I was just wondering if there are any RPGs out there that I haven't heard of that are similar to the Elder Scrolls series. You know, open world, skills, first person, exploration type RPGs that aren't just grinding/click fests? I have a feeling now that I've read many interviews/seen gameplay footage etc. that Skyrim just won't be the "Rejuvenation" of the series that I thought it would be... seems more like TES is slowly drifting towards a shallow action, Fable like RPG. Trust me, I'm trying to keep an open mind, but it is difficult (not everyone is inherently an optimist).

So any similar games you guys recommend? I don't usually play RPGs, so I have absolutely no idea.

This isn't the right board for this

Wrong board, this has nothing to do with Skyrim

I moved this to Community Discussion. Carry on.

Divine Divinity, Ultima, Gothic comes into mind.
EDIT: Might and Magic too.

And comparing to those, Skyrim seems far from "shallow action"...

Try a total conversion or mod the hell out of Oblivion/Morrowind. There are games that are open world, first person RPGs but none of them are very similar to TES. I'd recommend Mount & Blade: Warband if you haven't played it.

Fallout 3 and New Vegas?

Yeah... The Gothic series is dead now. Same thing that's happening to the Elder Scrolls. Mainstreaming [censored]. Latest Gothic game "Arcania" is literaly just a hack and slash game with little RP features. But to the OP, I could recommend a bit... Depends on how much graphics mean to you.

The Gothic series is something you should definitely check out. http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/gothic and http://www.gog.com/en/gamecard/gothic_2_gold_edition are both excellent, while Gothic 3 is flawed but still can be worth a play (but stay away from its expansion and from Gothic 4); Risen is also an excellent game and basically a re-branded continuation of the Gothic series.

You might also want to take a look at http://www.nehrim.de/indexEV.html- it's a total conversion mod for Oblivion, but of excellent quality and easily stands alongside major commercial titles.

dare I saw two worlds?? It comes close to what it is like, but it doesn't even come close to the awesomeness that is elder scrolls.

You should be punished for even bringing up the atrocity. With fire. Lots of fire. :flamed:

Wizards & Warriors on the PC is very much llike The Elder Scrolls---that is if you can get it to play.

As long as I can take the game down with me I will take the punishment so TES will be glorified in righteous honor.

This. Anyone who considers themselves a TES fan should try Nehrim.

Gothic II is good, if you can overlook the lame player-character.

Two Worlds II can be enjoyable for 30hrs+ if you can overlook the fact that it's flawed and a bit [censored].

Once you get over the dreadful voice-acting and somewhat patchy MQ, it's actually a really nice game, I think. Lots of exploring to do and a lot of imagination and inventiveness went into it. It's certainly the better game of the series: Two Worlds 2 is more polished and has professional voice acting but much of the magic was lost when addressing the mistakes of the original. Personally I'd put it on par with Gothic 3 and Risen in terms of interest and enjoyment.

At risk of going down the "not as good as it used to be" route that I often find so frustrating, I'm inclined to agree with the concern over Gothic 4 (Arcania); I thought that the demo was promising albeit unpolished, but the actual release was just as unpolished and I simply couldn't force myself to play any further than I got in the demo anyway. Perhaps it got better later on, but I didn't have the inclination to find out. Shame, really: I can see that it had the potential to be something great, but it fell way too short of the mark.

One game I always recommend is the Dragon Knight Saga (also known as Divinity 2 and Ego Draconis, kind of; wish they'd settle on one name!) It's not everyone's cup of tea, but it's pretty, humorous and the large number of side-quests make it interesting. Although it uses the same Gamebryo engine as Oblivion, it's obviously much more "hand made", which is to its benefit. They've never got the combat balance quite right, but overall it's a fairly minor problem in the grand scheme of things. For completionists, the penultimate quest really svcks, but overall it's an excellent game.

No it isn't, Piranha Bytes has reacquired the Gothic rights, expect to see more of it in between the Risen games.

there's plenty of open-world RPGs, but there's very few first-person open-world RPGs and almost no RPGs that allow the same kind of freedom that Bethesda games offer.

Ultima VII is hands down the closest thing you'll get to an Elder Scrolls game without playing an Elder Scrolls game, and in a lot of ways does things better. it's dated, though, and the combat isn't really very good and the isometric angle is really kind of weird.

