SomeRPGswere great at launch, but post-release content has only made them all the sweeter over time. Others were particularlyproblematicat launch, but that self-same post-release approach has softened their rough edges, perhaps even turned them into all-timers.
Many role-playing games are precisely as good today as they were when they first went on sale. Those are decidedly not what this list is about. Instead, I want to suggest some RPGs that have gotten better and better, whether in recovery from rough launches or impressive gains over already-terrific starts. Your patience will be rewarded if you play these games in 2025. Or, you know, whatever year it is when you read my article.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3
WHERE TO PLAY
Bringing the trilogy to a close, Xenoblade Chronicles 3 was developed by Monolith Soft and launched in 2022. As Noah, you must team up with your friends to survive the war between Keves and Agnus, and uncover why it takes place at all.
The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 of 2022 was a largely excellent game. The Xenoblade Chronicles 3 from 2023 forward makes up for much of what it nevertheless lacked at the time. What changed? The release of its sterling expansion, Future Redeemed.
Set quite a few years prior to the main game, starring a separate cast of characters (including two VIPs from prior installments!), Future Redeemed somewhat paradoxically shores up much of what the game’s main era was missing - a sense of fulfilling finality.
How exactly it achieves this is best left a mystery until players have experienced it for themselves, but suffice it to say, it felt like the missing puzzle piece that took a good story and turned it into a great one. I’d still argue, and it’s no mere minority view, that Xenoblade Chronicles 3 peaks in its late-mid-game stretch; Future Connected, however, is darn close, indeed.
5The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion
2025’s The Elder Scrolls 4: Oblivion Remastered is hardly a groundbreaking reimagining of the original game, which was nearly two decades old upon this revisit’s release. Mechanically speaking, it doesn’t really change much at all. There are tweaks, but they’re the exceptions.
But aside from one noteworthy blemish - namely, that Bethesda Game Studios might have turned the colours' saturation down too much in response to Oblivion’stoo-saturated origins - Remastered is the way to play if you’re getting into Cyrodiil’s intrigues so many years later.
It’s a feast for the eyes. The realm has never looked better, not in Oblivion, not in The Elder Scrolls Online, not anywhere. Such a richly creative landscape deserves nothing less.
More to the point, perhaps, characters' faces no longer look like sentient potatoes. I can’t stress enough how important this is. These are living beings now. I mean, not really, but still. Potatoes. Boil ‘em, mash ‘em, yadda-yadda - they shouldn’t be talking to me.
Pardon the pair of Xenoblade entries on this list, but whilst Xenoblade Chronicles 3feelsmore complete with Future Redeemed, Xenoblade Chronicles X isunequivocallymore complete with Definitive Edition.
In 2015, the Wii U JRPG concluded with some obvious sequel bait that never amounted to anything, relatively poor sales (it was the Wii U, after all) and a divisive reaction to X’s reduced emphasis on a main quest than its revolutionary predecessor clearly combined to prompt Monolith Soft to return to Xenoblade Chronicles’ more semi-traditional style with Xenoblade Chronicles 2.
Xenoblade Chronicles X: Definitive Edition, which launched in April 2025, doesn’t just bring a host of frankly much-needed quality-of-life improvements to a brilliant yet overly obtuse title comprised of gameplay system after gameplay systemafter gameplay system. It also wraps up the original version’s story with a new chapter. Honestly, it’s more like three new chapters, too; it’s split into thirds, and when put together, it’s all rather robust.
Opinions are mixed on the strength of this new stretch. But Definitive Edition actually feels like it has a climax now. That’s a huge deal, innit?
Things were pretty shaky when Final Fantasy 15 hit the scene in 2016. The game had significant bugs, a surprisingly short story, and enough half-baked gameplay systems to lend the impression that it wasn’t really finished.
Heck, the narrative failings alone were more than enough to tell us that. The plot’s inciting event essentially occurs in a prequel movie instead, and so much of what we do get within the game itself is just cut so bizarrely, so unevenly, and so… well, unfinished.
To be clear here, Final Fantasy 15 never fully recovered from this. Nothing short of a complete remake can ever really achieve such a colossal feat. Yet, with the release of extra cutscenes, four major paid DLCs, an impressively-sized list of free updates, and a special “Royal Edition” with even more goodness (including a right-proper final dungeon), the Final Fantasy 15 of 2019 was a far cry from its comparably weak-kneed origin.
I can’t in good conscience proclaim Final Fantasy 15 in its final form to be anything close to perfection, but there is alotto love about the game’s vibes, and trust me, you’re better off familiarizing yourself with it now than at launch.
Baldur’s Gate 3
Baldur’s Gate 3 is the long-awaited next chapter in the Dungeons & Dragons-based series of RPGs. Developed by Divinity creator Larian Studios, it puts you in the middle of a mind flayer invasion of Faerûn, over a century after the events of its predecessor.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is on this list not because it launched in a rough state. Far from it, in fact; it won enough Game of the Year awards in 2023 to make anyone dizzy. It was an instantly terrific time.
What Larian Studios has done with Baldur’s Gate 3 in the years since launch, however, is all the more extraordinary. Tremendous patches were released at routine intervals until April 2025. More sub-classes, more customization options, more endings, an extended epilogue with over 3,500 newly-recorded lines. It’s wild.
If you didn’t play BG3 in ‘23, you missed something grand. If you play it for the first time today, you’ll get something grander.
Cyberpunk 2077
Developed by CD Projekt Red, Cyberpunk 2077 is a first-person action role-playing game based on the Cyberpunk tabletop RPG. You must choose your path through life in the lawless Night City, while contending with the memories of Johnny Silverhand (Keanu Reeves).
On the other hand, skipping Cyberpunk 2077 at launch is something of a dodged bullet. The game was by no means terrible in 2020 - that is, unless you bought it on PS4 or Xbox One, in which case you have my condolences - but while its narrative was rich from the get-go, its gameplay systems were commonly half-baked. It ran pretty poorly even on PC, too.
Improvements to the flawed game were appreciably quick in some ways, but frustratingly glacial in others. In September 2023, however, the long-awaited Phantom Liberty expansion proved itself to be the paradigm shift that Cyberpunk 2077 needed.
Not only is it captivating in its own storytelling right; Phantom Liberty also retools the perk tree to a far more impressive degree (this is actually part of a simultaneously-released free update, even!) while adding significant new dimensions to the overarching mechanics. Playing Cyberpunk 2077 for the first time at any point since this pivotal moment in the game’s longevity is sure to be a fun experience.
