See, the history of humankind is the history of war. And there’s never been more war than during Medieval times. It was dark, bloody, full of diseases, irrational fears, and betrayal. For obvious reasons, those are great ingredients for memorable games. So, if you have feudal gaming needs, take a look at our list. We’re taking both fictional worlds and stories based on real-life events.
What to Look for in Medieval Games
Across the best Medieval games, we can find similar themes. Epic tales of a hero fighting across war-torn fields. The heroic deeds of a Chosen One, defeating all evil before it’s too late. That’s an easy summary, but we should run down, what we’re looking for on the best medieval games: Aesthetic: First and foremost, the game needs to convey the times properly. Armor, apparel, structures, and the overall design of the world is medieval, rough, dirty, violent, and full of religious overtones. It should be immersive. Knights and Kings. If there’s one thing that made its mark on the era is knights and kings. Kings were the rulers, often “chosen by God(s).” Knights were European mounted soldiers, prepared for war in heavy armor. In medieval games, you’d often play as a lowly farmer rising to be a knight and then a hero. In other words, we like game with knights. Historical or Fictional Value: There’re two kind of storytelling we’ve seen in medieval games. The first and most important is historical storytelling. Some games are based on true events and so light players’ interest in medieval times. Other games have fictional worlds and stories, and we would like these to be fully-fledged characters and plots with something to say. Accurate Playability: Medieval times are appealing for games because of their weapons mostly. Swords, bows, shields, and axes still live in all kinds of fantasy. Even the latest sci-fi movies like Dune use these weapons in their action scenes. So, most medieval games involve these weapons, and we would like the gameplay to be fluid and fun.
Top 17 Best Medieval Games by Categories
Plague Tale: Innocence – Best Medieval Game for Playstation
Plague Tale: Innocence is the most unique game on our list. It works as an interactive movie at the height of the Black Death plague. So, because of its interactive story, it works best on consoles like a PlayStation. It would allow you to play out its plot on a big TV screen and see the story unfold alongside your friends. You play Amicia, a 15-year-old orphan. She’s taking care of her younger brother Hugo, an innocent kid unaware of the dangers. Amicia is aware, though: while the rats spread the disease, Inquisition knights are killing whoever is escaping diseased villages. With such a grim setting, the gameplay becomes a survival stealth horror. Amicia must be smart, careful, and quick to keep his brother flee the town alive, and avoid the Inquisition and the rats. To achieve the goal, the brother and sister join forces with other kids. Moreover, they use light and fire to scare the animals and confuse the soldiers. The playtime these elements create is a narrative-driven movie where you play the obstacles in the story. The result is grim, dark, horrifying, and full of heart. If you’re wondering, the story is based on the real-life Death plague. The plot happens in 1349, where the disease was leaving millions of dead bodies in the Kingdom of France.
For Honor – Best Medieval Game for Xbox
For Honor is a medieval battle game/medieval knight game, and it’s also a Live Service by Ubisoft. You play through a single-player mode or in PvP modes. The title it’s included on Xbox Game Pass, and it’s the best medieval game available in the bundle. Entering the game allows you to choose and customize one of the 18 available heroes. You’ll find a Knight, a Samurai, a Xiaolin warrior, and a Viking among the options. There are also thousands of gear items, apparel, and more coming up constantly. The core loop is tournament 1v1 battles, either against the AI or other players. It has rewarding combat, both tough to master and easy to grasp. You swing your weapon, parry, grab, use skills, use items, block, and similar. There’re also team-based battles, an arcade mode, a training mode, and more. Lastly, the developers have added balance and performance fixes constantly, as well as new features. This medieval knight game had mixed reviews on launch, but fans are more positive about it nowadays. If you’re wary, you could try the Starter Edition on Xbox Game Pass (PC and Xbox).
Kingdom Come: Deliverance – Best Medieval RPG Game
Kingdom Come: Deliverance is a medieval RPG. The setting is historical, but the story is fictional. You play within the Bohemian Imperial State, part of the Holy Roman Empire. That said, it’s an outstanding representation of how the Holy Roman Empire looked, felt, and worked. The setting delivers a unique story-driven open-world RPG. It’s an epic adventure where the protagonist avenges his parent’s death and battles invading forces. Across your journey, you’ll have the chance to complete a story-changing quest and make choices that affect the outcome. Gameplay-wise, you can roam the world to combat, loot, and interact. You’ll be free to do whatever you want and progress through a great character progression system. As usual, you play in the first person, and you can attack, parry, block, and shoot projectiles. And because this is an RPG, there’s a deep character progression system that allows you to develop sword, shield, bow, and other weapon or survival skills. Lastly, there’re also some survival needs you have to manage, like hunger, thirst, and sleep. The amount of systems is overwhelming, but they are there for the extra detail. For instance, the game has multiple methods to punish or reward you for your morality or lack thereof. It’s a unique RPG, and it deserves more recognition.
