The RPG genre is one of the more persistent genres over the past few decades as gaming fans continue to love games that provide real choice and consequences and hundreds of hours of interactive gameplay. Game Pass is Xbox’s expansive subscription service and RPGs are a genre that are heavily featured including a handful of games released by Xbox’s first party studios. We sifted through dozens of choices and whittled the selection down to 10 games, giving you what we believe are some of the best RPGs on Game Pass.
Fallout: New Vegas
Starting out with what might be the best RPG on the entire service, Fallout: New Vegas is the definitive Fallout game if you like great world building, deep quests and story lines, branching narratives, interesting characters, and a lot of dark humor that makes Fallout unlike anything else on the market.
Fallout: New Vegas was released in 2010 and served as a sequel to the breakout success Fallout 3. New Vegas was developed by now Xbox owned Obsidian and is now something of a cult-cultural phenomenon, often being regarded as the best game in the entire series. If you can look past the dated graphics and some poorly aged mechanics, you likely won’t find a better RPG on the market today.
Starfield
Starfield is the latest game from Bethesda Game Studios and, by scale, may be the largest RPG on Game Pass. Starfield is a sci-fi Role Playing simulation game where you can explore hundreds of planets, fly and customize massive space ships, build your character your way, and explore a vast universe to discover “what’s out there”.
Starfield is the first Bethesda Game Studios game developed and released after the studio was acquired in the Zenimax/Bethesda deal in 2021. The game will continue to see updates, with official mod support confirmed for 2024 and DLC expected sometime within the next few years. If you’re at all interested in the RPG genre, Starfield is a game you’ll want to keep on your hard drive for years to come.
Mass Effect: Legendary Edition
If you want to play a sprawling science fiction space trilogy that features real RPG elements that can be completed in under 100 hours, there may not be a better choice on this list than Mass Effect. The Legendary Edition provides all three games in the original trilogy and progress carries over from one game to the next, meaning you’ll truly be able to create the character you want over the entire trilogy.
Mass Effect gained its legendary reputation for its memorable characters, plot threads, unique setting, and excellent role playing mechanics. If you haven’t jumped into this series before, now might be the perfect time to get lost in this great collection.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim is likely the most prevalent game on this list and one of the most recognizable games in the entire Game Pass service. Skyrim is a fantasy role playing game where you explore a diverse landscape featuring Dragons, Undead Draugr’s, Giants and more.
For many, Skyrim is the RPG, a game that let’s you do whatever, whenever, and has been played by millions and is still incredibly popular today more than 10 years after its release. Bethesda Game Studios as an Xbox internal studio is one that will provide Game Pass a ton of value for anyone that is an RPG fan, but there may not be any other games amongst their releases that will have the impact and staying power as Skyrim has seen.
Wasteland 3
Xbox studio InXile released Wasteland 3 near the end of 2020 and delivered a classic isometric turn based RPG with endless choice and consequence. Explore a post apocalyptic Colorado and shape the world and story with your choices, featuring memorable characters, dark humor and brutal combat.
The Wasteland series originated in the early 1990’s and was inspiration for the now Bethesda owned Fallout. For any RPG fan looking to get into a post apocalyptic world or are interested in checking out what the developer of the upcoming Xbox first party game Clockwork Revolution have made previously, Wasteland 3 is a game worth checking out.
Citizen Sleeper
One of the most unique games on the entire Game Pass service, Citizen Sleeper is all about talking through a Sci-Fi contemporary story where you play as a human thats mind has been downloaded into a robotic body. The game tackles themes of capitalism and identity, making it feel incredibly current while simultaneously following traditional table top role playing game rules.
The game should take the average player 8-10 hours to complete, so anyone looking to experience a compelling story based game that makes us reflect on our very own lives should absolutely give it a look.
Fable II
The entire Fable trilogy is on Game Pass, but Fable II is the peak of the series, combining series best RPG elements mixed with fun arcadey combat. The fantasy world of Albion reacts to your choices and evolves over time. There are very few games that react to your choices like Fable II does, making the game feel timeless even after all of these years.
With a new Fable game being developed by the talented Playground Games, there isn’t a better time to jump into the series and see what made Fable such a beloved RPG series during the early days of Xbox.
The Outer Worlds
The Outer Worlds is a sci-fi RPG from Obsidian Entertainment in the vain of Fallout New Vegas, with similar hub worlds to the studios previous works in Knights of the Old Republic II. What’s not to love? Obsidian’s well respected writing chops are up to snuff in this game and the choice and consequence seen here mean you’ll want to play through multiple times.
The game only takes 20-25 hours to see everything through not including two excellent post launch expansions, meaning if you don’t want to invest hundreds of hours in an RPG narrative, The Outer Worlds might be the perfect game for you.
Assassin’s Creed Odyssey
In terms of pure “things to do”, there probably isn’t a game with more hours of content to sift through than Odyssey. Assasin’s Creed took the turn from action stealth to action sprawling RPG in 2017 and in many ways Odyssey is the culmination of that decision, delivering a game that is so massive it will take you hundreds of hours to see everything through.
Featuring two playable characters, a story and setting set in Ancient Greece, tons of loot and collectibles to earn, and much more, Assasin’s Creed Odyssey is well worth your time if you like games with endless amounts of content.
Persona 4 Golden
The Persona series is well-regarded for its combination of social simulation and demon-infused turn-based combat system and Persona 4 Golden is no exception to that rule. A fantastic entry to the series, Golden has players take on the role of a young man who heads to the quaint town of Inaba to live with his uncle for a year. Lo and behold, strange things are afoot—people are being found dead with no reasonable explanations and there’s a rumoured Midnight Channel that might be the key to this mystery.
Featuring well over 50 hours of gameplay, Persona 4 Golden is the ultimate version of the original release from way back on the PlayStation 2 and it’s just as fun as it was back then. You’ll fight Shadows with your Persona, take on more Personas and fuse them to become stronger to take on the weirdest of foes in the Midnight Channel. But on top of all this, you have school work and relationships with friends, family, and strangers to keep up with that’ll help you on your journey. Spend your time wisely and the fruits of your efforts will be laid bare… Or you’ll find yourself in a sticky situation.
