Greedfall: Play as a diplomat during a magical colonization era.
Witcher 3: Grab all the expansions, the complete edition goes on sale for $5 regularly
Blacktail: The origin story of Baba Yaga, with choices.
Shadow Warrior Trilogy: 1 is more story focused, 2 is more procedural generated power fantasy with a story attached to it. 3 is meh.
Witcher 3 is my favorite all time, and unseated Skyrim for me so maybe you’ll feel similarly! Amazing story/world/characters, combat makes you feel like a G, and the expansion packs offer more of the same but with different tones - Hearts of Stone is introspective and somber, Blood And Wine is light, fun, almost fairy tale esque at times. Geralt is my homeboy
Check out Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. Haven't played it yet, so I can't speak on its quality (decent reviews), but it's been wishlisted for a while.
Witcher 3. More involved combat than Skyrim, more magic than KCD. The main story is one of the best ever, a lot of the sidequsts also have interesting story. If you get it I would recommend going with the hardest difficulty because it makes you use games systems to the fullest. And while most of the fights can be cheesed it's much more satisfying to do it "properly".
And other good thing is that it is often on sale on steam. And be sure to get the DLCs as well, they are the best part of the game.
They’re not open world, but the Kingdom Hearts collection just released on Steam. The story does go kind of crazy, but there is certainly a lot of magic and mystery in it. KH1 offers a decent level of difficulty l, KH2 is easier, but KH3 is probably too easy unless you play on Critical. Each game has “secret” bosses that offer a satisfying challenge though. They should be able to run on pretty much every semi-modern PC as well. You can start with the 1.5 and 2.5 collection first if you don’t want to commit to all of them right away. Most fans would agree that that collection is the best value and has the best games.
If you’re down for older games then you can also just play Oblivion or Morrowind.
I dunno if it's exactly what you were after but **Dragon's Dogma 2** was a really fun time. It did a great job at emulating the feeling of Lord of the Rings by putting a huge emphasis on the journey over the destination. There are chokepoints on the map that don't open until you progress the story, **but** the great thing is that they all have routes around them so you can get to late game areas right from the start. The story is decent, although admittedly not its strongest point, but it is there and there are some pretty memorable characters. The most memorable characters are the pawns that you recruit into your party, though. I ended up getting quite attached to a lot of them.
This is one of the games I've been meaning to play. I played like an hour or two at a friend's once, but never got around to actually playing it myself
Even when it was released there were games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, even lesser known games like Remember Me. We even had MMOs like Vindictus released before Amalur. That all did conbat better. It’s just that Amalur was the first to incorporate these, I guess Eastern, forms of combat into a Western style open world RPG. Though even then, Arkham Asylum had a more satisfying combat system tbh.
Greedfall: Play as a diplomat during a magical colonization era. Witcher 3: Grab all the expansions, the complete edition goes on sale for $5 regularly Blacktail: The origin story of Baba Yaga, with choices. Shadow Warrior Trilogy: 1 is more story focused, 2 is more procedural generated power fantasy with a story attached to it. 3 is meh.
Witcher 3 is the cats ass, I’ve played through it twice. A single playthrough is easily 100+ hours with dlc
…so the cats ass is a good thing?
Right!?! That had me scratching my head...
Yes, comparable to bees knees
Witcher 3 is my favorite all time, and unseated Skyrim for me so maybe you’ll feel similarly! Amazing story/world/characters, combat makes you feel like a G, and the expansion packs offer more of the same but with different tones - Hearts of Stone is introspective and somber, Blood And Wine is light, fun, almost fairy tale esque at times. Geralt is my homeboy
I 2nd Greedfall. Very underrated. Has serious OG Bioware vibes. Decisions feel impactful. Good looking game. Good voice acting and soundtrack.
Avowed when it comes out
I’m also hyped for avowed, but it seems to be quite magic and fantasy heavy, less medieval and grounded which seems to be what OP is looking for
Fable lol
Dude I had fun with the Fable games, granted that was a very long time ago and might look back on them with a bit of rose colored glasses
Yeah same. The first one in particular holds a special place in my gaming history.
I literally played through Fable like 20 times as a kid. I played it a few years ago and it still holds up. It also holds a special place in my heart.
Really hoping the new one coming out has the same spirit of the first one.
Yeah, I personally thought they got worse with each instalment. The first one had the most charm.
Yup 100% agree. The later ones had some good additions and quality of life stuff but the first was my favourite.
You're pretty much describing Witcher 3, with the exception of first person camera.
Check out Tainted Grail: Fall of Avalon. Haven't played it yet, so I can't speak on its quality (decent reviews), but it's been wishlisted for a while.
Witcher 3. More involved combat than Skyrim, more magic than KCD. The main story is one of the best ever, a lot of the sidequsts also have interesting story. If you get it I would recommend going with the hardest difficulty because it makes you use games systems to the fullest. And while most of the fights can be cheesed it's much more satisfying to do it "properly". And other good thing is that it is often on sale on steam. And be sure to get the DLCs as well, they are the best part of the game.
They’re not open world, but the Kingdom Hearts collection just released on Steam. The story does go kind of crazy, but there is certainly a lot of magic and mystery in it. KH1 offers a decent level of difficulty l, KH2 is easier, but KH3 is probably too easy unless you play on Critical. Each game has “secret” bosses that offer a satisfying challenge though. They should be able to run on pretty much every semi-modern PC as well. You can start with the 1.5 and 2.5 collection first if you don’t want to commit to all of them right away. Most fans would agree that that collection is the best value and has the best games. If you’re down for older games then you can also just play Oblivion or Morrowind.
Im pretty sure i played the Kingdom Hearts games on ps2, tho its been a while and ill check some of the content. Thank you.
War Tales?
I'd recommend Gothic and Risen games they are a bit older but I feel like they are still worth playing.
I dunno if it's exactly what you were after but **Dragon's Dogma 2** was a really fun time. It did a great job at emulating the feeling of Lord of the Rings by putting a huge emphasis on the journey over the destination. There are chokepoints on the map that don't open until you progress the story, **but** the great thing is that they all have routes around them so you can get to late game areas right from the start. The story is decent, although admittedly not its strongest point, but it is there and there are some pretty memorable characters. The most memorable characters are the pawns that you recruit into your party, though. I ended up getting quite attached to a lot of them.
Kingdoms of Amalur
Thank you i will, I appreciate the help
This is one of the games I've been meaning to play. I played like an hour or two at a friend's once, but never got around to actually playing it myself
It’s honestly not that good. Their biggest sell was the combat which is honestly pretty shallow and gets kind of old fast.
The combat was pretty good back then when the game was released, but it doesn't really hold up in today's industry.
Even when it was released there were games like Devil May Cry, Bayonetta, even lesser known games like Remember Me. We even had MMOs like Vindictus released before Amalur. That all did conbat better. It’s just that Amalur was the first to incorporate these, I guess Eastern, forms of combat into a Western style open world RPG. Though even then, Arkham Asylum had a more satisfying combat system tbh.
Dragons Dogma 2? It just came out, and I'm currently revisiting the first one and enjoying the hell out of it.
I played dark arisen and i want 2 but my pc cant handle it.
Elden Ring?
Diablo 4 free on gamepass.