CD Projekt RED’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt is one of the greatest action role-playing games (RPGs) ever made. CDPR changed the genre forever by introducing a brand-new gold standard for action RPGs into the fold, and since The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt’s release, many game studios have attempted to replicate Wild Hunt’s success.
Needless to say, few RPGs have truly lived up to this incredible video game. That said, there are a select few that have not only matched Wild Hunt’s masterful world building, immersive gameplay, and amazing storytelling, but surpassed it. This list will cover five action role-playing games that might just be better than CDPR’s The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, though with The Witcher IV right around the corner, Witcher may easily steal that top spot back.
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II Improves on the Original Game
Image via Warhorse Studios
Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is a 2025 action RPG developed by Warhorse Studios and published by Deep Silver for PlayStation 5, Windows and Xbox Series X/S. It is a sequel to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, which is also a strong contender for this list. Both games are incredible entries into the action RPG subgenre, but the sequel just barely edges out the original because the reviews speak for themselves.
Gamers and critics rate Kingdom Come: Deliverance II higher than the 2018 installment, and it sold two million copies in just two weeks of release. The game takes place in the Kingdom of Bohemia during the early 15th century. Players will also get to explore the Lands of the Bohemian Crown and of the Holy Roman Empire. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II picks up where the original game left off, with protagonist Henry of Skalitz fighting in a civil war for King Wenceslaus IV, the currently imprisoned King of Bohemia.
As Henry, players lead a resistance on the difficulty of their choosing against King Sigismund of Luxembourg, an invader attempting to overthrow King Wenceslaus’ rule. Interestingly, although Henry is a fictional character, many characters featured in the series are based on real historical figures, giving the game a sense of realism that many action RPGs lack. Kingdom Come: Deliverance II brings Henry’s story to a satisfying end.
Bloodborne is One of FromSoftware’s Best Games
The Bloodborne player wielding the Beast Claw and wearing the alternate form as enemies approach him.Image via FromSoftware
FromSoftware is one of the go-to studios for incredible action RPGs. Not only is FromSoftward known for immersive RPGs, they have created a whole category of their own known as “Soulsborne,” a mash-up of “souls” and “bloodborne,” which calls back to several FromSoftware projects, including Demon’s Souls, the Dark Souls trilogy and Bloodborne. Soulsborne games are often defined not just by how immersive they are, but by how challenging the gameplay is, giving players who finish the games a sense of pride for overcoming such difficult gameplay.
FromSoftware has plenty of incredible video games under the Soulsborne umbrella, but one of the best has to go to Bloodborne itself. Players explore the city of Yharnam, a Gothic, Victorian-inspired city overrun with a blood-borne plague, hence the title. Players control an unnamed Hunter who must search the city for the source of the plague and, if possible, destroy it, before it succeeds in turning the entire city’s population into horrifying monsters. Bloodborne is the perfect mesh of action RPG and dark, gritty horror, which instantly made it a fan-favorite classic.
FromSoftware’s Elden Ring is a More Modern Contender
The cover art of Elden Ring portrays Knight Vyke bent down with his sword.Image via FromSoftware
Elden Ring is another FromSoftware offering that many gamers have deemed one of the greatest video games ever made. Admittedly, Elden Ring’s story might be a little confusing at first, but with so much to explore, so many enemies to conquer, and so many classes to try, Elden Ring has something for everyone. It also has the bonus of featuring extensive world building by George R.R. Martin, the author of A Song of Ice and Fire, aka, the book series Game of Thrones was based on.
Elden Ring snatched the Game of the Year win in 2022. The game received a DLC called “Shadow of the Erdtree,” which was also nominated for Game of the Year at The Game Awards despite only being a DLC, proving just how incredible and well-loved this game is. It also received a spin-off in 2025 called Elden Ring Nightreign, which may not be quite as good as the original game, but is still plenty popular. An Elden Ring movie is also in the works through A24, with Alex Garland to direct. If any FromSoftware game can beat out Bloodborne, it’s Elden Ring, which also makes it a solid Wild Hunt contender.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is an Incredible Remake of a Revolutionary Game
Image by Surya Punjabi
Final Fantasy is truly a gaming franchise that needs no introduction. Dating all the way back to the late 1980s, Final Fantasy has been a cornerstone of gaming and RPGs for decades. Most Final Fantasy games tell their own stories, leaving room to debate which stories and characters are “the best,” but Cloud’s arc is often a top contender. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the second installment in a trilogy of remakes that are remaking and expanding on Final Fantasy VII (1997) and a direct sequel to Final Fantasy VII Remake. Final Fantasy 7 Revelation will conclude the trilogy in Spring 2027.
Many fans state that while the 2020 game is excellent, the sequel is actually where it truly started to feel like a remake of one of Final Fantasy’s most beloved games. Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is a phenomenal RPG that forces players to utilize both strategy and combat skills to advance. The open world is bright and vibrant, making it one of the most enjoyable modern open world games to explore. Players won’t feel like they’re wasting time exploring, because every single second of it is fun and exciting. The game also features an incredible range of customization, which gives players plenty of ways to play.
