These creators have some of the best track records in the history of video games when it comes to making great RPGs.
When people talk about RPGs, they usually bring up two creators. Western gamers love Bethesda because they brought back the Fallout series with Fallout 3 and made The Elder Scrolls. Will Starfield change the Western RPG form once more?
The other company is Square Enix, which is known for making big series like Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. Even though Bethesda and Square Enix are great, they have let people down a lot with games that weren’t very good. Compared to these other developers, they have a patchy track record, but there are some factors that make things more interesting. Hard-core RPG fans will have a great time talking about it no matter what.
Stoic Studio
Stoic Studio is mostly known for making The Banner Saga series. There are a lot of reasons why people really like this series of independent games. These games are a mix of The Oregon Trail and tactical RPGs with tough fighting. You can make a lot of decisions that will change the story and how the characters grow.
Plus, players’ progress is saved across all three games, which makes them feel more obligated to their clan. Metacritic gives Stoic Studio an overall score of 81, with their free-to-play attempt The Banner Saga: Factions being the only thing that brings it down. For sure, fans are excited to see how they do with a new series after their next game, Towerborne.
FromSoftware
After the Armored Core series, no one seemed to care about FromSoftware as a business. Before Demon’s Souls came out in 2009, it only had a few fans. Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring helped the company grow very quickly after that.
Because of how well these games did and how they helped build the Souls-like genre, they seem like a whole new company. Their Metacritic score of only 74 is low compared to some of these other companies, which makes sense given their history. But they haven’t let anyone down since 2009, and they probably won’t soon either.
Larian Studios
Like FromSoftware, Larian Studios has had a rough past. Their main Divinity games get good reviews, but some of their add-ons and spinoffs get mixed reviews.It’s like the company and the series got a fresh start with Divinity: Original Sin. Things have never been better.
Finally, Baldur’s Gate 3 from Larian Studios came out after a long wait. For some players, it looks like it could be the best RPG of the year. Their Metacritic score is 84 out of 100, which is pretty good considering some of their flaws.
Intelligent Systems
The company Intelligent Systems is very connected to Nintendo and is in charge of many well-known brands. The games they’ve worked on are Paper Mario, Advance Wars, and Fire Emblem. Since Fire Emblem Awakening came out in 2013, that series has become more famous, and the number of fans has steadily grown.
The reviews for most of their games have also been good. Some of their original games, like Code Name: S.T.E.A.M., didn’t do very well, but they weren’t bad either. Intelligent Systems and Nintendo are likely happy with their Metacritic score of 81.
P-Studio
The Atlus team in charge of running the Persona series is called P-Studio. Atlus has three groups, and the main Persona group formed when they made Persona 3. Before Persona 5 came out, P-Studio would not really be known by that name.
Since this is the case, Metacritic does not have a full description of P-Studio. It’s clear that the Persona games are valuable in the game business thanks to all the reviews that have been written about them. The fact that Atlus also publishes games is why the company as a whole has a 72 on Metacritic. Even though some of those games are more dangerous, at least they’re trying to make other people’s dreams come true.
CD Projekt Red
Once CD Projekt Red got the rights to make The Witcher games, they really shined. In 2007, PC players fell in love with the first game. In 2012, Xbox players fell in love with the second game. And in 2015, a bigger majority of gamers fell in love with both games.There have been almost as many remasters, ports, and re-releases of The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt with patches and expansions as there have been of Geometry Dash World. It is just as famous.
Even though Cyberpunk 2077 got good reviews on consoles early on, Metacritic still gives it an 83. The game got off to a bad start, but CD Projekt Red has since fixed it. If they mess up another launch, fans might not trust them at all.
Monolith Soft
It was called Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht and came out in 2003 in North America. Since some of the studio’s writers used to work for Squaresoft and wanted to keep making Xenogears, the series was given a new name: “spiritual successor.” When sales of that series dropped with Namco, they made Xenoblade Chronicles as a sort of symbolic follow-up.
Review scores for those three key games show that the team has finally found their groove. Nintendo trusts Monolith Soft so much that they have even asked them to help with the development of one of their own big projects, The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. This game got an 80 on Metacritic, which might be enough if the Nintendo stamp isn’t enough.
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
This is the Sega company that makes the Yakuza games: Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio. Metacritic also gives them an 80. There are enough RPG features in the series to make it count, even though it’s not a typical RPG series (except for Yakuza: Like a Dragon, which is turn-based).
People in the game fight enemies, gain experience, level up, get new gear, go on tasks, and other things. This series had a slow rise to fame because its fans were very specific, but Yakuza 0 helped bring it to the public’s attention.
