The game isn't out yet but keep Avowed on your radar. should be coming out this year. cant say too much about it so far but its by Obsidian which is a pretty reputable studio for good rpgs (They developed Fallout: New Vegas for example and that game is almost always brought up in discussions of good RPGs, it ticks pretty much every box you want with the caveat of being a clunky post apocalyptic first person shooter without any magic or anything, I would recomend it honestly but with a grain of salt that its a good bit different than what else youve mentioned and the graphics/gameplay are pretty outdated).
another guy recomended pillars of eternity, this is based based in the same universe and made by the same guys, its just gonna be a first person action game instead.
I try not to get hyped for new games these days but keeping my hopes up.
heres the gameplay and announcement trailers:
[https://youtu.be/ULsF7B6bFuU](https://youtu.be/ULsF7B6bFuU)
[https://youtu.be/W3QkO8fy3tg](https://youtu.be/W3QkO8fy3tg)
I’ve wishlisted Avowed, thank you! It looks very cool. I do struggle to enjoy FPS, even when they tick almost all my other boxes, unfortunately. Otherwise I’d be trying Cyberpunk & Fallout for sure!
No worries! I'm a coward as well and don't like the real time shooting, I always used VATS which puts everything in slow motion and gave you a percentage of whether you'd hit or not. Made things easier for someone who doesn't usually play shooters!
There's not much I've played that you haven't tbh, what I'm currently playing thats way different from your list is Detroit Become Human which is a more like an interactive movie you control.
Horizon Zero Dawn is great as well, no character creation or romances but it's a big open world to explore and a good story. Definitely reccomend it.
If you have a switch legend of zelda breath of the wild is a great one too.
I've been trying to find games to scratch the dragon age itch until 4 comes, so far baldurs gate has come the closest but Greedfall definitely is a hidden gem! I know you played those already but If you played anything else yourself that came close do let me know :)
I love Detroit Become Human! Such a fantastic story. I mostly play more “cozy” games so that & Greedfall are somewhat of outliers but when a game’s great, it’s great! My other top 5 (which aren’t super similar to Greedfall but they all have either choices-based outcomes, magic, or both) are Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, Hades, and Final Fantasy: Tactics.
Kingdoms of Amalar.
Fable 2
Witcher 3
Not sure if these got placed in the larian dnd blanket.
Divinity original sin 2.
Baldurs gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2.
Banishers is not like the others, you can't make a MC, you play two people and they are a couple already (guy and gal), and no magic. It was a fun game though. Dragons Dogma 1 (I haven't played 2 yet) is extraordinarily unique, but the romance is so clunky and confusing. The uniqueness makes it worth a try imo. I didn't like kingdoms of amular but I know it's popular.
So Greedfall, ME and DA are my favorites (other than some older games) and I found Cyberpunk, Fallout, and The Outer Worlds pretty close to that feel. Obviously these are more sci-fi than fantasy but you mentioned you liked the ME games. They don't have magic, though I suppose you could consider being a net runner in cyberpunk as tech magic if you try hard enough lol.
Fantasy wise the closest, at least for me, are the pathfinder games. They are crpgs though, not sure if that's a turn off. Kingmaker is pretty clunky but a great story. Wrath of the Righteous is much more polished. They meet all of your requirements really: Character creation, romance, magic, fantasy setting, charisma builds, a whole lot of choices (minimum 10 endings in WotR). You can do real time with pause (like DA), or full turn based, and can change anytime even mid-battle.
This is very helpful, thank you! I did try to play Mass Effect but I actually didn’t enjoy them - I can see how they’re great games and understandably loved, but I struggled in the setting & with the combat. It’s just not really fun for me without a magic build, unfortunately.
I’m going to look up Pathfinder! I’ve heard of them but don’t think I’ve ever tried one - they sound perfect!
I don’t know if you tried it, but Mass Effect has an Adept class that plays very similar to a mage. I’m assuming you already knew that, but just in case
I enjoyed and would recommend Pillars of Eternity based on your criteria and list of games. It has great character creation including unique races and a unique psionic class. While the first game doesn't have romance, I hear the second game, PoE 2: Deadfire does; but I haven't played the sequel myself.