CBR Exclusive · Quiz WHICH FINAL FANTASY HERO ARE YOU? The Crystal Has Chosen You From the slums beneath Midgar to the shores of Spira, from the burning ruins of Vector to the edge of a godless future — Final Fantasy’s greatest heroes carry worlds on their shoulders. Each one is a different answer to the same question: who do you become when fate asks everything of you? Fifteen questions. One destiny.
FFVII Cloud Strife Ex-SOLDIER
FFVI Terra Branford Magitek Warrior
FFX Tidus Star Blitzball Player
FFXIII Lightning L’Cie Warrior
01
The party is falling apart before the final dungeon. You: Every hero faces the moment the mission starts to crack.
02
Your past is catching up with you. How do you carry it? In Final Fantasy, no hero escapes who they were.
03
What is the source of your greatest strength? Power in Final Fantasy always comes from somewhere real.
04
You must give something up to save everyone. You choose to sacrifice: The hardest choices reveal a hero’s true values.
05
Someone tells you to smile more. You: Small moments reveal the biggest personalities.
06
A prophecy names you the chosen one. Your reaction? Fate is Final Fantasy’s oldest weapon — and its greatest test.
07
Your battle style in a crisis is: The way you fight is the way you live.
08
The crack in your armor is: Even the legendary have a weakness in the stats screen.
09
An ally betrays the party. Your response: Trust is the most fragile currency in the Final Fantasy world.
10
The world is ending. What keeps you moving? Final Fantasy always asks this. The answer defines everything.
11
Strangers meeting you for the first time would say: First impressions in the overworld matter.
12
You discover everything you believed about yourself was a lie. You: Final Fantasy loves this moment. So does character.
13
What does the party mean to you? No hero wins alone. But why they need others varies.
14
The world that shaped you was: Every hero is a product of the world that broke them.
15
Standing before the final boss, you think: The last save point is behind you. This is what you’ve been building toward.
THE CRYSTAL HAS SPOKEN YOUR FINAL FANTASY HERO
Your scores appear below. The character with the highest number is your match — read their description to discover which legend of the Final Fantasy universe has always lived inside you.
FINAL FANTASY VII Cloud Strife
FINAL FANTASY VI Terra Branford
FINAL FANTASY X Tidus
FINAL FANTASY XIII Lightning
You are formidably capable and brutally self-contained. You built walls so high that even you sometimes forget there’s someone worth knowing on the other side of them. Your strength is real — but it was forged in grief, and part of you has never fully left that burning town. What makes you extraordinary isn’t the sword or the silence: it’s that underneath all the cold precision, you still care about people with an intensity that frightens you. The ones who earn your trust don’t just gain an ally. They gain someone who will walk into the end of the world for them, without ever saying a word about it.
You are extraordinary and don’t fully believe it yet. Something inside you — something ancient and luminous and untameable — has always been there, waiting. Others have tried to control it, define it, weaponize it. What they never understood is that your power isn’t the dangerous part: it’s your heart. The capacity to love that you spent so long being afraid of is your greatest strength. You are not a weapon. You are not what was done to you. You are what you choose to become — and that choice, made quietly, every day, is the most heroic act in the game.
You feel everything at full volume and refuse to apologize for it. Where others calculate, you leap. Where others grieve in silence, you cry out loud and then help everyone else back to their feet. You understand instinctively that love is not sentimental — it’s the most courageous thing a person can do. You walked into a journey you didn’t fully understand for people you had only just met, and you gave it everything you had. That isn’t naïveté. That’s the rarest kind of bravery: the kind that smiles on the way into the dark.
You are relentless in a way that unsettles people who don’t know you — and humbles the ones who do. You buried everything soft about yourself because the world required it, and you made yourself into something no fate, no god, and no system could stop. What people mistake for coldness is actually grief in armor: you loved someone so completely that losing them rewired everything. Underneath the discipline and the precision is a person who would unmake the laws of the universe for the people they love. And has. More than once.
Cyberpunk 2077 Proves that Only CDPR Can Outdo CDPR
Cyberpunk 2077 is an action RPG developed by CD Projekt RED, the same developers who brought the world The Witcher series. If any game is going to truly top The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, it has to be another CDPR game, and Cyberpunk 2077 is that game. Admittedly, Cyberpunk 2077 had a rocky launch and the game was full of bugs and issues, but CDPR was able to recover and polish the game to become one of the greatest modern action RPGs ever.
Cyberpunk 2077 stands out from the rest of the games on this list because it’s not historical or fantasy. In fact, it completely removes the stereotypical fantasy elements that so often accompany the RPG genre in favor of a sci-fi-fueled dystopian world where players control V, a customizable mercenary who lives and works in Night City.
V is outfitted with plenty of tech implants that help them do their job, but it also ends up being V’s undoing, when the personality of a dead terrorist, Johnny Silverhand, is uploaded into their software. V must learn to coexist with Johnny, but if they aren’t careful, Johnny will completely override V’s personality and take control of their body.
