Highlights
- Stoic Studio has gained a strong following with their combination of tactical RPGs and The Oregon Trail in The Banner Saga series.
- FromSoftware's success with Demon's Souls and other games helped create the Soulslike genre, despite their lower Metacritic profile.
- Larian Studios had a successful reboot of their Divinity series with Divinity: Original Sin, and Baldur's Gate 3 could be the RPG of the year.
When RPGs come into the conversation, two developers probably get brought up. On the Western side, Bethesda is huge thanks to their reboot of the Fallout series starting with Fallout 3 as well as The Elder Scrolls. Will Starfield revolutionize the Western RPG genre again?
Then there is Square Enix which has some giant franchises under their belt including Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest. As great as Bethesda and Square Enix are, they have disappointed fans a lot with less-than-stellar game releases. Their track record is uneven compared to these other developers although there are some caveats to make things more interesting. It’ll be a fun conversation no matter what for the RPG hardcore fans out there.
8 Stoic Studio
Stoic Studio is responsible mainly for The Banner Saga series. This trilogy of indie games has gathered a strong following for them for many reasons. These games are a combination of tactical RPGs with punishing combat and The Oregon Trail. There is a deep system of choices that will affect the story and how characters develop.
Plus the progress carries over between the three games, giving players a greater sense of duty to their clan. Overall, Stoic Studio has an 81 on Metacritic for their developer profile with the only blemish being their free-to-play experiment, The Banner Saga: Factions. Their next game, Towerborne, has fans assuredly excited to see how they do with a new series.
7 FromSoftware
FromSoftware was a company that no one seemed to care about beyond the Armored Core series. It had a niche fan base until Demon’s Souls dropped in 2009. From there the company exploded thanks to Dark Souls, Bloodborne, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, and Elden Ring.
It’s like they are a brand new company thanks to the success of these games which helped create the Soulslike genre. Given their past, their Metacritic profile is only at 74 which is low next to some of these other companies. Still, they haven’t let anyone down since 2009 and they probably won’t anytime soon.
6 Larian Studios
Larian Studios had an uneven past like FromSoftware as well. Their main Divinity games rank high, but some expansions and spinoffs have been received with mixed reviews. Divinity: Original Sin was like a reboot for both the company and the series as things have never been better.
Larian Studios also just put out Baldur’s Gate 3 after many delays and it looks like it could be the RPG of the year for some players. Overall, their Metacritic is at 84 which is great given some of their middling faults.
5 Intelligent Systems
Intelligent Systems is tied heavily to Nintendo and they are responsible for a plethora of franchises. They’ve worked on Paper Mario, Advance Wars, and Fire Emblem. That series in particular has seen an uprise in popularity thanks to Fire Emblem Awakening in 2013 and the fan base has grown steadily.
The reviews have also been good with most of their games and while original titles like Code Name: S.T.E.A.M. didn’t make it big, it wasn’t terrible either. Intelligent Systems and Nintendo are probably satisfied with their ranking of 81 on Metacritic.
4 P-Studio
P-Studio is the team within Atlus responsible for managing the Persona franchise. Atlus is divided into three teams and the core Persona team started when they made Persona 3. P-Studio would not fall under that name officially until Persona 5 was released.
Because of this, Metacritic doesn’t have a complete profile of P-Studio on Metacritic. Thanks to the aggregate reviews of the Persona games, their value in the game industry is clear though. Atlus as a complete company has a 72 on Metacritic and that’s because they also publish games. Some of those games are riskier endeavors but at least they are trying to help the dreams of others come true.
3 CD Projekt Red
CD Projekt Red came into its own once they got The Witcher licensee. PC players fell in love with the first game in 2007, Xbox players fell in love with the second game in 2012, and finally, a wider majority exploded with adoration in 2015. The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt has been remastered, ported, and re-released with patches and expansions almost as much as The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim and it has that level of popularity too.
Their Metacritic is still at an 83 despite those early console reviews for Cyberpunk 2077. It was a rough start assuredly but CD Projekt Red has since turned the game around. If they screw up a launch again, then maybe the trust fans have for them will falter completely.
2 Monolith Soft
Monolith Soft’s first game was Xenosaga Episode I: Der Wille zur Macht in 2003 for North America. Some of the studio’s developers came from Squaresoft and they wanted to continue making Xenogears, which is why the series was rebranded as a spiritual successor. Once that series fell off with their publisher, Namco, they once again made a spiritual successor through Xenoblade Chronicles.
The reviews have proven that the team has finally come into their own as those three core games have scored well. Monolith Soft is so well trusted that Nintendo has even asked for their help in support development on big first-party projects The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. If the stamp of Nintendo isn’t good enough then maybe the 80 on Metacritic will be convincing.
1 Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio
Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio is the company within Sega responsible for the Yakuza series. They also have an 80 on Metacritic. It may not be a traditional RPG franchise, except for the latest entry Yakuza: Like a Dragon which was turn-based, but there are enough RPG elements within to make it count.
Characters fight enemies, earn experience, level up, equip gear, go on quests, and so on. The rise to this series’ popularity was slow as it was another example of a niche fan base, but Yakuza 0 helped bring the series to the surface.