’ve seen of Raziel.

Blood Omen 2

• Developer: Crystal Dynamics
• Publisher: Eidos Interactive
• Platforms: PS2, Xbox, PC, GC
• Release: March 21, 2002

Blood Omen 2 is the sequel of the first game in the series, returning control to Kain in then Tomb Raider-esque 3rd person fighting and puzzle-solving way of the past two games. With a much higher emphasis on combat than Soul Reaver, this game may be the closest game in this list to actually playing a vampire as you can get (at least thus far). You run around cities, stealth killing guards, solving puzzles and performing vampire feats like throwing enemies away with fancy strength infused sword swings, jumping long distances as well as, of course, Kain’s trademark blood sucking through invisible long straws.

Atmospheric, quite fun and interesting, a worthy sequel that unfortunately hasn’t been reviewed very well, because it gets repetitive. At least Kain has lost his interest in yelling VAE VICTIS every few sword swings. Guess it got old for him eventually too.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance

• Developer: Crystal Dynamics
• Publisher: Eidos Interactive
• Platforms: PS2, Xbox, PC
• Release: November 11, 2003

Returning players to Nosgoth once more in 2003, Defiance is a departure from the series in that you can play as both the wraith Raziel and the vampire lord Kain, though by alternating between the two at set intervals rather than switching between the two at will. The control of the camera has been stolen from the player this time, changing perspective depending on where the player character is. This has been highly criticised by the players because of how annoying it is to do platforming when you’re not in control of the camera, as most of you may have noticed in some more recent games.

On the other hand, combat has gotten improvements, moving the combat design from simple hacking and slashing to a more Devil Must Cry-eque style with enemy juggling and whatnot. It’s fun and it’s good, even if there’s still a huge emphasis on block puzzles prevalent in all the other games.

Also, even if Kain can still suck blood remotely, he also bites victims!

Oh yeah, VAE VICTIS returns, though it’s now merely a whisper to the glorious battle cry of the first game.

Even if you don’t feel like playing the games, I would highly recommend watching the excellent Let’s Plays by LeadingManAE on YouTube, if only for the excellent voice acting that is present throughout the series.

The BloodRayne Series:

Despite not being the best reviewed game series to date, all of the titles are vampire games through and through – you get to play as the eponymous half-vampire sexy lady with cool blades and horrible movie adaptations by the schlock-maestro Uwe Boll. The portrayal of vampires in this series is more along the lines of Blade than of Dracula, but it lends itself well to the very action-based gameplay.

BloodRayne

• Developer: Terminal Reality
• Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
• Platforms: PS2, Xbox, GC, PC
• Release: October 15, 2002

Playing as the dhampir Rayne in 1933, before the second world war, you get to kill Nazi vampires! Receiving mixed reviews, the first game in the series was a spectacle fighter along the lines of Devil May Cry with higher amounts of gore strewn throughout, as well as a powerful female protagonist that is over-sexualized. Such was the way of video games in 2002 and such is the way nowadays too. There’s room for redemption, but until then we get to slice and dice vampires with a sexy lady wielding unconventional weapons.

BloodRayne 2

• Developer: Terminal Reality
• Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
• Platforms: PS2, Xbox, PC
• Release: October 12, 2004

Fast-forwarding to the 2000s era, BloodRayne 2 continues the story of Rayne who does a lot of killing. This time, the plot involves her father, Kagan, who gets himself a cult filled with his other offspring. This cult creates the Shroud – an item that has has the ability of allowing vampires to walk around during the day, bringing around a new era of vampire supremacy. Such is the way of vampire games.

BloodRayne: Betrayal

• Developer: WayForward Technologies
• Publisher: Majesco Entertainment
• Platforms: PS3, X360, PC
• Release: September 6, 2011

Betraying its 3rd person hack and slash style of gameplay, this game is a downloadable console 2D side scroller with HD graphics and gory attacks. The story of the game is self-contained and may not be canon, but who cares? You slice enemies open with arm blades!

Critics weren’t on the same wavelength when reviewing this game – some publications praised its difficulty while others hated the controls and handling, even going so far as entering the top 10 worst games of 2011 on Destructoid.

There’s a 3DS BloodRayne game in the works, apparently, but not much is known about it.

