General News - 16 Best Sci Fi RPGs

Unleash the Gamer shares their list of the best 16 science fiction RPGs.

Thanks Farflame!

More information.

The list:
16. STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl
15. Nier Automata
14. Horizon Zero Dawn
13. Wasteland 2: Director’s Cut
12. Alpha Protocol
11. Fallout 2
10. Mass Effect
9. System Shock 2
8. Deus Ex: Human Revolution Director’s Cut
7. Anachronox
6. Dishonored
5. Fallout: New Vegas
4. Mass Effect 2
3. Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic
2. Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic 2: The Sith lords
1. Deus Ex

My comment: Many good games on that list, but very few actual scifi rpgs or even science fiction games.
 
Joined
Oct 19, 2006
Messages
2,468
Alpha Protocol was sci fi?
Weeelllll, it started out sci fi but it took rather longer to develop than expected so, by the time it came out, the 'near future' was more of a 'near past.' ;)

It's still more SF than Dishonored, though. That's a steampunk game, IMHO. Yeah, they used whale oil instead of actual steam, but it's the same 1800's with some weird high tech done in a low tech way.

I wouldn't have put KotOR so high up - maybe in the teens. Xenosaga deserves a spot somewhere, too, though not terribly high.

ELEX, Tower of Time, and some of the Final Fantasy games are pretty mixed up with fantasy & SF both so I guess they stay off of the list.

Oh, and I would put the new Cyberpunk game in as #1. We all know it's gonna happen, why wait for release day? ;)
 
Joined
Aug 3, 2008
Messages
8,238
Location
Kansas City
The fact that the SW:KotOR series has never been surpassed leaves me a little depressed.
 
Joined
Mar 22, 2012
Messages
5,521
Location
Seattle
And once again #1 a game that's barely a RPG (unless being able to take talent points and controlling a defined character equals RPG, then probably League of Legends is a RPG too?)

I really disagree with that. Deus Ex was a full RPG, and one hell of an RPG at that. It's still the best RPG at making you choose paths without telling you that you actually *had* a choice there. It flows organically.

The way that everyone reacts in how you handle the rebels in the fort.

The slow realization that you're working for the bad guys, culminating in the Anna Navarre showdown at the airport. The WTF? moment when she raises her pistol and you realize that she's about to execute the scientist, that split-second decision that you can make to shoot her instead (and the complete freakout of the agent watching through your eyes)...

Or when you finally find your brother and the mission ends with him pointing at the window escape and the helicopter... and you can go "like hell, I'm not leaving without you!" and you decide to stay in an epic two-brothers-VS-the-world shootout.

The various (and non obvious) ways you can deal with Silhouette and the Illuminati...

In Deus Ex, only about half the choices you make are made through dialogue, but I've yet to see another game that has the same feeling of freedom of choice.
 
Joined
Mar 4, 2019
Messages
19
Hey guys, I'm the author of the article. First of all, I want to thank you all for your feedback and appreciation, we never expected to get so much attention with this article. Now, to respond to some of your posts:

Bought, payed for a bit, some Stalker game. Not sure it was Chernobyl… What I'm sure though is that it ain't no RPG. It's a shooter with rare ammo and endless instarespawning trashmobs. A sort of openworld Doom yet trashmobs that can't ever die but are practically only temporarily KOed are annoying as hell.

It's true that STALKER is not an RPG in the truest sense of the world, but it does have an interesting blend of RPG and FPS mechanics. It's basically a skill tree away from being an RPG, which is why I felt it deserved a spot on the list. [/QUOTE]

Some games are there just to say "look we're oldschool gamers, we know what we are talking about" but then they list really average games with little more than nostalgia to speak in their favour like Anachronox or System Shock and then skip Underrail.

Believe me, I was really, really torn about forgetting to include Underrail. In my defense, I think I was subconsciously going back to a couple of years ago when the devs fucked up the game big time through several updates and my mind didn't register it as a good game anymore.

Heavy Star Wars bias (don't get me wrong they were very good RPGs, but it's questionable that they were second AND third best Sci-Fi RPG ever).

They're both on equal footing (okay, maybe KOTOR 2 is A BIT better than 1), and it felt weird putting them 10 spots apart just for the sake of symmetry. Ok, I waste more time on Wookiepedia than I like to admit, but there's no bias here.

And once again #1 a game that's barely a RPG (unless being able to take talent points and controlling a defined character equals RPG, then probably League of Legends is a RPG too?),

Wikipedia, and several other major outlets say otherwise. Sorry, it's an RPG.

It's a good list of games but it shows that traditional story driven RPGs are not the star anymore. As nowadays every game has RPG mechanics or elements at least.:(

Sadly, yeah. But hey, we did them justice in this infographic. It's still (and will always be, as a matter of fact) a work in progress, but we've included most major releases and several underrated gems.

What, no love for Albion? :)

To be completely honest, I've never heard about it. I'll check it out. :)

I didn't watch the video, but it sounds like they need to learn that sci-fi and post-apocalyptic are not the same genre.

We're planning on fixing this. ;)

I'm guessing they only included them because of how few pure Sci-fi RPGs actually exist and because they were trying to keep the list somewhat modern.

We tried to keep the list balanced, not necessarily modern. Admittedly, we could've included more classic titles. On the other hand, when it comes to these kinds of articles, you have to draw the line at some point and stick with your choices. Giving every game a spot kinda defeats the purpose of the article. However, we're constantly working on giving exposure to as many underrated games as possible - take, for instance, our list of the best video game characters, where you'll find D'arci Stern from Urban Chaos.

I guess they could have called the list "16 best sci-fi (and its sub genres) RPG's"

That's actually a really good point!

In fact they probably should since i feel many RPG fans are very anal people and will take every chance to point out things like this :p

I wouldn't exactly call them ''anal'', but… they're certainly passionate, let's put it that way. :D
 
Joined
Mar 18, 2019
Messages
1
Glad to see you here as a new poster, Marco. Hang around and let us know what you think on other games and matters. Oh yeah, and do check out Albion, I don't believe you'll be disappointed!
 
Joined
Oct 18, 2011
Messages
18,806
Location
Holly Hill, FL.
Back
Top Bottom