My Top 10 RPGs with Custom Parties on PC

Hello and welcome to my personal list of favorite party-based RPGs. This list consists of games I have played and enjoyed. If games that fit the criteria are missing, it’s because I haven’t played them yet, or I disliked them. It’s that simple!

Here are the rules: The game must have custom party creation, meaning the player has to create every member of the dungeon crawling team. Furthermore, the player must retain full control over the members, in both progression and tactics during combat. That’s essentially it, so let’s get this list rolling!

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The Sinking City 2 – Kickstarter

Frogwares just launched their Kickstarter for The Sinking City 2. So, if you want to see a sequel to this somewhat odd Lovecraftian third-person survival horror game, now is the time to invest. I enjoyed The Sinking City for the most part. However, I felt they totally fumbled the ending, coming off as pretty weak and linear. Also, having to run defense for Innsmouthers in the middle of the story felt strange and very forced. I guess, the lure of good-boy points by the press was too tempting, but it didn’t work at all for the narrative. Anti-racism only goes that far, after all. Here is the trailer:

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Dune 2000 – Cravings for Melange

It’s time to go back to 1998 and take a stroll down Westwood lane. Well, almost anyhow. According to the Wiki page, it was actually made by Intelligent Games Ltd, while Westwood published it, as far I understand. A bit surprising to me. But the genetics of a Westwood title can be found in Dune 2000. It even got the cheesy FMVs (full-motion-videos) between missions, and the engine used for gameplay is the Command & Conquer one. I remember trying this game back in the day, and I wasn’t too impressed, seeing as it was mostly a reskin of that game. However, now some 20 years later, I couldn’t care less. I should also add that Dune 2000 is a remake of the legendary RTS game Dune II: Battle for Arrakis. When that game came out, it blew my tiny mind. It was my first dip into the RTS war-gaming sea, and ever since then I fell in love with the genre. I suspect this story is the same for many millennials.

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Iron Tower’s new tactical RPG (maybe)

I’m not the biggest Iron Tower fan, seeing as their games (at least to me), are more of a CYOA (Choose Your Own Adventure) experience than a free-form RPG. But, it can’t be denied that they are hits within the cRPG community. Colony Ship and The Age of Decadence weren’t too liked by me, yet, it shows that they know their craft and have a specific style and tone they follow, regardless of my lack of appreciation. However, while successful, it seems the games didn’t bring in enough money, and for anyone that followed the drama after Colony Ship‘s release knows that the future looked grim for the studio. Then, the other day, right out of the blue, they announced they are working on a fresh new game, and it certainly has me curious!

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Cralon – what is this?

It was a sad day when the legendary developer Piranha Bytes was shut down. But seeing as they floundered the Elex 2 release, it might not have been too unexpected. However, out of the ashes, something new can rise, and it wasn’t long before Jenny and Björn Pankratz announced their new study Pithead Studio. And the other day, they released their first video from their new upcoming dungeon crawler, Cralon. These guys work hard & fast, as I thought we were years out, but here we are! Check out the video below:

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