Vampire: The Masquerade Series

Based on the tabletop role-playing game of the same name, this series features two games, one of which has achieved cult status and is seen as one of the best games of all time in some people’s eyes (after applying a generous amount of community patches and mods), and the other, well, receiving mixed reviews. The lore of the games in this series is standard Vampire fare, although the established board game adds a lot of lore to the simple night-walking lore. There’s 13 vampire clans with different abilities and personality as well as appearance in some cases, but all of them are creatures of the night, are immortal and need to drink blood to sustain their undeath.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Redemption

• Developer: Nihilistic Software
• Publisher: Activision
• Platforms: PC
• Release: June 7, 2000

Released on the PC in 2000, the game features a French crusader turned vampire named Christof in both the Dark Ages and the modern day. Vampires are time-trotting creatures like that, you see – only that this game plays it straight. Unlike games like Soul Reaver, Christof travels through time by being buried underneath a pile of rubble for close to a millennium before being uncovered by archaeologists. That’s hardcore. The two time periods have different play styles, with an emphasis on melee in the medieval period and on guns in the modern day. Christof’s story is an emotional one with a complex plot that makes you feel involved – the game is marred however by the design flaws and bugs pervasive throughout the game. The next game in the series was not one to do away with this curse, though it had a different fate.

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines

• Developer: Troika Games
• Publisher: Activision
• Platforms: PC
• Release: November 16, 2004

Released by Troika Games in 2004, Bloodlines is not a sequel to the first game, but it’s set in the same fictional universe. This time the player character is part of one of the several vampire clans and you create it yourself in a manner similar to its pen and paper role-playing game origins.

The story of the game is complex and spans multiple locations, a high amount of optional quests and the ability to talk to major characters throughout using various dialogue options, featuring full voice acting that’s very pleasant to listen to.

Bloodlines features high amounts of replayability simply because of how the different vampire clans act. For instance the members of one of the vampire clans, the Malkavian, are crazy, and this is portrayed in the game as most of their dialogue choices being non-sequiturs and nonsensical. In addition, they stumble upon bizarre moments, such as inanimate objects speaking to them and the like. There’s also a multitude of endings, but the general storyline does not change, as all the core missions need to be completed in order to end the game.

Because of the financial difficulties encountered by the studio after releasing Bloodlines, Troika closed down early the next year. Combined with the rather buggy nature of the game at release, the critics gave the game mixed reviews. Over time, however, the cult following that formed around the game had developed community patches that fixed the problems that the defunct studio could no longer fix as well as bringing back content not present in the final game due to being cut. That’s some dedication.

You can get the game now on Steam, it’s been there for four years now, but prepare to have to prep it with a large amount of community patches before being able to truly enjoy this grand RPG. If you feel like going through this, you won’t regret it.

The Sims Series

While certainly not one of the game series that screams Vampires!, The Sims does feature them – not only that, but your character can actually become a Vampire himself!

The Sims 2: Nightlife

• Developer: Maxis
• Publisher: EA Games
• Platforms: PC
• Release: September 13, 2005

The first expansion where we get Vampirism in The Sims, Nightlife allows your Sim to get bitten by another vampire and become a vampire himself. That’s how vampirism works, apparently. Once you get your Sim bitten, he receives the vamp phenotype – pointy teeth, red eyes and pale skin. Apparently Servos (the robots) can also turn into vampires. Weird.

The newly vampirized Sim would cover their faces with their forearms walking around with the cloak draped over the arm, as we know that vampires act (though there’s a glitch which makes the cloak not be there). Vampires can bite other Sims, turn into bats and fly around, stalk, say Bleh! which makes other Sims empty their bladders, and can even die in the sunlight. Night-Sims like these need to sleep in their coffins during the day. It’s a very true to form portrayal of Vampirism, all things considered.

The Sims 3: Late Night

• Developer: EA Play
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Platforms: PC
• Release: October 26, 2010

Unlike the expansion to the previous game, the vampires in Late Night do not die when exposed to sunlight. On the other hand, they will eventually pass out and won’t be able to use their abilities while outside during the day. Vampirism in this expansion can be cured by simply paying up a bunch of simoleons, which shows that you really can buy anything in the materialistic world of The Sims.

The Sims 3: Supernatural

• Developer: EA Maxis
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Platforms: PC
• Release: September 4, 2012

Improving on the vampires of the Late Night expansion, this expansion allows you to create a vampire Sim from the get-go and can even become immune to sunlight by using a Sunscreen Elixir. In addition, you can become a vampire using Elixirs and even cure vampirism. Science! Vampires in Sims 3 are not immortal any longer though, as they do age five time slower once you reach adulthood. They can become immortal by getting the lifetime award, but you might not like the sparkly skin unless you are on team Edward. Only happens in the sunlight though, so play as a real vampire and you won’t get to see this abomination.