Best cRPGs Ranking 2024

Best Computer Role-playing Games

While cRPG History has supplied us with many good Computer Role-playing Games, only the best examples of cRPG Design are listed in this easy-to-read guide.

As of 2024, the best cRPG is Jagged Alliance 2.

1: Jagged Alliance 2

Designed and coded by the geniuses at Sir Tech, Jagged Alliance 2 is the closest to perfection as one can get: a masterpiece of game design that may never be beaten.

In a league of its own and ranked 1st all-time in most categories of design, Jagged Alliance 2 is rightfully crowned The King of Kings.

2: Fallout 1: The Formalizer

Interplay's Fallout 1 is inarguably the greatest pure cRPG of all-time. Not only that, Fallout practically is the cRPG Definition. And please remember that cRPG definitions are rigorous and refined unlike vague RPG Game definitions that are subscribed to by unlettered mainstream commentary.

You can have the best design and mechanics out there, but if the game engine runs like a dog it's all for naught. And someone else is going to step in and take the prize, someone who can code.

Seminal rarely means best. Seminal is often just right place, right time.

Anyone can be first to computerize a wargame, a boardgame or a role-playing game, any garage-tinkerer of the 1980s can be first, but can they execute? The first one to execute wins. This is why Fallout destroyed every cRPG that came before it: the Fallout developers could design, draw, write and code. It was the first time everything came together. Thus, the moniker of The Formalizer.

I refer to Fallout as The Formalizer because it set most of the cRPG Design standards that are adhered to by elite cRPGs that have maintained distinguished legacies for almost three decades.

For example, without Fallout formalizing By Force, by Wits or by Stealth, Based on Stats, there would have been no genre emphasis on reactivity. Instead, cRPGs would feature token reactivity or none at all.

Fallout cannot be beaten. 26 years have gone by and no commercial cRPG has come close. No pure cRPG can garner the prestige that Fallout gets and deserves. 26 years from now Baldur's Gate 3 will be naught but a footnote -- a mere manufactured product that sold well by pandering to the masses -- whereas the subject of Fallout will remain dominant in cRPG commentary due to its seminal influence, apex-level design and ageless aesthetic.

But if Fallout's standing is already unassailable why does Liluran commentary seek to advance that standing in dozens of articles?

The answer to that question is as follows:

The object is not merely to win but rather to win by the widest margin possible. Victory is only the beginning.

Two other games in this ranking were made by the Fallout designers: Arcanum and ToEE. In addition, those designers were involved in the initial coding and design of Fallout 2, which is ranked here as well.

So that means those designers had a hand in making four out of the best ten cRPGs. And if you don't value combat above all else, then they were involved in making the top three cRPGs of all-time.

On top of that, the design of Fallout influenced Black Isle's Planescape: Torment via Fallout 2 which influenced Obsidian's Mask of the Betrayer. And at least 20 cRPGs that came after them.

Which means Fallout's influence on the genre has been incalculable.

But Fallout did not just destroy older cRPGs:

Fallout Destroyed the Point & Click Adventure Game

Do you know what else Fallout did? It rendered an entire classic genre redundant: the point-and-click adventure game. I used to play adventure games all the time: Secret of Monkey Island, Beneath a Steel Sky -- you name it, big fan. And those games have a special place in my heart. But after Fallout I never played an adventure game ever again, only cRPGs like Fallout.

From Fallout's Place in 1990s Computer Game History:

Fallout was an adventure game, but it came complete with stats, reactivity and combat system as well: a pure cRPG.

And cRPGs are inherently superior to adventure games. There is nothing adventure games do better than cRPGs.

Adventure games only exist post-Fallout because of ignorance, inertia and the casual demographic that loves on-rails narrative and cinematization.

Fallout was like the best adventure game you had ever played, multiplied by 100.

Anyone can program adventure games; as a rule, their code-bases and mechanics are basic. But hardly anyone can make cRPGs like Fallout.

And three decades of history attests to that being fact.

3: Swordflight

One of the startling things about Swordflight is that it isn't turn-based or big on party-based tactics, yet it gives me a more authentic D&D experience than cRPGs that are. This is due to its traditional principles of design that have been honed much sharper than tradition itself managed.

Read that again: honing traditional design principles much sharper than tradition itself did.

Another startling thing is that Swordflight was made in one person's free time over a period of 15 years. And there is still one Chapter to go.