Eternium – Best Medieval Game Mobile(iOS/Android)
If you’re looking for the best medieval title for smartphones and tablets, that’s Eternium. Eternium is a free-to-play action RPG akin to the Diablo franchise. The mobile game is available for both iOS and Android devices. You choose among the three available classes and begin a journey on a high fantasy medieval land. You visit towns, gather quests, fight monsters, loot, level up, develop skills, sell your old gear, and repeat. Like we’ve seen on Diablo Immortal, the game places its skills, attack, and movement tabs at the right of the screen. On top of that, there’re various interfaces to check your skills, gear, and stats. The overall quest is protecting a castle. The enemies include demons, dragons, goblins, and orcs. However, the game has four unique worlds, from a classic medieval town to a strange planet. Overall, it seems like a flawless mobile title.
Medieval Dynasty – Best First Person Medieval Game
Medieval Dynasty is a first-person, action-adventure immersive sim. Military conflict is all around its fictional world, while you play a young man fleeing from the war. Its many systems but relaxing gameplay makes for the best FPS medieval experience. Your character grows from poor and inexperienced into a master of many skills and trades. By taking things into your hands, you can create prosperity for generations to come. That means you have to protect yourself and the villagers from wild animals. Soon enough, the village grows into a town and then an empire. Building works akin to Stranded Deep or Ark Survival: you craft tools, gather materials and build back home. To supplement your settlement construction, you can have a family, have an heir, hire employees, and grow followers. The building system is massive, but there’re other experiences outside of the core loop. For instance, you can hunt, farm, explore, pursue the main quest, solve side quests, and free roam across a vast medieval world. Additionally, you have to manage stats like hunger, thirst, and sleep.
KINGDOM LIFE™ II – Best Medieval Game On Roblox
Kingdom of Life II is the most popular medieval game you can play on Roblox. The creator’s user is Boopbot, a prominent Roblox user. The version I’m sharing is a re-upload by @BOKCJason, as recent Roblox updates broke the game. Either way, Kingdom of Life 2 is a Roblox medieval sandbox. You create a character, make up a back story, and play the content. After the initial point, your story depends on yourself: you pick your weapons, looks, and adventures. In essence, there’s no main quest, and you have the choice to pursue hundreds of questlines to craft your experience. Its gameplay offers a nice medieval fantasy. It’s a role-play experience that happens on a dedicated server with a medieval world, medieval towns, weapons, and looks. The game is about eight years old, and more than 15 million players have joined since its debut. Outside the cities, the map is as big as any other AAA open-world game. Each area in the map has an outstanding level of detail, activities, and quests to complete. And even though the map is huge, there’s a massive community backing the game and populating each area.
Dark Souls Remastered – Best Medieval Game Switch
For the first time, FromSoftware made a Dark Souls game available for the Nintendo Switch. If you’ve been missing out on the series because of the platform, you can jump on this 2018 remaster. The title updates the genre-defining medieval RPG. It packs HD graphics, 60fps, and a 1080p resolution. Also, it has online multiplayer support (up to 6 players on a dedicated server) You play in the medieval kingdom of Lordran, a fictional place that needs your help. You embark on a journey, a harrowing pilgrimage where you face deadly monsters and grotesque beings to save the realm. The game thrives on death and rebirth mechanics. You start as less than a nobody, and even the thinnest skeleton can kill you. As you try again, hundreds of times, you grow your skills, as well as your character skills. Because you keep pushing forward, you’ll ultimately unveil the rich story in the game, defeat divine beings, and grow above the challenge.
Kingdom Rush – Best Offline Medieval Game For Android
Kingdom Rush is a tower defense game set in a medieval fantasy world. You play as a commander, and your job is building towers and moving the heroes to defeat the enemy hordes. It’s an all-time best-seller game on the Play Store. There’re four towers available. With these options, you place archers, mages, bombards, and warriors to stop the borders. The enemies are trolls, orcs, goblins, wizards, spiders, and other magical creatures. Each has defenses against magical or physical attacks. Then, you have heroes, special abilities, and a progression system. Each level you complete unlocks up to three stars, depending on your performance. You can use these stars to unlock passive skills that help your towers, heroes, and abilities. Overall, it’s a simple but incredibly popular tower defense game. The best part is that it’s free, and it offers around 15 levels, plus extra levels with increased challenges.