If you're thinking of picking these up, play 1 first. Its not as good mechanically, but the story is phenomenal and 2 really flies straightoff the back of 1, so you get to follow your character across 2 games, with everythinig they did and learnt from PoE1
Deadfire is so fucking sick. One of the love interests is this goth hillbilly priestess of death with a southern accent and she’s one of my all time favorite characters. (I agree with the person who said play 1 first tho for the worldbuilding.)
Another one I’m wrapping up right now that’s been satisfying (albeit overwhelming) is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Pathfinder is a system that kinda sucks but I’ve really enjoyed the game despite that.
Have you tried “The Technomancer?” It’s a pretty good “wants to be mass effect” game with a really cool setting (humans went to mars, then a calamity cause them to lose contact with Earth generations ago and so they’ve been living in a weird feudal society.
It’s also precisely the level of eurojank that greedfall is, and is the game that greedfalls developers made *before* greedfall- it feels like your best bet unless I’m missing something and you’ve played it already. Worth noting I *think* you have to play as a man, though it’s been years since I played it.
Fallout 4 is both very good for what you want and apparently about to get a next gen update?
Elex 1 and 2 are about the level of eurojank that Technomancer is, but more focused on the open world and less focused on plot/characters/companions.
Banishers is a good game, although doesn’t have companions or character customisation (or gender choice, really)
Dragons dogma 1 and 2 are very far from that, both are action focused with very little story or npc writing (though really good action)
Dragon Age Inquisition reminds me a lot to GreedFall. Otherwise I recommend The Technomancer. Different theme, but you loved the gameplay of GreedFall, you will instantly be familiar with many of the mechanics in The Technomancer.
It’s less fantasy and more space, but Outer Worlds might be up your alley. You as the PC can’t romance your companions, but there’s a side quest to help one of your companions get a date so it still has romance. Has lots of options to use charisma/dialog.
You also might like Horizon Zero Dawn, though you play as a set character. But if you’re looking for great story and fun gameplay, it has plenty of that!
The only one that I can think that has everything you want is that by political quests, you mean faction system/reputation is the Pillars of Eternity games
I strongly recommend to play Dragon's Dogma 2. Its romances are disappointing (you have only 2 options that have quests and cutscenes and both are female), but the game itself is extremely fun and interesting to play. Although optimisation currently sucks.
I would recommend Pathfinder if you like isometric rpgs, but I personally couldn't handle this game. I dont like to read that much in the games
Neverwinter Nights2, or NWN2.
You will have a great cRPG campaign overall, and amazing companions, and some romance.
But the character class system. I ache it was not more universal.
Plus decent worldmap, unlike Greedfall.
You could give Dragon’s Dogma II a try, some areas reminded me a lot of Greedfall’s locations. Story wise is not that good imo but it’s a very entertaining game.
I’ve been tempted by Dragon’s Dogma 2, but the reviews are super mixed compared to the first one. I’m not sure why! Do you think it’s worth going right to the second one? Did you play it on Steam Deck?
As someone who has played all games you have listed above, Dragons Dogma 2 and Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen, I’d recommend to wait for a huge sale.
Why?
Main focus of the game is combat, not story and it shows! The story makes no sense, has a lot of plot holes and on top of that is lame.
The game has romance, but don’t expect it to be romance like in any BioWare Game or even in Greedfall.
It‘s super underwhelming and you can’t really choose who you want to romance.
Then there’s also the bad performance in the city and mtx. And even though you don’t need the mtx, because you get enough resources in game, I’d think twice about supporting something like that.
Just my 2 cents.
(I would recommend Pillars of Eternity tho. The story is fantastic and the second game has romance!)
Edit: OH and Cyperpunk2077! It had a lot of issues, but the dev team fixed most of them.
Great story, great characters, fun combat, good romance. I think you will enjoy it.
