While some video games aim to deliver personal stories above all else, many players still value grand stories with high stakes and epic narratives. From journeys that span several years, taking the players all across vast realms, to character-centered tales that start almost mundane before slowly evolving into grand, world-saving quests, there is no shortage of truly epic video game masterpieces.
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It’s almost impossible to find serious flaws in these games that represent the pinnacle of gaming over the past 16 years.
Today, we’re taking a look at these exact games, titles that everyone should play at least once to appreciate some of the best achievements the gaming medium is capable of. The games below aren’t just some of the best and most universally-acclaimed titles ever, but they also deliver on grand scope with an emphasis on epic experiences without sacrificing character depth and personal moments along the way. Definitive must-plays, these games are almost guaranteed to become a memory that most players will be fond of for years to come.
10 Dragon Age: Inquisition
Still Impressive After All These Years
A decade later, Dragon Age: Inquisition remains one of the best games in the series, almost perfectly balancing the old-school strengths of Dragon Age: Origins with a modern RPG approach. From gorgeous, diverse locations to spectacular battles against dragons and other menacing bosses, Inquisition is a true fantasy epic, delivering the classic tale about the rise of an unknown hero to become a leader who the entire world is looking to as their savior.
Dragon Age: Inquisition aged surprisingly well, still capable of amazing players with its visuals, combat variety, and grand scope, and ending with an admirable twist. Even if Dragon Age: The Veilguard offers some bits and missions that may at times outshine Dragon Age: Inquisition, it rarely feels as grand as its predecessor.
9 Shadow Of The Colossus
Empty World, Infinite Grandeur
Shadow of the Colossus is almost the embodiment of the “less is more” mindset. Technically an open-world game, Shadow of the Colossus isn’t interested in entertaining the players outside their only goal: find and destroy mighty colossi to absorb their power and save their lost love.
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Even with its empty world, Shadow of the Colossus is constantly grandiose, like almost no other game, and each encounter with another colossus is as mind-blowing as the last. Thanks to the modern remake by Bluepoint, Shadow of the Colossus remains an easy recommendation for today’s players, as this minimalistic, epic tale is more than worth it to live through — and be remembered forever.
8 The Last Of Us Part 2
Unmatched Craft Wrapped In Moral Ambiguity
Unlike the first game, with its undeniably strong but pretty familiar road-movie structure, The Last of Us Part 2 takes risks to subvert players’ expectations, and delivers a much more complex narrative from multiple perspectives, eventually colliding the worlds of its main characters with heart-shattering results.
Granted, not every player was a fan of the direction taken by Naughty Dog, but the ambiguous nature of the sequel alone makes The Last of Us Part 2 a rare game that should be experienced first-hand to appreciate how its rollercoaster of emotions makes you feel. Not to mention that, outside of its divisive plot, in every other regard, TLOU 2 is nearly perfect, with unmatched visuals, gameplay, and performances.
7 Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2
Medieval Epic Without A Single Fantasy Crutch
Warhorse’s ambitious sequel is actually the game that the studio wanted to make from the start, taking all the lessons learned from the original to produce a definitive medieval RPG for fans of authenticity and historical accuracy. Even without the recognizable fantasy tropes almost inevitable in its setting, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 remains as believable and demanding as it is entertaining and absorbing for regular RPG players.
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Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 spectacularly balances its character-driven story with moments of sheer epic grandeur, featuring huge, realistic battles and exhilarating castle sieges to experience firsthand, along with other dramatic events that players won’t forget anytime soon. It's a rare breed of a must-play, 100-hour-long modern RPG that players are lucky to get once or twice in a generation.
6 God Of War
Sincere Beating Heart Meets Jaw-Dropping Spectacle
From the get-go, the God of War series was all but associated with some truly epic games featuring gods, mythical creatures, grand locations, and everything in between. Following God of War 3, which essentially hit the plateau of the old formula, the devs had to actually take a few steps back towards a more modest scope and a much more personal story with the series’ modern soft reboot.