Wait, how can I rank a currently incomplete campaign? Easily. You see, Chapter 2 alone is bigger and better than most cRPG campaigns taken in their entirety. Now add four more Chapters on top that are of comparable quality (and three more that are of comparable length as well).

Another argument for omitting Swordflight is that its author did not code the Aurora Engine upon which its campaign is built (Swordflight is a module built in a toolset), but nor did Black Isle code the Fallout Engine or Infinity Engine upon which their Fallout 2, Icewind Dale, IWD2 and Planescape: Torment are built (though Icewind Dale 2 and PS:T have a truckload of original coding in them, to be sure).

All that said, Swordflight is the best cRPG campaign released in the last two decades. And a present-day cRPG commentator that has not covered Swordflight extensively cannot be taken seriously.

4: Baldur's Gate 1

Overall, BioWare's Baldur's Gate 1 is better than Fallout 2 and Arcanum. As the quintessential all-rounder of the genre Baldur's Gate doesn't match their character-building or reactivity, but it does everything well and we can't say that of Fallout 2 or Arcanum.

Note that Baldur's Gate's Place in Computer Game History enumerates how Baldur's Gate could have contended with Fallout and JA2.

5: Warband

Warband has the most satisfying medieval martial combat and battlefield tactics in the history of realtime cRPGs. cf. Warband Review.

6: Arcanum

Troika's Arcanum is a flawed diamond that nevertheless demands to maintain a position in any top 10. It is superior to Planescape: Torment (ranked 10th) though both have rubbish combat. If Arcanum's turn-based combat system was properly implemented it could have dethroned Fallout.

7: Fallout 2

Dwarfing its predecessor Black Isle's Fallout 2 is an absolutely massive cRPG; the "Horrigan" of the genre. But bigger doesn't mean better.

8: Icewind Dale Series

Black Isle's Icewind Dale 1 and Icewind Dale 2 are great if you like battles and dungeon delving. Yes, they are generic. But they are highly refined generic.

9: ToEE

Troika's Temple of Elemental Evil has the best combat system of any cRPG except for Jagged Alliance 2. And combat is what matters most in cRPGs. So if you value combat above all else then this is your no.2 all-time.

10: Planescape: Torment

Black Isle's Planescape: Torment reaches narrative and quest-based heights that most cRPGs struggle to attain, but it also has too many boring segments to rank higher than 10th place. By following its model more closely Planescape could have smashed Baldur's Gate to pieces.

Honorable Mentions

Honorable mentions are cRPGs that could not secure a place in the Top 10. The reasons vary. For example, X-COM and Master of Magic are god-tier games but they are much more focused on strategy than Jagged Alliance 2 is.

And while I cover X-COM and MoM as cRPGs as well as TBS, I cannot place them in this list at the expense of ToEE and PS:T. Instead, I rank the genre-transcending god-tier properly in cRPG Design.

Master of Magic:

X-COM UFO Defense:

Diablo 1:

Deus Ex 1:

Mask of the Betrayer:

Storm of Zehir:

Conclusion for Best cRPGs Ranking 2024

Fallout 1 and cRPGs that followed in its footsteps dominate best cRPG rankings. Fallout 1 is the Definer and Formalizer of the cRPG genre whereas Jagged Alliance 2 stands alone, above and inimitable.

Note how Interplay/Troika and Black Isle/Obsidian dominate the ranking, note the lack of 3D games in the list (2/10), and note the number of turn-based games on this page (7/15). There are only three fully realtime games. The reasons are given in my formal articles.

As much as I dislike 3D cams and non-TB combat, I still tried to represent games that are built on inferior design pillars but excel at being cRPGs despite that.

3D + non-TB are considered by me to be pillar-tier errors in cRPG design: big mistakes.

Pure cRPG Ranking 2024

Some may argue that I should rank only "pure" cRPGs; that is, non-hybrids with no admixture of strategy. I have no problem with that because it strengthens Fallout 1's case even more, since Fallout 1 moves to first place and a full half of the cRPGs in the ranking are influenced by and wouldn't exist without Fallout 1 laying down the foundations that formalized the genre.

1. Fallout 1
2. Swordflight
3. Baldur's Gate 1
4. Arcanum
5. Fallout 2
6. Icewind Dale 1
7. Icewind Dale 2
8. Temple of Elemental Evil
9. Planescape: Torment
10. Mask of the Betrayer

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