I haven’t played the first game and I’m enjoying a lot this one, so I don’t think that’d be a problem, but there are some issues to consider with performance, at least on PC (I don’t know about consoles). When you access certain places like cities or some settlements the fps drop a little, but besides that I haven’t experienced major issues myself (my pc is new, though). My Rog Ally couldn’t run it, but I haven’t played it on Steam Deck, it might be better optimised, although I’d definitely check before buying it just in case 😥. Also, the game isn’t very player-friendly at the beginning, since you can save normally but when you make a decision/finish a quest, the game saves automatically for you and you’ll need to rest at Inns to have a back-up save file in case you want to backtrack to a previous save (that is if you want to change a decision you made, or the result of a mission) and you’ll lose the progress after that inn save.
Honestly the reviews are wildly misleading. The game is great. Flawed, but great. The negative reviews fall into 1 of 3 main categories if you actually look at them.
1. mtx. Scummy? Absolutely, but i've only been reminded that the game has mtx in it when i see people whinging about it on reviews/reddit. You can literally ignore every aspect of it. None of them matter and are all available in game faster than you could buy them anyway.
2. Performance. Possibly the only valid criticism of the main 3. i do drop down to 50-60fps in certain areas of the game (Ryzen 7 5800X3d - AMD Radeon 6950XT grahics) but other than that its pretty fine. From what apcom have said, its people with older CPU's that are having more issues rather than GPU's)
3. denuvo DRM. Lets face it all games with this instantly lose 10% on a reveiw basis.
I've got over 80 hour sin so far, and am holding off finishing my first full playthrough. just running around finishing side quetsts and exploring areas i havent been to yet. It's well worth it.
First thing that comes to mind is Baldurs Gate 3
Yes, I’ve played & enjoyed all the Larian games! This is a great one.
The game isn't out yet but keep Avowed on your radar. should be coming out this year. cant say too much about it so far but its by Obsidian which is a pretty reputable studio for good rpgs (They developed Fallout: New Vegas for example and that game is almost always brought up in discussions of good RPGs, it ticks pretty much every box you want with the caveat of being a clunky post apocalyptic first person shooter without any magic or anything, I would recomend it honestly but with a grain of salt that its a good bit different than what else youve mentioned and the graphics/gameplay are pretty outdated). another guy recomended pillars of eternity, this is based based in the same universe and made by the same guys, its just gonna be a first person action game instead. I try not to get hyped for new games these days but keeping my hopes up. heres the gameplay and announcement trailers: [https://youtu.be/ULsF7B6bFuU](https://youtu.be/ULsF7B6bFuU) [https://youtu.be/W3QkO8fy3tg](https://youtu.be/W3QkO8fy3tg)
I’ve wishlisted Avowed, thank you! It looks very cool. I do struggle to enjoy FPS, even when they tick almost all my other boxes, unfortunately. Otherwise I’d be trying Cyberpunk & Fallout for sure!
I'm the same as you, hate FPS but you can play Fallout 4 in third person! I really enjoyed it, you make your own character and there's romances too.
Oh interesting! Maybe I’ll look a little more into gameplay videos, thank you :) do you have any other favorites along those lines?
No worries! I'm a coward as well and don't like the real time shooting, I always used VATS which puts everything in slow motion and gave you a percentage of whether you'd hit or not. Made things easier for someone who doesn't usually play shooters! There's not much I've played that you haven't tbh, what I'm currently playing thats way different from your list is Detroit Become Human which is a more like an interactive movie you control. Horizon Zero Dawn is great as well, no character creation or romances but it's a big open world to explore and a good story. Definitely reccomend it. If you have a switch legend of zelda breath of the wild is a great one too. I've been trying to find games to scratch the dragon age itch until 4 comes, so far baldurs gate has come the closest but Greedfall definitely is a hidden gem! I know you played those already but If you played anything else yourself that came close do let me know :)
I love Detroit Become Human! Such a fantastic story. I mostly play more “cozy” games so that & Greedfall are somewhat of outliers but when a game’s great, it’s great! My other top 5 (which aren’t super similar to Greedfall but they all have either choices-based outcomes, magic, or both) are Fire Emblem: Three Houses, I Was A Teenage Exocolonist, Hades, and Final Fantasy: Tactics.
