To some degree, video games have always been about power fantasies. From slaying Ganon as Link to crushing Goombas as Mario, the feeling of thoroughly defeating something else is foundational in the gaming sphere. However, while some games like to balance that fantasy with more grounded elements, or a bit of a stiff challenge to keep things interesting, these next games stick with the fantasy.
From beginning to end, each of these games offers players the tools to cause chaos and the freedom to do so at their whim. There are very few guardrails in place beyond those that help enhance the fantasy of being the ultimate powerhouse. This is the definitive list of the best power fantasy games of all time, and for any player who needs to feel like an unstoppable force of nature, they're the best medicine for that fever.
DOOM: The Dark Ages
Slaying Never Goes Out Of Style
DOOM: The Dark Ages
- Released
- May 15, 2025
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ // Blood and Gore, Intense Violence
- Genre(s)
- FPS, Action, Sci-Fi & Fantasy
It's fair to say that any of the three modern DOOM reboot games is a hardcore power fantasy (and a deeply satisfying one at that), but three things set DOOM: The Dark Ages apart. First off, it takes place in far more open environments, giving players a greater degree of freedom in how they approach combat. Two, there's a dragon that players can ride. Three, there's also a giant Doom Slayer mech they can pilot to engage in massive Pacific Rim-like battles.
While it can be argued that these things make DOOM: The Dark Ages less challenging, what they also do is present the most versatile and deadly version of the Doom Slayer ever seen. That's the thing about power fantasies: they don't necessarily need to put up a challenge. Sometimes, it's better if players feel like nothing can stand in their way, and that's the Doom Slayer's MO.
Carrion
Be The Beast
Carrion
- Released
- July 23, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Genre(s)
- Platformer, Action, Indie Games, Puzzle
Carrion takes a relatively common concept in the power fantasy scene—playing as the villain—and strips away all the pomp and circumstance that often comes along with it. Players assume the role of a tentacled red being known only as "The Creature," who is imprisoned in a secret lab for study by a legion of scientists. Naturally, The Creature breaks free, and players are tasked with a single goal: escape.
While they will uncover some semblance of The Creature's origins as they progress, the crux of the game is to cause as much chaos within the facility as possible. Security forces found within will attempt to fight back, but the scientists who work alongside them will often flee in The Creature's presence. A typical trope of power fantasy games is that everyday people recognize the player's power and are terrified of it, and Carrion captures this element to great effect.
Superhot
Show Me Your Moves
Superhot
- Released
- February 25, 2016
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen Due To Drug Reference, Violence
- Genre(s)
- FPS
At the end of the day, the thing that a power fantasy should provide above all else is a feeling of unstoppable power. Superhot is all about that feeling. What appears to be a fairly bare-bones first-person shooter on the surface becomes a deeply satisfying ballet of bullets and beatings thanks to a single game-changing mechanic: whenever the player stops moving, everything else does, too.
It's a mechanic that might trivialize more standard FPS games like Call of Duty, but in Superhot, a single hit is all it takes to send players back to the most recent checkpoint. That makes combat encounters as much of a puzzle as they are a firefight. However, the ability to dodge bullets, disarm enemies to kill them with their own weapon, and generally shred through opponents when everything goes right, makes Superhot a rare example of how a power fantasy can be both challenging and exhilarating.
God Of War (2018)
Kratos Gets Up Close And Personal
God of War
- Released
- April 20, 2018
WHERE TO PLAY
Every game in the God of War series is a power fantasy at its core. Kratos is a Grecian force of demigod destruction, and he takes on and brutalizes increasingly gigantic foes in his quest for revenge against his father, Zeus. What God of War 2018 does is take all that power and anger and bring it down to a far more personal and intimate level.
Kratos is just as violent in this entry as he was in the original trilogy and its various spinoffs, if not more so; the difference is that, rather than hitting six enemies with every twirl of his Blades of Chaos, each swing of the Leviathan Axe connects with a weight and impact that is almost Soulslike in its potency. It's a far more personal combat system than its predecessor, and when Kratos then goes into battle against a massive Troll or a city-sized dragon, every impact feels more devastating, and the inevitable kill feels like the unleashing of the greatest godlike power in gaming.
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
Physics Makes The Force Feel Good
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed
- Released
- September 16, 2008
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- T For Teen // Violence
- Genre(s)
- Hack and Slash
The modern-day Star Wars Jedi series has done a great job of bringing the power of The Force into players' hands, but at the end of the day, Cal Cestis is a Jedi, and he seeks to do good and restrain his emotional impulses, lest they lead him towards the Dark Side. Starkiller, the protagonist (or rather, the anti-hero) of Star Wars: The Force Unleashed, has no such qualms.
As the apprentice to one Darth Vader, Starkiller is already the disciple to one of the galaxy's deadliest Sith warriors, and his prodigal connection to The Force makes him a threat unlike any seen in the Star Wars universe before (or after). From Force Lightning to mind control, Starkiller fully embraces the Dark Side, and that is reflected in The Force Unleashed's gameplay. While the game's plot tried to push Starkiller towards a more morally ambiguous perspective, the combat forgoes that notion, granting players every Dark Force tool in the Sith toolbelt. There are few feelings in gaming more satisfying than tossing an entire squadron of Stormtroopers off a ledge, or cleaving an AT-AT in half with a single lightsaber swing.
