11 upcoming RPGs that might finally pull me away from Baldur's Gate 3

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Even if wedidstart insisting that every RPG must include several dozen hours of voiced dialogue, I doubt we’d go hungry for long. Making games bigger—more dialogue! more square kilometers!—has been the go-to move for big-budget game makers since big-budget games started being made. Here are a few upcoming RPGs that we expect to be very sizeable, even if we otherwise know very little about them:

I’m not sure that size is going to be Baldur’s Gate 3’s primary legacy, though. It’s the characters and their excellent actors, the romances, the choose-your-own-tragedy storytelling, and the systems-driven sandbox design, which fills it with creative opportunities and surprise outcomes, that have earned Baldur’s Gate 3 its armfuls of GOTY awards.

It’s true that no new RPG will likely surpass Baldur’s Gate 3’s significance in the near future—it is an exceptional game—but the things we like about it are hardly unattainable. It did after all draw many of its best qualities from existing CRPGs and tabletop games (and arguably its worst, depending on how keen you are on D&D 5e’s clunky combat).

Along with those above, here are 11 upcoming RPGs that, however big or small they end up being, might scratch the itch for another experience like Baldur’s Gate 3 in one or more ways. Many of them are out this year, too:

Coming this year

Sovereign Syndicate

Release date:January 15, 2024 |Developer:Crimson Herring Studios |Link:Steam

A steampunk RPG that takes after Disco Elysium, and replaces dice rolls with tarot cards to really steep you in the Victorian atmosphere. It’s narrative focused, so it’s not going to scratch an itch for more turn-based combat, but for character-driven roleplaying, its “orphaned minotaur magician” and other fantasy protagonists look promising.

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Unforetold: Witchstone

Release date:January 25, 2024 (early access) |Developer:Spearhead Games |Link:Steam

Broken Roads

Broken Roads is a party-based RPG with turn-based combat set in the Australian outback, and lists classic CRPGs including the original Baldur’s Gate among its influences. It was going to release last year, but was delayed to early this year. I’m not instantly in love with the post-apocalyptic setting, but its “Moral Compass” system, which sticks your character somewhere in a mix of utilitarianism, nihilism, humanism, and Machiavellianism has me curious.

Dragon’s Dogma 2

Release date:March 21, 2024 |Developer:Capcom |Link:Steam

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2

Release date:2024 |Developer:The Chinese Room |Link:Steam

Ted brought us up to dateon the latest Bloodlines 2 news back in September. No longer a fresh “thin blood” vampire, we’ll be playing an Elder—a vampire who was turned at least 300 years ago.

Avowed

Release date:2024 |Developer:Obsidian |Link:Steam

A first-person action RPG that’s much more in the tradition of Bethesda games than of Larian’s party-based CRPGs, but Obsidian is one of the best RPG storytellers in the business, and we hope Avowed sucks us into its fantasy world—the same setting as Obsidian’s excellentPillars of EternityCRPGs.

Dread Delusion

Release date:In early access now|Developer:Lovely Hellplace |Link:Steam

This first-person RPG about a medieval society clinging to a collection of asteroids takes its biggest inspiration from The Elder Scrolls 3: Morrowind, but there’s a lot here for the Baldur’s Gate 3 liker. Dread Delusion’s world has that same open-endedness, lack of loading, and verticality that makes Baldur’s Gate 3’s best areas (likeRivington) feel so special, and it’s a game where you see your choices affect the world in real time, like a settlement you doomed having its palace collapse and citizens fall into a panic. It’s in early access now, with the 1.0 release date still TBA.

Further out

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth

Release date:PC release TBA |Developer:Square Enix |Link:Official site

FF7 Rebirth is out in February on PlayStation 5, but alas, no PC release date has been announced yet. It might not even be out on PC this year, but when it is, we expect it to be more sandboxy than FF7 Remake, and in terms of cutscene animation, voice acting, and overall production values, it’ll bring that big cinematic epic vibe.

Where Winds Meet

Release date:TBA |Developer:Everstone Games |Link:Official site

What’s exciting to me about this open-world wuxia RPG are its opportunities for roleplaying the everyday and mundane—or at least things that qualify as mundane in a fantasy version of 10th-century China. Inan interview last year, its developers said that players will be able to do things like “become an orator who uses the power of words to convince NPCs to follow their advice” and “become a bodyguard who protects players or NPCs from assassins.”

The Wayward Realms

Release date:TBA |Developer:OnceLost Games |Link:Steam

According to the developer, The Wayward Realms will include “big cities with hundreds or thousands of NPCs, deep, dark, dangerous forests, gigantic mountain ranges, sprawling swamps and marshlands, vast oceans, and more, brought to life through dynamic, procedural generation.”

Release date:TBA |Developer:Lightforge Games |Link:Official site

(Image credit: Lightforge Games)

Lightforge Games concept art

This unnamed game is a bit of an outlier on this list, in that it sounds more like a platform for collaborative roleplaying. Ina recent article, Fraser described it as “a chimaera that draws from tabletop RPGs, sandboxes like Minecraft, platforms like Roblox and CRPGs like Baldur’s Gate 3, with powerful but accessible creation tools that call to mind games like The Sims.”

PRODUCTSBaldur’s Gate 3Sovereign SyndicateUnforetold: WitchstoneBroken RoadsDragon’s Dogma 2Vampire: The Masquerade—Bloodlines 2AvowedDread DelusionFinal Fantasy 7 RebirthWhere Winds Meet

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Coming this year#

Sovereign Syndicate#

The biggest gaming news, reviews and hardware deals#

Unforetold: Witchstone#

Broken Roads#

Dragon’s Dogma 2#

Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines 2#

Avowed#

Dread Delusion#

Further out#

Final Fantasy 7 Rebirth#

Where Winds Meet#

The Wayward Realms#

Lightforge Games' social RPG#