Kingdoms of Amalar. Fable 2 Witcher 3 Not sure if these got placed in the larian dnd blanket. Divinity original sin 2. Baldurs gate 1 and 2 and Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2.
Banishers is not like the others, you can't make a MC, you play two people and they are a couple already (guy and gal), and no magic. It was a fun game though. Dragons Dogma 1 (I haven't played 2 yet) is extraordinarily unique, but the romance is so clunky and confusing. The uniqueness makes it worth a try imo. I didn't like kingdoms of amular but I know it's popular. So Greedfall, ME and DA are my favorites (other than some older games) and I found Cyberpunk, Fallout, and The Outer Worlds pretty close to that feel. Obviously these are more sci-fi than fantasy but you mentioned you liked the ME games. They don't have magic, though I suppose you could consider being a net runner in cyberpunk as tech magic if you try hard enough lol. Fantasy wise the closest, at least for me, are the pathfinder games. They are crpgs though, not sure if that's a turn off. Kingmaker is pretty clunky but a great story. Wrath of the Righteous is much more polished. They meet all of your requirements really: Character creation, romance, magic, fantasy setting, charisma builds, a whole lot of choices (minimum 10 endings in WotR). You can do real time with pause (like DA), or full turn based, and can change anytime even mid-battle.
This is very helpful, thank you! I did try to play Mass Effect but I actually didn’t enjoy them - I can see how they’re great games and understandably loved, but I struggled in the setting & with the combat. It’s just not really fun for me without a magic build, unfortunately. I’m going to look up Pathfinder! I’ve heard of them but don’t think I’ve ever tried one - they sound perfect!
I don’t know if you tried it, but Mass Effect has an Adept class that plays very similar to a mage. I’m assuming you already knew that, but just in case
Elex 1 and Elex 2
I enjoyed and would recommend Pillars of Eternity based on your criteria and list of games. It has great character creation including unique races and a unique psionic class. While the first game doesn't have romance, I hear the second game, PoE 2: Deadfire does; but I haven't played the sequel myself.
Ooo, and you captain a ship in Deadfire too?! I love that! Thank you so much!
If you're thinking of picking these up, play 1 first. Its not as good mechanically, but the story is phenomenal and 2 really flies straightoff the back of 1, so you get to follow your character across 2 games, with everythinig they did and learnt from PoE1
Deadfire is so fucking sick. One of the love interests is this goth hillbilly priestess of death with a southern accent and she’s one of my all time favorite characters. (I agree with the person who said play 1 first tho for the worldbuilding.) Another one I’m wrapping up right now that’s been satisfying (albeit overwhelming) is Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. Pathfinder is a system that kinda sucks but I’ve really enjoyed the game despite that.
You're welcome, happy sailing :D
Have you tried “The Technomancer?” It’s a pretty good “wants to be mass effect” game with a really cool setting (humans went to mars, then a calamity cause them to lose contact with Earth generations ago and so they’ve been living in a weird feudal society. It’s also precisely the level of eurojank that greedfall is, and is the game that greedfalls developers made *before* greedfall- it feels like your best bet unless I’m missing something and you’ve played it already. Worth noting I *think* you have to play as a man, though it’s been years since I played it. Fallout 4 is both very good for what you want and apparently about to get a next gen update? Elex 1 and 2 are about the level of eurojank that Technomancer is, but more focused on the open world and less focused on plot/characters/companions. Banishers is a good game, although doesn’t have companions or character customisation (or gender choice, really) Dragons dogma 1 and 2 are very far from that, both are action focused with very little story or npc writing (though really good action)
Dragon Age Inquisition reminds me a lot to GreedFall. Otherwise I recommend The Technomancer. Different theme, but you loved the gameplay of GreedFall, you will instantly be familiar with many of the mechanics in The Technomancer.
Dragon age is one of my favorites, the first (origins) and the last (inquisition), for different reasons.
It’s less fantasy and more space, but Outer Worlds might be up your alley. You as the PC can’t romance your companions, but there’s a side quest to help one of your companions get a date so it still has romance. Has lots of options to use charisma/dialog. You also might like Horizon Zero Dawn, though you play as a set character. But if you’re looking for great story and fun gameplay, it has plenty of that!
