We recommend five great role-playing games out of all those available in the Xbox Game Pass catalog, which has a large number of them.
One of the great discoveries of this generation is Xbox Game Pass, a service whose main merit is to have convinced us that this subscription model is not only not bad, but that it can be an inexhaustible source of opportunities to enjoy titles that perhaps , having to pay full price for them, we would not. RPG, in all its aspects, is one of the genres that has progressed the most in recent years and some of the best role-playing games on Xbox One are available on Game Pass, making a selection of the essentials below. Before going to them we have to make honorable mentions to games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which leaves the catalog this month, with what we are facing the last days to play it, Fable Anniversary, that although not strictly an RPG is a fantastic way to discover the saga now that a reboot has been announced, and Fallout: New Vegas, one of the most beloved installments by fans.
Final Fantasy XV
After going through multiple difficulties and starting from the development of the missing Final Fantasy Versus XIII, Hajime Tabata -now outside of Square Enix- and his team were able to create a delivery that, despite everything, was able to meet the expectations of the fans, always soaring. We say in spite of everything because Final Fantasy XV is not exempt from certain experiments that did not finish convincing 100%, such as some dungeons developed in a “peculiar” way, unprecedented playable mechanics in the saga or the many combats that could be solved through quick time events.
Of course, at an audiovisual level, it is not possible to put a single but to a splendid game in this section, with cinematic scenes – less frequent than in previous installments – absolutely spectacular and a fantastic soundtrack, as the saga has us used to. Also the plot section is something that was liked a lot, where the friendship between Noctis, its protagonist, and his companions, took on an importance at the height of the main story, and with a plethora of characters to remember. In addition, it is a game with a huge amount of secondary activities and things to do, especially in the first half of the game, when we have more freedom.
Dragon Quest XI S
The more traditional aspect of the Japanese role also comes from Square Enix with Dragon Quest XI S, the definitive version of the great JRPG of 2018, with new secondary stories and retro-style 2D subplots. Although it came to us almost a year late with respect to its original launch in Japan, it would finally be clear that this wait would be worth it with the unforgettable history of the Luminario and his various travel companions: Erik, Veronica, Servando … Tens and tens of hours with extremely varied content in its plot and playable sections, and ultimately, capable of capturing both lovers of the classics and the most contemporary JRPGs.
Toriyama’s artistic work establishes a perfect symbiosis with the directing work of Uchikawa and Horii, and not only in the characters and enemies, but in settings that, although they do not make up a completely open world, do encourage exploration, as well as Through a good amount of side missions that yes, they are not all designed with the same inspiration. An inherent evil to the Japanese role, surely … However, a game praised by both the public and critics, especially this more complete S version.
Mass effect
While the rumored remastering Mass Effect Trilogy is not official, the best way to discover this great space epic is by playing, for now, the first installment, included in the Xbox Game Pass catalog. When it was released in 2007, there was no question about the form state of Bioware: it was one of the truly elite studios in the genre, coming from other successes like Jade Empire or Star Wars: The Old Republic. With Mass Effect, they dared to create their own galactic saga, which is still very present in the hearts of millions of players who fell in love with its proposal between role and action.
To tell the truth, this first installment is the one with the most role-playing presence, with several classes to choose from for our Commander Shepard, such as Infiltrator, Sentinel, Engineer and more, demanding from there some specialization in them. That is, each class had associated weapons and skills to improve thanks to the progress system, a system that would be more flexible in successive installments of the saga. Before The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Mass Effect already proposed secondary missions with a certain plot interest, many of them related to secondary characters of the charisma of Garrus, Liara or Tali’Zorah, in addition to a universe with great personality and a lore of extreme wealth. Undoubtedly one of the best western-style RPGs of the last 20 years, absolutely essential.
Pillars of Eternity
Once the highest grossing project on Kickstarter – now surpassed by Torment: Tides of Numenera, Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night and Shemue III – when it was known simply as Project Eternity, it turned out to be the game that would give a new youth to classic overhead view RPG. Heir to the classic Baldur’s Gate, Pillars of Eternity, in turn Obsidian showed that they were prepared to take the place left by Bioware in the development of this type of role-playing game, launching in the following years its sequel, Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire , plus Tyranny. It is worth highlighting the great freedom of action of Pillars of Eternity, given that it does not boast no longer of an open world, but even of precisely large scenarios, but it is in the force of its dialogues and the consequences of the player’s decisions where decide the future of the adventure.
The depth of this game is exceptional, being the creation of the character only the beginning of a continuous forge, since we will not stop shaping it during the course of the title, through, as we said, conversational options and decisions, which are not They will only lead to concrete events in the main story, but also in the very secondary ones. These, incidentally, can be carried out in different ways, counting on one more point where the freedom we were talking about shines again. Unmissable to understand the new and successful wave of classic RPG.
The Outer Worlds
Again we must talk about Obsidian to make it the first game that the studio launched after its purchase by Microsoft, even if it was multiplatform, as was initially planned. As a consequence of not having a great Publisher behind it, The Outer Worlds is not a game that attracts attention from a technical point of view, but once you are at the controls, the hallmark of the studio remains intact, and thanks to a plot with a relative weight, once again Obsidian is able, once again, to offer surprising freedom to the player, also in the progression of the character.
We can really say that The Outer Worlds drinks almost directly from Obsidian’s other great first-person hit, Fallout: New Vegas, sharing many of its strengths, and also shortcomings. Among the first is also the care of the secondary missions, some of them really worked, and a sense of humor that they have already shown in previous titles such as South Park: The Stick of Truth, showing that they are also great when they are try to make you laugh. The relationships between companions are also fantastic, being able to follow us to the end if they believe in us or abandon us if we make a decision that they don’t like. As we said, we must forgive its weak points, which it also has, and that is that to the technical section we must add a combat system not too inspired, and although it is a highly recommended game, those aspects have kept it from being memorable. as are others on this list.
