Video games have a long-standing history of allowing you to step into the shoes ofsomeone else in another time and place, allowing you to experience life from a different perspective.
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Historical RPGs take this experience to the next level by shaping the world around you to be as periodically accurate as possible, often ensuring the most minute of details are true to life in order to retain the sense of realism in their settings. From landmark locations to the way characters talk, each detail is lovingly crafted to be as immersive as possible. After all, it’s the immersion that allows you to discover new and exciting details of the game.
8Expeditions: Rome
The Expeditions series is no stranger to creating historically-accurate worlds to explore. The first two entries in the series take place during the Age of Discovery and the Viking Age respectively, with each installment building on the mechanics and scale of the previous games.
Expeditions: Romeputs you in the shoes of a young noble turned legate in the later years of the Roman Empire. What starts out as a simple coming-of-age tale turns into a tale of politics, battlefield strategies,and even romanceas the legate conquers territories across Asia-Minor, Africa, and Gaul.
7Kingdom Come: Deliverance
InKingdom Come: Deliverance, you play as Henry, the son of a blacksmith, who pursues justice for his family after they are murdered during a raid on their village.
Set in 15th century Bohemia, the game allows you to customize your skills in order to survive as Henry,alone in a hostile world. Kingdom Come also includes a mandatory food and sleep system, which requires you to eat and rest in order to stay healthy. Failure to do so will result in Henry being exhausted faster, causing a severe hindrance to his combat skills.
6Pentiment
From the creators of Fallout New Vegas and Pillars of Eternity,Pentimentis a narrative-heavy RPG that revolves around Andreas Maler, an illuminator at a small abbey, who is unwittingly thrust into the role of a detective.
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The entire game takes place in Tassing, a fictional town in the Duchy of Bavaria, as Andreas investigates a series of murders that plagues the town throughout the years. With itsgraphics that mimic illustrationsof that era and an hourly system where time passes based on your actions, Pentiment is a curious look into both the world of art of the time and the everyday lives of an ordinary person in the 16th century.
5Ghost Of Tsushima
Inspired by samurai cinema such as Akira Kurosawa’s Yojimbo,Ghost of Tsushimais a glimpse into the Mongol invasions of Japan of the 13th century.
As Jin Sakai, the sole survivor of the massacre of his clan and a prominent warrior, you must navigate the island of Tsushima and rebuild his arsenal, collecting allies and supplies on the way. Ghost of Tsushima deliversan in-depth look at Japanese culture, as well as the samurai code, allowing you to make choices that will affect Jin’s outlook on his situation as a whole.
4Empire Of Sin
Empire of Sinis a real-time strategy game that allows you to step into the role of a crime boss during Prohibition trying to take over Chicago’s seedy underbelly.
Like your usual grand strategy games, Empire Of Sin relies on you making calculated moves to maximize your profits and take over enemy territories, all while keeping your network of subordinates happy with their cut of the money. But if you play your cards right, you will find yourself the kingpin of Chicago before long.
3Assassin’s Creed Origins
The tenth game in theAssassin’s Creedseries,Assassin’s Creed Originsis set in Egypt during the end of the Ptolemaic period. The story follows Bayek of Siwa and his wife Aya as they seek revenge for the death of their son at the hands of unknown assailants.
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With its careful attention to detail, such as experiencing mirages when you’re out in a sandstorm, to recreating landmarks and ancient paintings to the letter, Origins ensures that you feel as though you’ve truly stepped back in time into Ancient Egypt.
One of gaming’s biggest triumphs,Red Dead Redemption 2is set during the last days of the Wild West, following outlaw Arthur Morgan as he tries to hold on to the last vestiges of the outlaw life and the only family he’s ever known.
Rockstar Studios spent almost a decade developing this game, and doing high-level amounts of research. From the accurate clothing to the mannerisms of NPCs, to even how your horse’s anatomy reacts to certain degrees of temperature, it is clear that RDR2’s world is as close as you’ll ever get to stepping through time back to the late 1800s.
1Crusader Kings 3
Another entry in Paradox Interactive’s grand strategy collection,Crusader Kings 3is a Middle Age walk through dividing and conquering your way to become a long-lasting dynasty stretching along the globe.
In the third installment of the series, you live out the life of a noble who either betters the future for their heirs or rains fire and brimstone upon everything. True to the period it is set in, you can choose to wage holy wars, retain an iron grip upon their vassals, and enhance your kingdom to an almost unstoppable global powerhouse.
