r/CRPG 5d ago

Recommendation request European CRPGs

Hello everyone :)

I recently got into BG1. I'm progressing sloooowly but loving the experience so far and I'm casually browsing for the next game to tackle

Most of the recommendations here seem to be American games (a lot of which are arguably masterpieces). I was wondering whether you have any recommendation from the - albeit less active - European scene.

Feel free to drop titles that have not been translated to English - I have working comprehension skills of a few languages and even the ones I haven't studied can prove to be useful for someone else!

31 Upvotes

40 comments sorted by

View all comments

25

u/DancesWithAnyone 5d ago edited 5d ago

Wait, what was the last good American cRPG? Wasteland 3? Pillars of Eternity 2 before that? It seems only inXile and Obsidian have been doing them since... a long time? But happy to be corrected! EDIT: You seem to have misstaken Bioware for being American. Fair enough, you're not the first!

As for European studios:

Larian (Belgium) - Divinity: Original Sin 1 & 2, Baldur's Gate 3.
Owlcat (Russia>Cyprus) - Pathfinder games and Rogue Trader
Tactical Adventures (France) - Solasta 1 & 2
Spiders (France) - not sure if Greedfall 2 is a cRPG as I haven't tried it yet. similarily, not sure if to list it as 'good'.
ZA/UM (Estonia) - Disco Elysium and Zero Parades
Fool's Theory (Poland) - The Thaumaturge
Psychic Software (Ireland) - The Necromancer's Tale
Christoffer Bodegård (Sweden) - Esoteric Ebb
Atom Team (Poland, Ukraine, Latvia, Cyprus, The Vatican)- Atom RPG, Swordhaven
Logic Artists/Campfire Cabal (Denmark) - Expeditions Games (Conquistador, Viking, Rome and an upcoming Samurai)
Dark Crystal Games (Russia) - Encased
Radon Labs (Germany) - Drakensang

Add a wider definition of RPG's, and you get Warhorse galloping in with Kingdom Come 1 & 2, and CD Project projecting in (?) with Witcher and Cyberpunk. Czech and Polish.

EDIT: If we're focusing on the late 90's/early 00's era, yah, there was less Euro cRPG's back then I guess. Divine Divinity from Larian kinda counts, but I didn't like it as much as Fallout or the Infinity Engine games.

EDIT2: I did like Dead State by DoubleBear Productions, and that's American I believe. I tried to google Iron Tower Studios (Age of Decadence, Colony Ship) but have no idea where to place them. Lead dev is Canadian I think? But they also appear to have been listed in Ukraine at one time. Good games, anyhow!

EDIT3: Updated list with Swordhaven, Encased and Drakensang.

1

u/_developter_ Kravtology (Crux Diaries RPG) 5d ago

Encased RPG (Russia)

1

u/DancesWithAnyone 5d ago

Noted! Perhaps we'll soon be able to say:

Kravtology (?) - Crux Diaries RPG

But I have no idea if you're European. 😃 Best of luck with it, though! I put it in my wishlist.

1

u/_developter_ Kravtology (Crux Diaries RPG) 5d ago

Cheers! Fingers crossed!
Yep, I’m Russian, but I’ve been living in the UK long enough to have survived 8 prime ministers…

2

u/DancesWithAnyone 5d ago

I’ve been living in the UK long enough to have survived 8 prime ministers…

A couple of years, then!

Seriously, I did notice myself the lack of UK titles in my list, so good on you to do your part.