The fireplace’s burning low. The highway forward seems grim. The companion who has spent half your journey needling you clearly has one thing on their thoughts, and also you’re one or two appropriate dialogue selections away from getting them to spill. You decide a reply. You’re feeling it land. Then any individual makes a joke about cheese, and the stress breaks.
This is among the many issues the Dragon Age franchise does nicely. On this sequence, from Origins to Veilguard, you collect a celebration of real-feeling companions and grapple with celebration administration. These are additionally tactical video games — video games the place you should pause your fight encounters, level on the greatest risk, and hope in opposition to hope that your mage remembers she’s standing in a pool of fireside. They’re political video games, filled with nobles and templars quibbling concerning the fates of their respective territories and groups. And so they’re video games the place penalties stick. A alternative you made in a prologue will come again to chunk you hours (or total video games) later, often when you’re simply minding your personal enterprise amassing elfroot for a salve.
It could be unlikely that we’ll see a brand new Dragon Age title anytime quickly. (Earlier this month, former Dragon Age author David Gaider said that “the golden days are over.”) But there are nonetheless campfires value stopping at. Should you miss that feeling of saving Thedas by day and hanging out together with your celebration of oddball companions by evening, take a look at these 4 upcoming RPGs. Take into account this your recruitment display.
4
Solasta 2
Launch date: Early entry now; 1.0 TBA
The place to play: Home windows PC
You possibly can never keep every companion happy in Dragon Age. Solasta 2 eases you into this unending quest for stability by beginning you off with your loved ones. You lead the Colwall siblings, orphans from a family tied to a spiritual order sworn in opposition to an evil referred to as Shadwyn. Quickly, the siblings journey to a brand new continent, the place the opening metropolis, Caer Mar, comes with rebels, factions, and loads of hassle.
Should you favored pausing Dragon Age to plan each battle, this turn-based tactical RPG (which has been in Steam Early Entry since March 2026) presents loads of events to plan. Positioning, line of sight, and excessive floor resolve most battles, and D&D followers will respect the possibility to make use of spells like Magic Missile and Shatter to deal injury. Between fights, as you trek your approach throughout Neokos, your role-playing selections will affect your standing with the world’s factions — which, in flip, adjustments how the world responds to you. Cross the incorrect faction, and the retailers might cease promoting you the good things.
Solasta 2’s Early Entry solely covers a part of Act 1 and comes with a low stage cap — you may solely get to stage 4 presently. Developer Tactical Adventures says it intends to remain in Early Entry for about a year, and 1.0 will elevate the cap to 10 and end the primary questline. Whilst you wait, you may play the primary sport, Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It’s a crunchier D&D expertise, so brush up in your spell technique earlier than you boot it up.
3
Outward 2
Launch date: Early entry Feb. 8, 2027
The place to play: Home windows PC
What if the Dragon Age: Origins prologue forged you as a vagrant with a nasty perspective and no plan? In Outward 2, you play an bizarre individual in Aurai, a harmful world the place most individuals by no means depart their hometown partitions. You’ll select one in every of three beginning situations — a miner within the northern mountains of Tramontane, a house owner within the underground metropolis of Haboob, or a vagrant in Simeon’s Bastion. Then, you’ll get a background and persona traits like Hoarder, Connoisseur, or Lone Wolf that change your dialogue, beginning gear, and aptitudes.
Surviving Aurai will take greater than a sword. Starvation, thirst, exhaustion, and climate threaten you as a lot because the world’s creatures do…and also you don’t get mounts or quick journey to present you a fast approach out of a good bind. This sport is extra dedicated to realism (learn: struggling) than your regular RPG. Armor weight will change how briskly you progress. If you wish to keep cellular throughout a battle, you’ll have to drop your backpack. You possibly can wield a unique weapon in every hand, like a sword and protect, twin axes, or a mace and pistol, and trainers train abilities for a price. However you may’t simply be centered on survival: Your selections will pull you towards a faction that can form your story. Will you be part of a budding mercenary firm, a society of historians, or a humanitarian mission? What’ll occur after you do?
Outward 2 will assist on-line and split-screen co-op, which implies your companions may also be your IRL associates. Whilst you look ahead to this title, play the primary Outward in case you like your fantasy with a facet of hypothermia. Regardless, deliver a buddy. And a heat cloak, as a result of the seasons in Aurai present no mercy.
2
Fable
Launch date: Feb. 23, 2027 (Feb. 18 with the Premium Version)
The place to play: PS5, Home windows PC, Xbox Sequence X
This sport’s not out but, however Albion already has opinions about you. Right here, you play as the hero of Briar Hill, “an bizarre individual made extraordinary by destiny.” From there, it’s as much as you to resolve what sort of hero you’ll be. Your built-in rival is Isabel, performed by Hayley Atwell, a pushed, highly effective hero on a quest to proper a tragic injustice. She opposes you and Humphry, her former guardian. With interpersonal battle this charged, who wants a world to save lots of?
Dragon Age taught us that the world should remember what you did, and Albion takes the lesson significantly. Your popularity impacts how the world’s 1,000+ handcrafted NPCs deal with you. That popularity can reshape the world round you and develop your energy. Past popularity, you may romance villagers, have kids with them, and begin your personal cozy life whereas chaos reigns above you.
Dragon Age blends darkish material with humor very nicely. Fable appears prepared to hold on that individual mission. Certainly one of its spells, “Befowl,” turns enemies into chickens (and undead enemies into undead chickens, naturally). Isabel has an injustice to proper and also you’re standing in her approach, so hold that rooster spell useful.
Get Polygon’s Wishlister e-newsletter
A weekly cheat sheet to what you’ll finally like to play. No shopping for, no
dedication — simply saving for later.
Free. Unsubscribe anytime.
1
Clockwork Revolution
Launch date: 2027
The place to play: Home windows PC, Xbox Sequence X
Should you ever wished you would replay your first Dragon Age marketing campaign and repair only one determination, Clockwork Revolution could be your invitation to just do that. Dragon Age gave us choices that follow you from game to game. InXile’s first-person RPG explicitly helps you to rewrite your personal choices to reply the query: Would something change in case you might reverse one thing out of your previous?
You play Morgan Vanette, a customizable member of the Rotten Row Hooligans gang in Avalon, a steampunk metropolis whose factions run from the slums to the golden mansions. The villain, Woman Ironwood, already guidelines Avalon, and he or she’s been using time travel to maintain it that approach. Vanette and a band of allies got down to flip again the clock and proper her wrongs.
Sounds customary, proper? The twist, right here, is the way you go about doing that. You’ll use a tool referred to as the Chronometer to vary key moments up to now. This sounds glorious by way of prompt gratification, however the results of these adjustments threaten to ripple outward. The folks closest to you’re feeling it first, and the crew you come to after time shenanigans might differ from the one you left. Your allies, Ulysses, Nazim, Erasmus, Hazel, and Anne, have lives of their own, with tales that don’t revolve round you. Should you get pleasure from political chess, Woman Ironwood offers you a rival to observe. A flying automaton named Prentice will information you thru the branching realities. You’ll construct a personality with attributes, abilities, and equipment, hack hostile automatons, and use a capability referred to as Displace to toss an explosive barrel at enemies. No matter you do, simply change the previous rigorously, as a result of your crew will keep in mind.