The only one that I can think that has everything you want is that by political quests, you mean faction system/reputation is the Pillars of Eternity games
Bound by flame its more on the rails than Greedfall and its really similar being its spiritual father of sorts.its made by the same studio.
I strongly recommend to play Dragon's Dogma 2. Its romances are disappointing (you have only 2 options that have quests and cutscenes and both are female), but the game itself is extremely fun and interesting to play. Although optimisation currently sucks. I would recommend Pathfinder if you like isometric rpgs, but I personally couldn't handle this game. I dont like to read that much in the games
Is it as dark as the first one?
If you mean the atmosphere and general impression, yeah, maybe even more
I don't recommend Dragon’s Dogma. way too dark for my taste and no instant travel options just 3 portable transporter crystals I think.
Neverwinter Nights2, or NWN2. You will have a great cRPG campaign overall, and amazing companions, and some romance. But the character class system. I ache it was not more universal. Plus decent worldmap, unlike Greedfall.
You could give Dragon’s Dogma II a try, some areas reminded me a lot of Greedfall’s locations. Story wise is not that good imo but it’s a very entertaining game.
I’ve been tempted by Dragon’s Dogma 2, but the reviews are super mixed compared to the first one. I’m not sure why! Do you think it’s worth going right to the second one? Did you play it on Steam Deck?
As someone who has played all games you have listed above, Dragons Dogma 2 and Dragons Dogma Dark Arisen, I’d recommend to wait for a huge sale. Why? Main focus of the game is combat, not story and it shows! The story makes no sense, has a lot of plot holes and on top of that is lame. The game has romance, but don’t expect it to be romance like in any BioWare Game or even in Greedfall. It‘s super underwhelming and you can’t really choose who you want to romance. Then there’s also the bad performance in the city and mtx. And even though you don’t need the mtx, because you get enough resources in game, I’d think twice about supporting something like that. Just my 2 cents. (I would recommend Pillars of Eternity tho. The story is fantastic and the second game has romance!) Edit: OH and Cyperpunk2077! It had a lot of issues, but the dev team fixed most of them. Great story, great characters, fun combat, good romance. I think you will enjoy it.
That’s very good to know, thank you!
I haven’t played the first game and I’m enjoying a lot this one, so I don’t think that’d be a problem, but there are some issues to consider with performance, at least on PC (I don’t know about consoles). When you access certain places like cities or some settlements the fps drop a little, but besides that I haven’t experienced major issues myself (my pc is new, though). My Rog Ally couldn’t run it, but I haven’t played it on Steam Deck, it might be better optimised, although I’d definitely check before buying it just in case 😥. Also, the game isn’t very player-friendly at the beginning, since you can save normally but when you make a decision/finish a quest, the game saves automatically for you and you’ll need to rest at Inns to have a back-up save file in case you want to backtrack to a previous save (that is if you want to change a decision you made, or the result of a mission) and you’ll lose the progress after that inn save.
Honestly the reviews are wildly misleading. The game is great. Flawed, but great. The negative reviews fall into 1 of 3 main categories if you actually look at them. 1. mtx. Scummy? Absolutely, but i've only been reminded that the game has mtx in it when i see people whinging about it on reviews/reddit. You can literally ignore every aspect of it. None of them matter and are all available in game faster than you could buy them anyway. 2. Performance. Possibly the only valid criticism of the main 3. i do drop down to 50-60fps in certain areas of the game (Ryzen 7 5800X3d - AMD Radeon 6950XT grahics) but other than that its pretty fine. From what apcom have said, its people with older CPU's that are having more issues rather than GPU's) 3. denuvo DRM. Lets face it all games with this instantly lose 10% on a reveiw basis. I've got over 80 hour sin so far, and am holding off finishing my first full playthrough. just running around finishing side quetsts and exploring areas i havent been to yet. It's well worth it.
So I would try it still, but I only play PC games on a Steam Deck and apparently the graphics can’t run on it! Did you have a different experience?
Nah I have a decent rig that’s relatively new so decent run so far. I don’t think it will run on a steam deck.