RPGs That Feel Like BioWare Games

With BioWare’s Mass Effect and Dragon Age series once again in the spotlight following The Game Awards, we get this PC Gamer article that takes a look at a number of RPGs by other developers that feel like BioWare games in one way or another. Here’s a couple of examples:

Robin Valentine: I have a bit of an irrational soft spot for Spiders’ games—I’ve not played too much of Greedfall, but I got quite sucked into Bound By Flame and Mars War Logs. They’re janky and awkward, and very much live in the shadow of past BioWare games, but I find them really charming. Part of that is their sheer ambition—I’ve got far more love for mid-tier games trying to punch above their weight than AAA titles playing it bland and safe.

But they’ve also got a bit of an edge to them that I think makes them stand out. By virtue of being smaller, lower budget projects, they’re able to take big risks and just overall be much weirder and, often, bleaker than the mainstream titles they ape. Sometimes a game can be a 6 or 7 out of 10 and still stick in your mind far more strongly than any amount of 8s or 9s.

Jody Macgregor: My favorite part of Baldur’s Gate 2 is when you’re exploring in and around the city of Athkatla, searching for Imoen and building up your party of adventurers. It’s cleverly structured so the information you need is withheld until you can afford to pay for it, meaning you have to run side gigs for cash. You pause the main story and do the companion storylines and any random quest that catches your eye like you’d be doing anyway, only it makes sense for once.

Shadowrun: Dragonfall hijacks that structure and makes it the majority of the game instead of just chapter two. Sure, it’s set in cyberpunk Berlin rather than the Forgotten Realms, but it’s still about getting to know your band of specialists and helping out the NPCs of whichever local factions you feel philosophically aligned with until you earn the coin to pay off an information broker.