Summary
- Wolfenstein: The New Order redefined FPS with a diesel-punk fever dream on the PS3.
- Fallout 3's vast post-apocalyptic world brought depth through storytelling and tonal whiplash.
- Dishonored on PS3 delivered a unique stealth sandbox experience despite textural limitations.
The PlayStation 3 might not have had the smoothest relationship with Bethesda’s games—memory limitations, framerate hiccups, and the occasional corrupted save file were all part of the ride—but that didn’t stop some genuinely unforgettable titles from making their mark on the console. Whether they were developed internally or just published under Bethesda's banner, these games helped define the PS3’s RPG and shooter landscape in a big way.
8 Polarizing PS3 RPGs That Are Still Worth Trying Out
These RPGs didn't sit right with everyone who played them, but in hindsight, they still represent some of the genre's best on the PS3.
Some brought sweeping fantasy epics to life, others delivered personal, gritty stories packed with choice and consequence, and a few managed to do both. From irradiated wastelands to ancient Ayleid ruins, these are the best Bethesda titles that made their home on Sony’s seventh-gen hardware.
6 Wolfenstein: The New Order
Wolfenstein Found Its Soul Again In a PS3 Fever Dream
Wolfenstein: The New Order
- Released
- May 20, 2014
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ due to Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Strong Language, Strong Sexual Content, Use of Drugs
- Developer(s)
- MachineGames
MachineGames' revival of Wolfenstein wasn’t just a reboot—it was a full-blown identity crisis, solved through sheer creative confidence. What started as a World War 2 shooter evolved into a dieselpunk fever dream where Nazi lunar bases were just as normal as underground resistance bunkers. On the PS3, it had to make some graphical sacrifices, but it still delivered a cinematic shooter that hit surprisingly emotional highs.
BJ Blazkowicz, once a caricature of ‘90s shooter machismo, here became something else entirely. He dreams, he bleeds, he reflects on love and loss in the middle of decapitating Nazi super-soldiers with a laser cutter. The combat walked a fine line between old-school and modern, offering health packs and dual-wielding madness alongside stealth kills and heavy narrative focus.
For a game with robot dogs and trips to the moon, The New Order still found time for a human story. It's the kind of tonal balancing act that shouldn't have worked—but somehow it did, even on aging hardware.
5 Fallout 3
Capital Wasteland, Capital Storytelling
Fallout 3
- Released
- October 28, 2008
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Genre(s)
- Action RPG
The moment players emerged from Vault 101 and saw the skeletal ruins of Washington D.C. Stretching out before them, Fallout 3 did something no game on the PS3 had done yet: it made post-apocalyptic hopelessness feel... Vast. Despite the technical hiccups and frequent freezes on Sony’s console, Bethesda’s first crack at Fallout after acquiring the IP delivered a world worth enduring them for.
The karma system, V.A.T.S. Combat, and branching dialogue felt revolutionary in 2008, but what stuck out was the sense of place. Galaxy News Radio echoing through bombed-out subways. Tenpenny Tower casting its judgmental shadow across the Wasteland. That quiet guilt after detonating Megaton just to see what the button did.
What made Fallout 3 unforgettable wasn’t just the freedom—it was the tonal whiplash between absurdity and melancholy. One moment, a talking tree named Harold was begging to die. The next, players were nuking mutant ants with a fire-spewing flamer. Few games balance dark humor and existential horror like this one.
4 Dishonored
The Art Of A Perfectly Thrown Glass Bottle
Dishonored
- Released
- October 9, 2012
WHERE TO PLAY
Set in the plague-ravaged steampunk city of Dunwall, Dishonored felt like a lost novella from the pages of Jules Verne and Charles Dickens—if they co-wrote for Arkane Studios and had a thing for rats. The PS3 version might’ve lacked some texture fidelity, but the underlying design was untouched: a stealth sandbox that handed players supernatural tools and said, “Go nuts.”
16 PS3 Games With The Best Storylines
A ton of fantastic tales were told by way of the PlayStation 3, and we're here to tally up the best PS3 games with the strongest narratives.
