Baldur's Gate 3 didn't just win Game of the Year — it fundamentally reset expectations for what a role-playing game can be. Larian Studios delivered a world that breathes, bends, and reacts to your every decision, wrapped in tactical combat so layered it rewards hundreds of hours of experimentation. If you've finished it twice (or ten times) and need something to fill the void, this listicle has you covered. Each game below was chosen because it shares at least one core DNA strand with BG3: rich companion storytelling, meaningful choice-and-consequence systems, or deeply strategic turn-based combat. Some are spiritual siblings; others scratch a subtly different itch entirely.
This is where you go first, full stop. Developed by Larian Studios — the same team behind BG3 — Divinity: Original Sin 2 is its direct creative predecessor. The reactive world, the environmental interaction in combat, the companion-driven drama: it's all here, just wrapped in an entirely different universe with its own lore about Sourcerers being hunted across a dying land. Combat rewards lateral thinking just as much as BG3 does; you can freeze a puddle to electrocute enemies, teleport foes into traps, or rain fire on explosive barrels. The co-op mode supports up to four players throughout the entire campaign, and the GM mode lets one player craft custom adventures for the rest of the party — a feature that hasn't been replicated quite as well anywhere else.
The BG3 Connection: Same developer, same philosophy — a world that says "yes, and" to every creative idea you throw at it.
Sandfall Interactive's debut game arrived and immediately staked a claim as one of the best RPGs made in the modern era. Set in a Belle Époque-inspired world where a mysterious Paintress paints a number each year — erasing everyone of that age from existence — Expedition 33 tasks a desperate group of rebels with ending her reign before their number comes up. The turn-based combat layers active parry and dodge mechanics directly into each enemy attack, making every single fight feel kinetic and demanding rather than passive. Shadowheart's voice actress Jennifer English reprises a role here, adding another strand of DNA connecting it to BG3 fans' hearts. The storytelling is relentlessly cinematic, the world-building is wholly original, and the emotional gut-punches are earned every time.
The BG3 Connection: Cinematic companion-driven storytelling meets deeply satisfying tactical combat — a combination that should feel immediately familiar.
Owlcat Games' Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous is the recommendation for players who felt BG3's character-building didn't go deep enough. Built on the Pathfinder TTRPG ruleset — itself a more complex fork of D&D — WotR lets you stack mythic paths on top of base classes, creating combinations of such absurd power that late-game combat can feel like watching a wizard fight a god. The story spans an entire crusade against demonic forces pouring through the Worldwound, and your choices as a crusade commander have genuine strategic consequences on faction outcomes. It demands more patience than BG3 to get into, but rewards that patience with one of the largest, most mechanically dense CRPGs ever created.
The BG3 Connection: TTRPG rules translated to digital, with a cast of unforgettable companions who develop genuine opinions about your crusade choices.
Dragon Age: Origins is frequently cited as the spiritual predecessor BG3 fans didn't know they already loved. BioWare's landmark RPG centers on a Grey Warden — last defense against a darkspawn apocalypse — building political alliances, navigating betrayal, and managing a group of companions who each carry deep personal histories and contradictions. The companions are the game's greatest achievement: from the droll Alistair to the mercurial Morrigan, each reacts meaningfully to your decisions and can be lost permanently to poor choices. The real-time-with-pause tactical combat rewards deliberate positioning and class synergy, and the story's branching is ambitious even by modern standards. It's older, but the bones are exceptional.
The BG3 Connection: The model for companion approval systems and party-driven drama that BG3 refined and elevated twenty years later.
Think of Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire as BG3 transplanted to a vast maritime archipelago, where a rogue god has stolen part of your soul and you must track it across island-dotted seas. Obsidian Entertainment's sequel improves on every aspect of the original: deeper faction intrigue, more flexible multi-classing, and a genuinely open world of island-chains to chart at your own pace. The Watcher's ability to peer into the souls of NPCs — reading their past lives — provides a layer of world-building detail that rivals BG3's own use of the illithid parasite as a narrative lens. Combat scales from real-time-with-pause to fully turn-based depending on your preference, making it an exceptionally accessible entry point for fans of both playstyles.
The BG3 Connection: Soul-reading mechanics and branching faction outcomes that make every playthrough feel like a genuinely different story.
If BG3 made you realize you care more about the dialogue than the combat, Disco Elysium is the game you've been waiting for. ZA/UM's detective RPG replaces traditional combat almost entirely with skill checks, inner monologue, and conversation — your character's 24 psychic attributes argue amongst themselves, offer advice, and occasionally humiliate you in front of important witnesses. Playing as an amnesiac detective in a decaying post-revolutionary city, you reconstruct both a murder case and your own shattered identity through choices alone. The writing is widely considered among the finest in the medium, and the ideological texture of its world rivals any fantasy novel. It is proof that "role-playing" doesn't require a sword.
The BG3 Connection: Radical player agency through skill-based dialogue systems that make every stat investment feel like a character decision.
Owlcat Games — the studio behind Pathfinder — applied its CRPG expertise to the Warhammer 40,000 universe with exceptional results. Rogue Trader casts you as a captain of a massive spacecraft traveling uncharted space on behalf of the Imperium of Man. The result is something like BG3 crossed with XCOM: deep companion relationships, consequential dialogue choices, and turn-based tactical combat where positioning, overwatch, and ability chaining define victory. The co-op mode handles up to six players across the full campaign. Even players unfamiliar with the Warhammer lore will find a richly detailed political universe to dig into, one that rewards curiosity and punishes passivity in equal measure.
The BG3 Connection: TTRPG-adapted systems, full-campaign co-op, and companions whose loyalty must be actively earned or lost.
Wildermyth is the most underrated game on this list, and perhaps the one that most purely captures what BG3 is at its emotional core: a story about people, not just heroes. Worldwalker Games' papercraft RPG generates characters and story events procedurally, meaning your party of ordinary farmers-turned-legends will age, fall in love, merge partially with mythic beings, sacrifice themselves for companions, and be mourned across subsequent campaigns if they die. The tabletop RPG-style event cards fire throughout each scenario, creating genuinely touching moments that no other game has replicated at this level. The tactical combat is sharply designed despite the modest presentation. If you play one game from this list that you haven't heard of before, make it this one.
The BG3 Connection: Procedurally generated companion legacies that make you genuinely grieve character deaths — just like losing a party member in BG3.
The Bottom Line
What Baldur's Gate 3 proved is that players are hungry for games that treat them as intelligent adults, reward creative thinking, and make companion relationships matter at a genuine narrative level. Every game on this list shares at least one of those qualities — and the best of them share all three.
★ Also Worth Your Time
If you've cleared every game above, consider Tyranny (Obsidian's CRPG where you play on the villain's side), Baldur's Gate: Enhanced Edition (the origin of the lineage), and Solasta: Crown of the Magister — a scrappy indie that adapts D&D 5E rules with an impressive degree of fidelity.
Roll for Initiative
Which game filled the BG3-shaped hole in your life — and what did it get right that the others missed? Drop your party composition in the comments.
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