Gothic seems pretty close to a Bethesda game as far as giving you a big world and letting you do stuff, but there's no character creation (though there is character development) and it's not quite the same kind of freedom. Mount & Blade offers a wide open sandbox but the majority of the game's focus is on fighting to control areas. Two Worlds 2 is only vaguely comparable in that it's an open world with quests. i haven't played Divinity 2 but it looks neat.

STALKER is really the closest thing i've played to the kind of open-world RPG experience Bethesda games provide, as far as the emphasis on exploration and emergent gameplay and the ability to join different factions, but they're very combat-heavy games and the RPG aspects lie mostly in your ability to upgrade your equipment and in choice-consequence stuff with quests in the third game.

Red Dead Redemption is almost comparable. it's a big immersive world with a ton of stuff in it to do but there's no real RPG aspects at all and the game world gradually opens itself up to you as you complete more of the main storyline. it's a fantastic game though and you should totally play it if you haven't.

but on actually reading the OP you seem like you just want more numbers, so like others have said Gothic is probably the way to go. i've only played Gothic 3 myself - it's a pretty neat game with really nice atmosphere and environments but the combat is kind of horrible. most people say the first two are better in pretty much every way though so give those a shot.

Arcania svcks stay away from that. i didn't like Risen either, mostly because there was no first-person view and the third-person animations were terrible and floaty and rrrrrrrrr.

Gothic 2 but don't even bother with gothic 3 and arcania

Gothic 1 and 2 are amazing, two of the very best RPGs ever made... but they're quite different in approach from the Elder Scrolls. Still, I consider them must-plays for RPG enthusiasts.

Really? I thought it was just a diablo clone. If it is more like Morrowind (albeit in 2D), maybe I'll take it off my to-trade/sell list...

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Gothic 1 & 2. I suggest using mods, though, especially for the graphics. For G2, I'm planning on using a mod that eases the difficulty for skill point attainment. Also, Gothic 1 & 2 combat svcks. In fact, it svcks so much that you'll still want to run away from enemies even if you are in god mode.

And, oddly enough, I would put Okami on the list. Not much in the way of RPG, but it is a huge open sandboxy world with lots of hand-placed loot and quests.

Arx Fatalis is also a contender. Personally, I disliked it for many reasons - poor combat, lame story, no dialog choices, bugs, strange armor/weapon repair system (like, you repair it and then its health goes down. WTF?). The source code was recently released, I can only hope that mods are made for that poor old game. It had a lot of potential, but ultimately felt empty and was filled with cliches and poor attempts at cleverness (ooooh, you'll never guess that I'm the villain, not if I change my name to be the reverse-spelling of the villain's name!)

Minecraft?

Might and Magic 6 and 7 are fantastic Action RPGs. Quite old, but some of the most addictive and challenging gameplay in the genre.

There is quite a ton of clicking involved, especially for melee, but the magic system is quite fun. Plus, you can choose between real-time and turn-based combat modes, and I actually prefer the latter's strategic appeal over the chaotic and speedy real-time.

The gameplay itself uses some very basis D&D rules, mainly for damage and attack formulas, and the games have a very medieval feel to them. There's a skill system where you increase your skill in magics, weapon types, and other abilities like Disarm Trap, Learning (More XP), Body Building (More HP) Enchanting, etc. It works a lot like Fallout 3, in that you allocate points upon reaching a level.

Finally, the Might and Magic games, at least the ones I've played (6 and 7) are brutally difficult and require patience, persistence, and good planning to beat. These games do not [censored] around. I mean it, many enemies will weaken you, confuse you, kill you in one hit with a death skill, lower your level, and make your characters old and crippled.

It's nothing like a Diablo Clone. But I second Vometia's recommendation of The Dragon Knight Saga, formerly Ego Draconis/Divinity 2. It is not really open world, but there are plenty of side quests and you can explore a good deal. It's a pretty game too.

I picked up Sacred 2 a while back, in a bargain bin, and it's nowhere near the depth of an ES world, but I had a blast with the game - definitely got my money's worth, loved a lot of the world-building and details in the game, lost of pop-cultural silliness. It was enjoyable, and honestly, sometimes that is all I want out of a game. Similarly, the much-maligned Two Worlds - I go 30+ hours of game time from that, found the wooden voice acting and the hilariously badly written dialog to be amusing. The It's-so-bad-its-good school of amusemant. But there were some cool things they did in the game - like the armor and spell stacking, liked the mounted combat, liked some of the world building. Perchance you would like it too, and it is cheap.