Playing as Corvo Attano, players could Blink across rooftops, possess fish, and summon swarms of rats to devour enemies—then reload the save and ghost through the entire level without killing a soul. Every mission was an intricate puzzle box with multiple solutions, and the chaos system ensured actions had weight. Kill too many people, and the city grew darker, nastier, more infested with the plague.
Few games dared to intertwine player morality so deeply into the atmosphere itself. Dunwall didn’t just react—it decayed based on how bloodthirsty Corvo became. And on PS3, that slow descent into madness felt even more oppressive thanks to the hardware’s gritty limitations.
3 The Elder Scrolls 5: Skyrim
The One With The Arrow To The Knee (That Still Holds Up)
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim
- Released
- November 11, 2011
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M For Mature 17+ Due To Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol
Even with the PS3’s infamous memory issues that caused dragons to fly backward and save files to implode like dying stars, Skyrim still became one of the most ambitious and beloved open-world RPGs ever made. No one cared about the jank when the sheer scale of the world swallowed them whole.
From climbing the 7,000 Steps to High Hrothgar just to hear cryptic Nordic haikus, to wandering into a random cave and stumbling into a Daedric Prince’s twisted morality play, Skyrim was packed with stories waiting to be unearthed. The world didn’t just have quests—it had cultural arguments, civil wars, and enough lore to fill real-world textbooks. And somehow, it all funneled through the Dragonborn, a blank slate with a shouting problem.
Despite the PS3 version suffering from framerate nosedives in areas like Markarth or after marathon play sessions, players still lost hundreds of hours to smithing exploits, alchemy loops, and trying to Fus Ro Dah a mammoth into orbit.
2 Fallout: New Vegas
The Mojave, Where Every Bullet Is A Debate
Fallout: New Vegas
- Released
- October 19, 2010
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Sexual Content, Strong Language, Use of Drugs
- Genre(s)
- RPG
Obsidian’s Fallout: New Vegas wasn’t just a better Fallout 3; it was a smarter one. Built in just 18 months using the same engine, it leaned less on spectacle and more on player choice. The Mojave Wasteland didn’t ask players to save it—it asked which version of hell they wanted to leave behind.
8 Best Games That Play Like Fallout: New Vegas
It's not easy to capture the essence of New Vegas' feel and gameplay, but these following games come close to it in several ways.
From the moment Benny shot the Courier in the head, players had the freedom to side with corrupt bureaucrats, techno-fascists, anarchist robots, or burn it all down for themselves. New Vegas wasn't about morality. It was about ideology, about what kind of world should rise from the ashes.
It’s remembered for its writing, of course. Mr. House, Caesar, Yes Man—every faction leader had a vision, and they weren’t cartoon villains. They were complicated, charismatic, and terrifying in their own way. The PS3 version had bugs that could derail quests, crash the system, or break the entire mainline path, but fans still call it the most replayable Fallout ever made. And they’re right.
1 The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Where The Fantasy RPG Leveled Up
The Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion
- Released
- March 20, 2006
WHERE TO PLAY
- ESRB
- M for Mature: Blood and Gore, Language, Sexual Themes, Use of Alcohol, Violence
- Genre(s)
- RPG
Before Skyrim dominated dorm rooms and modding communities, Oblivion set the gold standard for Western RPGs on console. Despite being a port of a 2006 game onto the PS3 two years later, it still felt like a revelation. The Imperial City’s shimmering white towers, the haunting orange skies of the Oblivion realm, and the eerie calm of a forgotten Ayleid ruin all felt alive in a way fantasy RPGs hadn’t captured before.
What separated Oblivion from its successors wasn’t just its world, but its tone. Cyrodiil felt classically high fantasy, with knights, guilds, and old magic. Quests were more experimental: a whodunnit murder mystery inside a locked mansion, a painting that sucked players into an oil-painting world, an arena career that could end in glory or embarrassment. Even side missions like the Dark Brotherhood initiation carried more dramatic punch than most main stories in other RPGs.
Yes, the faces looked like potatoes, and the voice acting repeated itself more often than a glitchy loop tape. Yet beneath all the jank was a role-playing experience bursting with charm, freedom, and just enough weirdness to make it unforgettable.
RPGs Influenced by The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
Oblivion is a highly influential game; here is a list of RPGs that incorporate many of its mechanics and structure.