We may only be a few days into March but 2025 is already shaping up to be another amazing year when it comes to RPGs, despite the genre coming somewhat stale over recent years.
Role-playing games are a cornerstone of gaming, offering players the chance to live many different lives, experience different time periods, explore history, religion, and identity and play a title in whichever way they choose.
However, in recent years, the genre has become somewhat stale and, in my opinion, 2025 almost continued that trend with the release of Avowed back in February.
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Developed by Obsidian Entertainment who is perhaps best known for developing Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, Avowed was the studio’s latest RPG, based in the same universe as another of its previous games, Pillars of Eternity.
As a fan of both Fallout: New Vegas and The Outer Worlds, I was excited for Avowed but after spending a few hours in its fantasy world, I became bored. Nothing about it stood out to me and if I could describe it with one word, it would be ‘generic’.
If you have played any other RPG in recent years, you have played Avowed and I feel that developers really have to do something unique if they wish for their games to stand the test of time.
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Now I’m not slating Avowed here, as much as it may sound like. I think it could be fun for many players and that is definitely the case if we take its Metacritic user score of 6.9 into account. However, the reason it has this mixed review is partly due to its generic RPG features.
Despite being an RPG, there is a lack of player agency and there are restrictions to what you can do and where you can go. As a result, you don’t feel as though you’re making any impact on the world or its story.
In comparison, there was another RPG that was released in 2025 that managed to break the mould when it comes to player choices and agency.
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Also released in February, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 is already being hailed at Game of the Year for its large player base thanks to its intriguing storyline, vast open-world, and most importantly, the amount of freedom it awards to the player.
How you approach the story is entirely up to you.
In one part of the story, you are tasked with heading to an army camp to rescue a fellow comrade. You are told to head there, sneak in and grab them, and then head out.
However, you can instead choose to walk into the army camp and slaughter all of its inhabitants, thus changing the tide of the upcoming battle. It is not only a viable option, but the game also acknowledges the player’s decision with a pop-up that shows on-screen once you have cleared the camp.
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Additionally, the pop-up will tell you how your actions would have affected history and the upcoming story will also adapt to your choice.
That is exactly what the RPG genre should consist of. Allow the players to actually roleplay and support whichever way they decide to tackle a situation. I appreciate that there are limits to this, but upon playing Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, those restrictions don’t even feel present.
Just as players were slowly beginning to wrap up their time with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, another highly-anticipated RPG burst onto the scene and despite being part of an already established series, it still managed to break records when it came to its player count.
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Monster Hunter Wilds burst onto the scene on 28 February and within three days, it had already sold more than 8 million copies, making it Capcom’s fastest-selling game to date.
As a successor to 2018’s Monster Hunter: World, Wilds continued the much-loved formula by tasking players, known as Hunters, to track down and kill a series of formidable beasts.
On paper, Wilds is very simple when it comes to RPGs. You experience some of its story, fight a monster, upgrade your weapons, gather resources, fight an even bigger monster. Rinse and repeat.
However, there is a reason why Monster Hunter Wilds, much like Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, is already in line to become Game of the Year for 2025.
The game doesn’t pretend to be something it’s not and although it plays very differently to Kingdom Come, they are each incredible RPGs in their own right.
Instead of changing the award-winning formula, Capcom instead improved on a winner and fine-tuned the game after learning from previous mistakes.
So what makes a good RPG in the year 2025?
There are still plenty of RPGs set to be released throughout the year with some notable titles including Assassin’s Creed Shadows, The First Berserker: Khazan, Elden Ring: Nightreign, and more but with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 and Monster Hunter: Wilds already leading the pack when it comes to role-playing, it is going to take a lot for these titles to stand out.
Of course, entries such as AC Shadows and Nightreign already have a large fanbase behind them but as a result, they have a lot to live up to. In contrast, Khazan comes from a relatively unknown studio but it is set inside a popular franchise (Dungeon Fighter Online).
For me, RPGs need to offer the standard features of the genre but with a spin, whether that is a unique story, a challenging combat system, or just the ability to take chances without the game limiting your choices.
Let us role-play, let us become the characters and step into their shoes regardless of their setting or history, let our choices matter and affect the world around us.
And just when we think we have seen all there is to see when it comes to RPGs, change our minds! No pressure, right?
Topics: Monster Hunter, Assassins Creed, Elden Ring, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Features, PC, PlayStation, Xbox