10 Video Games Based on Tabletop RPGs

Cyberpunk 2077

Inspired by Mike Pondsmith’s Cyberpunk tabletop RPGs – Cyberpunk 2013, 2020, and Red – this game throws players into Night City, a gritty, tech-driven dystopia ruled by corporations.

Image credit: CD PROJEKT RED

Thus, it has all those characteristics comparable with those old-school games: deep customization of characters, branching story choices, allowing players to experience a social-political world wherein they live as V, the mercenary, for the sake of immortality.

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Shadowrun Returns

Shadowrun Returns is a re-entry into FASA’s cyberpunk-fantasy world on a tabletop.

Image credit: Harebrained Schemes

It mixes magic with tech and corporate intrigue under the conditions of dystopic Seattle.

Rich in storytelling, featuring turns-based tactical combat, it mimics the spirit of the original game and was such a hit that it spurned two highly acclaimed sequels: Dragonfall and Hong Kong.

Turn-based combat with solid cover mechanics that keep you thinking

Classic classes inspired by the tabletop

Shadowrun Returns

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Warhammer 40,000: Rogue Trader

Warhammer 40000: Rogue Trader embodies the grimdark universe of Warhammer 40K directly from its tabletop RPG genesis.

Image credit: Owlcat Games

You play as a Warrant of Trade—an explorer and trader sanctioned to act in realms beyond the Imperium’s reach.

Setting in a realm brutish with the faint whispers of life in 41st millennium: faction warfare between all, alien threats, and every kind of heresy. It’s a paragon of storytelling and tactical turn-based combat, encompassing all the deep lore and intricacies of the RPG.

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MechWarrior (series)

Experience the cockpit of a massive BattleMech kept in true tactical continuity with the BattleTech tabletop game in MechWarrior.

Image credit: Piranha Games

Set within a war-torn Inner Sphere, the mech simulation, customization and strategic combat combines it all.

MechWarrior 5: Mercenaries continues the line: deceptively deep inner mechanics, yet really easy for newbies, all fronted with some political intrigue and interstellar warfare.

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Champions Online (Free-to-play)

Champions Online is a superhero MMORPG that brings the Champions tabletop RPG to life.

Built on the flexible HERO System, it lets players create unique characters with no limits – the whole original premise of the game.

It looks like a moving picture comic book with bold visuals and fast-paced action, but its rich customization and player-specific Nemesis system keep it personal and compelling.

Torment: Tides of Numenera

As the spiritual successor to Planescape: Torment, this game adapts Monte Cook’s Numenera tabletop RPG—a setting blend of science fiction and fantasy set a billion years in the future.

Image credit: inXile Entertainment

Torment: Tides of Numenera emphasizes narrative over combat, presenting players with philosophical quandaries and moral dilemmas in a world built upon the ruins of countless fallen civilizations.

The game has executed successfully the novel method followed by Numenera RPG in character progression: the “Effort” system. Players can invest this to enhance the chances of success in different tasks.

Deep, text-rich storytelling where every choice carries real weight

Character growth built around Might, Speed, and Intellect—true to Numenera

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Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines

In spite of some troubled beginnings, Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines has, over time, turned into a true cult classic because of its true and proper implementation of White Wolf’s World of Darkness.

Image credit: Troika Games

It is set up in early 2000 Los Angeles, where the player assumes the role of a fledgling vampire who has to deal with the very tense politics between clans.

The game really understands the table top game’s stresses on such aspects as social dynamics, moral choices, and clan identity-all of which are likely to create different experiences and powers of play according to the line from which the player has chosen his vampire character.

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Warhammer: End Times - Vermintide

Vermintide focuses primarily on action rather than traditional RPG elements but derives its essence from the Warhammer Fantasy Roleplay universe.

Image credit: Fatshark

Set during the apocalyptic End Times, the five-player-hero system is based on RPG careers that boast different abilities and styles.

Endless co-op battles against hordes of Skaven represent the theme of unrelenting brutal hopelessness derived from the tabletop.

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Mutant Year Zero: Road to Eden

This tactical adaptation of the Swedish tabletop RPG Mutant Year Zero combines turn-based combat in the XCOM style with stealth and exploration in the post-apocalyptic world.

Image credit: The Bearded Ladies

Players control a team of mutants-anthropomorphic animals with special abilities-to roam about the Zone, looking for Eden and the truth about how humanity fell from grace.

Implementing the mutation system cleverly from the tabletop RPG, it allows characters to acquire new strange features while focusing on resource conservation and strategizing in a hostile environment.

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Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics digitalizes Modiphius Entertainment’s pulp-horror tabletop RPG, pairing World War II combat with Lovecraftian terror.

Image credit: Auroch Digital

You lead elite men and women against the Nazis and the dark, occult creatures they have unleashed.

The game has succeeded in translating a fair balance of tactical warfare with creeping supernatural dread from the tabletop, along with rules for physical combat and psychological strain.

Tactical turn-based combat driven by momentum

Stealth defined by light and shadow

Achtung! Cthulhu Tactics

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