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What are the best Dungeons and Dragons PC games? The mere mention of Dungeons & Dragons conjures up images of people excitedly unleashing a hail of dice onto a dining room table. From its appearance on Futurama to its inclusion in Netflix’s horror series, Stranger Things, the seminal tabletop roleplaying game is arguably the most recognisable of all pen & paper RPGs.
DnD has also had a long-standing presence on PCs ever since Pool of Radiance in 1988. Since then, the ‘90s gave us some of the best RPGs ever, and more recently we’ve seen plenty of games that use variations on DnD rules as the base for their gameplay, but with a wholly original setting.
So gather your party and venture forth with us as we take a look at the best Dungeons and Dragons games on PC that you can play right now, from those that embrace the setting and characters to games that just use the rulebooks. As a side note, many of our recommendations are modern versions of classic games, but the older versions still work well, albeit without the various quality-of-life improvements.
In no particular order, here are the best DnD games you can play right now:
Neverwinter
Countless iterations of Neverwinter have led to one of the best MMOs that we know and love today. It hosts all the beloved features of a D&D game: DnD classes, spells, abilities, and tons of customization. The fantasy setting and the discernable love for tabletop games shine through in Neverwinter’s world, from the quests you can embark on to the list of free expansions that have accompanied the game over the years. There is a lot of new content for new players.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Not only is this one of the best Dungeons and Dragons games ever made, but also one of the best fantasy games. In fact, it’s even one of the best PC games ever made. Though it would (probably) be impossible to create a videogame that offered the same level of freedom in problem-solving as you get in the tabletop version of DnD, Baldur’s Gate 3 comes about as close as we could ever have hoped.
With a beautifully rendered world (made up of varied locales), a diverse range of likable and interesting characters, and problems that you can approach in countless ways, this is a landmark game. We’re confident that as the years go by, this will always be remembered as a classic – one of those games that absolutely every gamer should take the time to play through at least once.
Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 Enhanced Edition
Early DnD games had players explore worlds from a fixed first-person perspective, but the Baldur’s Gate games’ isometric viewpoint captures the DnD gameplay experience particularly well, giving players a tactical overview that’s more like playing at the table with figurines on a DnD map, watching the dice rolls and challenging tactical battles unfold.
Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2 are famous for their brilliant story and excellent writing, setting a high standard for roleplaying games – particularly when it comes to decision-making and narrative consequences. For example, during a side-quest to retrieve a body for a grieving father from a temple, you can slay the guards or give them gold to look the other way – but if you think outside the box and take the time to return a stolen bowl to one of the priestesses, she will help you sneak in and out without a trace. The original versions of these two beloved RPGs are still perfectly playable, but for the best experience, we recommend the enhanced editions from Beamdog.
Planescape: Torment Enhanced Edition
The Baldur’s Gate games may be the most well-known isometric RPGs of the ‘90s, but Black Isle Studios’ Planescape: Torment deserves just as much acclaim. Unlike the traditional valiant heroes of other DnD games, Planescape: Torment’s the Nameless One is an unconventional protagonist with no memory of who he is and a back covered in runic tattoos.
Like Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment’s gameplay is based on DnD systems but goes a step further, placing a more significant emphasis on the DnD character alignment system to determine how the Nameless One interacts with the world. You can change his alignment incrementally throughout the campaign with your actions, potentially adding or removing obstacles as his alignment influences how others react to his presence. The enhanced edition of Planescape Torment includes never-before-seen cut content, making it the definitive version of the classic RPG.
Neverwinter Nights Enhanced Edition
Neverwinter Nights is another classic old-school DnD RPG, and it’s a virtually endless font of DnD adventures. On top of the base campaign, the Enhanced version has dozens of hours of expanded content to play, but there’s plenty more beyond that; Neverwinter Nights’ Dungeon Master mode allows anyone to create their own adventures within Neverwinter Nights’ engine. Players can run these custom campaigns with friends, and take on the role of the Dungeon Master who joins the game as a referee that issues gold and experience points, controls NPCs, and does pretty much anything a real Dungeon Master would do.
With decades of community-led support, this openly moddable RPG provides tilesets, monster models, and tools to allow budding Dungeon Masters to create ever more complex scenarios. You can even play recreations of classic pen-and-paper adventures, such as the much-loved ‘Keep on the Borderlands’ by none other than Dungeons and Dragons creator Gary Gygax.
Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara
For a completely different change of pace, Dungeons & Dragons: Chronicles of Mystara is a DnD game that’s more of a bundle of two arcade side-scrolling beat-em-ups than an RPG. Both Tower of Doom and Shadows of Mystara challenge players to team up together to slay kobolds, gnolls, and other DnD monsters, but without the maths and dice rolls.
They’re not long games, and they suffer a bit from coin-munching boss fights that are less a test of skill and more a war of attrition. That said, this home version of an arcade classic doesn’t require you to feed your PC pocket change, and you still get a fantastic DnD experience, flinging all kinds of spells at your adversaries.
Solasta: Crown of the Magister
Of course, not limiting ourselves to just games with the official Dungeons & Dragons branding gives us a few more worthy options to consider. One such game is Solasta: Crown of the Magister, a hybrid of XCOM and Baldur’s Gate using DnD fifth edition rules for its mechanics. Following the classic humble beginnings of your party meeting in a tavern, quaffing ale and regaling each other with tales of past exploits, your heroes soon set out on a fantastical adventure to search for pieces of an artifact that could prevent a second cataclysm.
You can check out the Solasta: Crown of the Magister review for a more in-depth look; our verdict is that “though most of the story and dialogue cover well-trodden territory, the combat is challenging and rewarding – even when it feels like the dice have a vendetta against you”. So if you’re up for something set in a completely different world but with familiar mechanics, this is the RPG for you.
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