Warframe
Futuristic Free-To-Play Firepower
Warframe
- Released
- March 25, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Violence
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter
Cybernetic ninjas in space; what more needs to be said? Warframe has spent a lot of time and effort in cultivating the kind of positive word of mouth that eludes most free-to-play games on the market today, and a big reason for that is how good it feels to play. Players are a Tenno, a highly-trained warrior dispatched to battle against the many alien and corporate threats that plague the solar system in the far future.
While players are initially restricted to a selection of just a handful of Warframes, once they start accruing Platinum, the game's 111 Warframes are all available for acquisition. Each one offers players new skills and playstyles, and in some cases, new traversal mechanics. Standard enemies fall in seconds to the Tenno's weaponry and abilities, and while some stronger foes can pose a stiffer challenge, the feeling of strength progression in Warframe is rapid and consistent, even for players who aren't interested in spending real money to speed up the process.
Destroy All Humans!
Grand Theft Auto, But It's About Aliens
Destroy All Humans!
- Released
- July 28, 2020
WHERE TO PLAY
The 1950s featured an interesting extraterrestrial panic brought about by things like the Roswell Incident, movies like The Day the Earth Stood Still, and anxieties about the Cold War. While it was made over 50 years later, and then remade 15 years after that, Destroy All Humans! Plays off of that mid-century American sentiment by casting players as a true-blue alien wreaking havoc in the rural US of A.
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Crypto has a slew of alien-based powers with which to cause destruction, from anal probes to psychic disguises. He also has a flying saucer equipped with nuclear weapons and a tractor beam. Virtually everything in the environment is destructible, from buildings and cars to the fragile humans blissfully unaware of the alien threat hovering above their heads. While it's light on plot, Destroy All Humans! Is entirely focused on giving players free rein to unleash alien destruction on Earth, and flexing those muscles is a blast in both the 2005 original and the 2020 remake.
Dynasty Warriors 8
The Best In A Class That It Invented
Dynasty Warriors 8
- Released
- July 16, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- t
- Genre(s)
- Hack and Slash
The entire Musou genre is an extreme power fantasy at heart. From Samurai to Gundam to games set in the Legend of Zelda and Persona franchises, the context isn't as critical as the feeling of being a lone warrior cleaving through dozens—if not hundreds—of lowly foot soldiers with a single weapon swing. Among the numerous entries and spinoffs of the series, Dynasty Warriors 8 still reigns supreme over a decade after its release.
The weapon variety and character roster are the big standouts here. No two characters play alike, unlike other series entries that feature "clones" with reskinned appearances but identical movesets. Here, every character plays differently and sports their own unique weapons to cause battlefield carnage. The soundtrack and costumes are also excellent, but the main draw of these games is engaging in the over-the-top combat, and here, that combat is the most diverse it's ever been. While any entry in the Warriors franchise would fit on this list, Dynasty Warriors 8 manages to do everything right with very few missteps along the way.
Drakengard
Calling In The Fire
Drakengard
- Released
- September 11, 2003
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- m
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG, JRPG, Fantasy, Science Fiction
Sticking with the Musou genre, there is one element Drakengard brings to the table that helps it stand on its own, beyond the great Yoko Taro's directorial influence: Dragons. Drakengard is essentially three different games smooshed into one package. There's the standard Musou experience, called Ground Mode, where players control Caim, the game's protagonist, as he slashes through waves of enemies, typically while making his way through a castle or other enclosed space. Then there's Air Mode, where players control Angelus, Caim's dragon partner, in on-rails shooter sections akin to Star Fox or Panzer Dragoon.
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The reason for Drakengard's inclusion here is the third mode, called Strafe Mode. These battles feature Caim battling against vast armies on an open battlefield. With the touch of a button, Caim can summon Angelus, hop on her back, and decimate huge swaths of those enemies with her aerial attacks. While the game is definitely dated by 2025 standards, its story and gameplay are still worth experiencing. When it comes to Strafe Mode, it makes for the kind of power fantasy that, for some reason, no game has even tried to replicate, despite the undeniable satisfaction that comes from laying waste to a battlefield on the back of a massive dragon.
Saints Row 4
Fun And Logic Were Never A Good Pairing Anyway
Saints Row 4
- Released
- August 20, 2013
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood, Intense Violence, Partial Nudity, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Genre(s)
- Third-Person Shooter, Open-World
The Saints Row series wasn't initially designed to be a power fantasy; the first game was more or less a GTA clone with a few quirks to make it stand out. However, it struggled to compete with Rockstar's juggernaut franchise, so Volition decided to take Saints Row in a different, and more absurd, direction for its second, third, and fourth entries. While each game was solid in its own right, Saints Row 4 is the series at its most satirical, and as a result, it gives players an avatar with the most ridiculous abilities at their disposal.
Players control the Boss of the 3rd Street Saints after they've been elected President of the United States. Moments after their introductory press conference, Earth is hit by an alien invasion, and the Boss is granted superpowers with which to fight back. From leaping over buildings to super-speed to elemental abilities and telekinesis, the "story" is really just an excuse to unleash one of the most absurdly powerful protagonists in video game history. Add to that the array of absurdist weapons, such as the Dubstep gun, and Saints Row 4 proves that a power fantasy doesn't need logic to be fun; in fact, throwing logic out the window may be the most fun decision of all.