Video game 2020

Cyberpunk 2077

A science-fiction RPG whose own history has become almost as remarkable as Night City itself: a chaotic launch, patient reconstruction and a spectacular second life.

Cyberpunk 2077 immerses the player in Night City, a futuristic metropolis where implants, corporations and violence shape both its characters and its gameplay. After a difficult launch in 2020, CD Projekt RED’s RPG was extensively reworked over the following years, eventually becoming, with Update 2.0 and Phantom Liberty, a noticeably different experience from the one players discovered at release.

Cyberpunk
Action RPG
FPS

Video game 2022

Elden Ring

The game in which FromSoftware opened up its Souls formula, turning difficulty into a constant invitation to explore elsewhere.

With Elden Ring, FromSoftware transposes its demanding action RPG formula into the vast Lands Between, an open world where exploration, discovery and freedom of progression profoundly reshape the formula inherited from the Souls games. Released in 2022, it became the studio’s greatest commercial success and one of the most highly awarded games of its generation.

Dark fantasy
Action RPG
Souls-like

Video game 2024

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

FromSoftware draws the Tarnished into an even denser, more vertical and more hostile Land of Shadow, following in Miquella's footsteps and uncovering a history the Lands Between had carefully buried.

Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is Elden Ring's major expansion. It opens the Land of Shadow, a new territory marked by Miquella, Messmer and a forgotten war, while adding new bosses, weapons, spells, equipment and progression systems. FromSoftware condenses the strengths of its open world into a more compact, vertical and deliberately demanding adventure.

Adventure
Dark fantasy
Action RPG

Video game 2021

Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut

Sucker Punch extends Jin Sakai's journey with Iki Island and refines an adventure where saving Tsushima gradually means disobeying everything a samurai had been taught about how to fight.

Ghost of Tsushima: Director's Cut brings together Jin Sakai's complete adventure, the cooperative Legends mode and the Iki Island expansion. Between katana duels, stealth, wind-guided exploration and the conflict between tradition and survival, Sucker Punch builds a romanticized vision of feudal Japan whose beauty serves both the journey and its hero's inner struggle.

Action
Adventure
Historical

Video game 2013

Grand Theft Auto V

Three criminals, one enormous city and a series of heists that turn Los Santos into a satirical playground.

Grand Theft Auto V follows Michael, Franklin and Trevor across Los Santos and Blaine County. Rockstar combines heists, open-world freedom and social satire in an adventure built around three protagonists the player can switch between.

Action
Adventure
Third-person shooter

Video game 2023

Hogwarts Legacy : L'Héritage de Poudlard

Avalanche Software finally opens the doors of a freely explorable Hogwarts and turns the dream of attending wizarding school into a vast open-world action RPG.

Hogwarts Legacy : L'Héritage de Poudlard transports the player into the wizarding world at the end of the 19th century, long before the adventures of Harry Potter. Between magic classes, exploration of Hogwarts, combat, fantastic creatures and ancient secrets, Avalanche Software above all builds an immense experience of immersion in a universe long dreamed of but rarely explored with this much freedom.

Adventure
Fantasy
Action RPG

Video game 2022

Horizon Forbidden West

The sequel where Guerrilla expands every dimension of Horizon — exploration, mobility, machines and world design — sometimes at the risk of making its open world almost too generous.

Horizon Forbidden West continues Aloy’s journey into the Forbidden West, a region where a collapsing biosphere, new tribes and increasingly imposing machines extend the stakes of Horizon Zero Dawn. Released on PS4 and PS5 in 2022 and later on PC as a Complete Edition in 2024, the game refines combat, expands mobility and gives its open world significantly greater density.

Adventure
Science fiction
Post-apocalyptic

Video game 2020

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales

Insomniac hands New York over to Miles Morales for one winter to tell not how to become another Spider-Man, but how to find his own way of wearing the mask.

Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales continues the universe established by the 2018 game while placing Miles at the center of the story. Shorter and more focused, the adventure retains Insomniac's acrobatic traversal and combat while developing bioelectric powers, camouflage and the personal identity of this new Spider-Man.

Action
Adventure
Open world

Video game 2023

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2

The game where Insomniac fully brings Peter Parker and Miles Morales together, making movement, the symbiote and an expanded New York the driving forces of an adventure built around two heroes.

Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 brings Peter Parker and Miles Morales together in an expanded New York that now includes Brooklyn and Queens, with new powers, Web Wings and much faster traversal across the city. Released on PS5 in 2023 and later on PC in 2025, the game pushes Insomniac’s formula toward greater speed, spectacle and complementarity between its two heroes.

Action
Adventure
Open world

Video game 2018

Red Dead Redemption 2

Arthur Morgan rides with the Van der Linde gang through a disappearing American West, between survival, loyalty and personal choices.

Red Dead Redemption 2 follows Arthur Morgan and the Van der Linde gang in 1899, as the age of outlaws approaches its end. Rockstar combines western, open world and ensemble storytelling in an adventure where everyday life matters as much as gunfights.

Action
Adventure
Western

Video game 2023

Starfield

In 2330, an explorer joins Constellation and travels across the Settled Systems in search of artifacts connected to one of humanity’s greatest mysteries.

Starfield transposes Bethesda’s RPG formula into a vast science-fiction universe. Planetary exploration, combat, factions, shipbuilding and character choices accompany a quest centered on Constellation’s mysterious artifacts.

Action
Adventure
Science fiction

Video game 2011

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim

Bethesda Game Studios turns a frozen province into an adventure where a silhouette beyond a mountain can still make you forget the quest you meant to follow.

The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim takes the player to the northern province of Skyrim as dragons return and civil war pits the Empire against the Stormcloaks. As the Dragonborn, the player can follow this prophecy or simply wander elsewhere: guilds, dungeons, magic, crafting, exploration, homes, vampires, dragons and mods have made Skyrim one of the most enduring open-world RPGs of its era.

Adventure
Fantasy
RPG

Video game 2015

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

CD Projekt RED turns the search for Ciri into a vast journey through a dark fantasy world where the monsters hardest to understand are not always the ones Geralt is paid to hunt.

The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt follows Geralt of Rivia across a war-torn Continent as he searches for Ciri, his adopted daughter, pursued by the Wild Hunt. Between monster contracts, political intrigue, choices whose consequences can surface much later and exceptionally developed side stories, CD Projekt RED builds an open-world RPG that has become one of the genre's major references.

Adventure
Dark fantasy
Action RPG

Works that feed creation.