Good fantasy games, but linear - Dragon Age: Origins (not the horrible horrible DA2 tho) and The Witcher Enhanced Edition. (I have not yet gotten too far into Witcher 2, my computer wants to curl up and die, so that is waiting on an upgrade.) Mass Effect 1 I also loved, because I felt like I was able to explore a lot (even though secretly you are mostly on rails.)

Red Dead Redemption, which is in no way a fantasy setting, is pretty cool. (Well, as least as far as I could play in it, with my general controller ineptitude.)

There are a number of series or games that fit the bill of being similar to the Elder Scrolls series. The genre that TES sits in isn't unique to it - that genre of course being of the nature that it is open ended, free world with a focus on being able to have 'choice and consequence' to a degree. Within this genre the well known constructs of having decent dungeon deviling and non combat related activities are well known. As such the series itself did not start this genre and there are a fair amount of titles that predate it that are also within the realm of possibility for interest in relation to the series. Because I have a vested interest in this genre as a whole, I know a fair amount about the games within it I can list a large number of titles, I will do so somewhat chronologically so that perhaps you'll find one of interest.

Of course to begin there are all the titles in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Elder_Scrolls that follow the gameplay traditions to a degree in all the titles. Arena and Daggerfall are freeware while Morrowind and Oblivion are both available to buy for a fairly low price. As well from Bethesda there are the modern http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fallout_(series) games as well as the other games in the series - all of which to a certain extent emulate aspects of the genre as a whole.

Other modern games of some interest would be the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Two_Worlds_(video_game), http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gothic_(series) and http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Divine_Divinity series. All of them have a fair amount of free-form gameplay as well as choice. While some of the titles in the series are either somewhat aged (Gothic) or at a different style then the Elder Scrolls series (Divinity) they are all easily available online from various places and quite enjoyable.

Getting into older titles there are still quite a few, which have been mentioned already. These titles vary in their degrees of freedom or accessibility but overall are great choices if you're looking for something different. My personal favourite series of all time is within this - the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ultima_(series) series. This series of games created most of the aspects of rpgs we know today (and is said to have created the staples of jrpgs we see even today). With the 7th installment 'The Black Gate' you will get what is probably the most detailed world simulation in a videogame to date, but all the titles after the first couple are great choices to play. While somewhat difficult to find today, you can buy them used online through eBay or such for quite a cheap price.

Another older, but great choice is the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Might_and_Magic series, they are a first person party based rpg series that pokes a little fun and allows a lot of freedom in exploration (which is one of its mainstays), a similar series in most ways would be the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wizardry series. Both of these series are fairly old, but classics and pretty easy to get copies of online.

Now this isn't a very large list or really even all that good of a list, however it will point you in the right direction for some major series that could peak your interest to try out. Other games that may be of interest would be little series like http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Magic_Candle or all the http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Dungeons_%26_Dragons_video_games rpgs that have been out over the years.

If you're looking to find these titles listed above, or similar your best bet is to first check out such sites as http://www.gog.com and http://www.gamersgate.com/ before looking on eBay, because lately a lot of these old series have been appearing online for quite cheap.

Hope this helps.

Definitely not a Diablo clone, although the first town and the dungeon there may make it seem somewhat like one. However, the rest of the game plays much more like an open-world RPG, just isometric rather than first-person.


While I hear this from a lot of people, I really have to disagree with it. The combat at first may certainly seem like a real pain, but once you get the hang of it I think it's actually quite enjoyable. It just requires a much more tactical approach than most people first try to take- you have to learn to read enemies' attacks, learn their preferred attack sequences, learn how to counter these with dodging, blocking, and your own attacks, and against multiple opponents always be careful how you position yourself against the enemies to avoid getting flanked. I particularly liked that some of the strong enemies (Trolls, Dragon Snappers, Orc Elites) could still pose a serious threat to even high level characters if they got sloppy, while they could still be taken down without much trouble (even by lower-level characters) as long as you kept your wits about you knew what tactics to use against them.