However, that doesn’t mean that God of War (2018) lacks anything that you'd find in a true old-fashioned epic. Gigantic bosses, grandiose architecture, several explorable realms with stunning vistas and distinct style — God of War is a near-flawless action-adventure masterpiece with an admirable balance of sincere character-driven moments and revelations, and good old spectacle that fans of the series expect.
5 Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
Painterly Worlds Of Pure Creative Freedom
The newest addition to RPG masterpieces and 2025’s GOTY, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33’s devs have all but overdelivered with their debut project, surpassing even the boldest expectations. Its characters are already iconic, and it offers a fresh and exciting combat system with plenty of depth, stunning art, locations, and music, as well as a captivating story full of meaningful twists. Expedition 33 is a truly spectacular journey well worth taking.
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While being personal at its core, Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is elevated into the realm of epic grandeur with its painted world of rare non-grounded creativity, where the devs can just do what they want. From colossal bosses to creatures that coexist within intricate thematic levels, Expedition 33 paints a distinct canvas that players simply won’t find elsewhere.
4 The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt
Every Choice Echoes Through War-Torn Kingdoms
Easily the most epic game of the trilogy, The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt expanded on everything in the series, letting its players explore a gigantic, war-torn open world, meet kings and emperors, participate in political intrigues, complete monster contracts, and oppose an ancient mysterious evil from another dimension, all while driven by a single personal goal of finding the missing Ciri by desperately following her fading trail.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is a game capable of changing its mood in an instant, tossing humorous quests and moments in between dramatic, even tragic ones, and never forgetting to paint a bigger picture of this believable world and everyone in it to great effect. All this allows players to constantly see and feel the consequences of their actions.
3 Red Dead Redemption 2
A Wild West Epic Bigger Than Any Film
Red Dead Redemption 2 largely plays in a similar field to Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2, picturing a grounded, believable world of the 1899 American frontier experienced through the eyes of a common outlaw. While the essence of RDR 2 is its very human heart, the game itself is one you can call “epic” without exaggeration, packed with characters, conflicts, and life-changing events.
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Set over the course of several months and taking the members of the Van Der Linde gang almost across the entire continent (and outside of it), Red Dead Redemption 2 is an engrossing Wild West saga that can easily outshine any Western movie ever made.
2 Mass Effect Legendary Edition
The Ultimate Space Epic
No, it’s definitely not cheating to pick the entire Mass Effect Legendary Edition remastered bundle as a single game. Given how Mass Effect represents one of the best gaming trilogies of all time, these games are meant to be played back to back, with every decision players make carrying over between entries. Not only that, there’s an apparent evolution of everything from Mass Effect to Mass Effect 2 to Mass Effect 3, with the devs not just recreating what works, but also addressing everything that didn’t.
As for the epic side, rest assured — few action-RPGs out there can ever hope to match the grandiosity of the Mass Effect trilogy, where eventually the entire galaxy unites to fight back the Reaper invasion.
1 Elden Ring
Our Medium’s Lord Of The Rings
Elden Ring sits up there with the best games ever made, embodying perhaps the grandest, most epic RPG journey of them all. Unmatched in its scope, length, variety, and sheer sense of discovery, stepping into the Lands Between for the first time is a memory that will be forever etched in every player’s mind. It’s our medium’s The Lord of the Rings — a game that’s an instant classic for ages.
From its distinct art-style, colossal architecture, sprawling underworld cities buried in the deepest caverns, sky-high mountain peaks, and the golden Erdtree looming on the horizon, Elden Ring is spectacle distilled into a personal experience. It features unspeakable bosses and enemies to defeat, endless caverns to delve into, and a score to knock players out with its grandeur. Elden Ring is the first game to come to mind when thinking of the “greatest epic masterpiece,” and players who still haven’t played it are definitely missing out.
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