Warhammer: Vermintide 2 – Best Co-Op Medieval Game
Vermintide 2 is a co-op game that allows up to four players in brutal, gory battles against the Skaven, rat-like mutant creatures. At its core, it’s team-based PvE inspired by titles like Left 4 Dead or, more recently, Back 4 Blood, but medieval. The result is the best medieval FPS combat game available. You explore damps, swamps, and lush forests to hold off Skaven enemies and complete quests. The world is brutal and rich because of the Warhammer lore. If you’re unfamiliar with the franchise, you can still enjoy the content without getting lost. Then, the combat is visceral and meaty: you feel the weight behind every hit and every miss. You can wield giant axes, shows, shields, bows, archaic firearms, crossbows, and more. It has a great variety of weapons, enemy types, and bosses. Moreover, bosses can spawn at random locations and hours, creating new challenges. You play as one of the available five classes. Each character has its own set of weapons. As you play, you’ll develop your character and unlock abilities. Lastly, there’s a story to play – saving the world from the End Times. You can go through with other players or with bots.
The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim Anniversary Edition – Best Medieval Game For Low End PC
The Elder Scrolls V’s Special Edition is a remaster of the stubborn title. Even though it looks, feels, and performs better than ever, any budget PC or laptop could run it without a problem. That’s because it’s an old title, but it’s so good that it refuses to go away. So, you probably already know this, but there’s nothing like Skyrim. It’s the ultimate high-fantasy medieval sandbox experience. You can get married, have kids, become a werewolf, become a thief, explore dungeons, learn magic, defeat dragons, hunt vampires, start bar fights, or save the world. There’s no end to the number of things you can do for the game to make you feel like you’re there. You can go four thousand hours without even touching the main quest. That would be a shame, though, as the primary mission offers the best experiences in the game. It’s about defeating a legendary dragon, and you have to learn special screams – Dragon Screams – to match these beasts in power. As for the special edition, it includes a plethora of upgrades for long-time fans and newcomers. Now you can do stuff like dual-wielding weapons or magic. You can also wield a one-handed weapon and a spell at the same time. You can also pick up things in the world and move them. Or, better yet, items in the world now obey the laws of physics.
Age of Empires IV – Best Medieval RTS Game For PC
Age of Empires stands as the most significant real-time strategy series. After many years of keeping the genre alive, they released a new take on their franchise almost by themselves. Simply put, there’s no genre competition other than AoE 2. AoE IV is perhaps their best entry yet. It accomplished the challenging goal of feeling both unique and part of a series. The Age of Empires II spiritual successor is also a 2021 RTS with gorgeous graphics, performances, and unique mechanics. The fourth entry brings eight civilizations, but each one is unique. The options have multiple branching mechanics, upgrade paths, special units, unique technologies, and more. Moreover, the combat mechanics go deeper than Rock, Paper, Scissor laws. Then comes the campaigns. There’re four historical campaigns available, covering periods across various civilizations. In-between missions, you’ll see high-budget documentaries adorned with CGI unit models to tell a story. As a result, it does what an AoE game needs to you: open up your interest in history, so you can keep playing and reading on the side.
Chivalry 2 – Best Medieval Battle Game
Chivalry 2 is a multiplayer hack & slash title. It’s a sequel to 2012’s Chivalry: Medieval Warfare, and it’s only available for PC at the Epic Games store. Like before, it offers first-person or third-person medieval combat. It’s an immersive game with several ranged and melee weapons. The game offers large multiplayer PvP battles on servers with up to 64 users. Combat-wise, you can parry, block, and attack. It’s an arcade, non-skill-based combat thriving with action, blood, heavy armor, and heavy swords. Beware, though, your partners can damage you, but you can also revive fallen foes. Overall, it’s a chaotic, bloody, immersive game. The game has no single-player mode, but it does have various game modes like castle sieges and raids. In other words, it’s like a Battlefield game with medieval warfare, gorgeous graphics, stellar performance, and sweat combat.
Going Medieval – Best Medieval Building Game
Going Medieval is a full-on medieval building game. You construct a fortress in the wilds, defend against raids, and keep your villagers happy. That said, building works through blocks, similar to how it works on Minecraft. The game happens during the 14th Century, known as the “Dark Age.” You’re to rebuild society after 95% of the world fell to a lethal plague. You’ll find nature has claimed most of the land, and this is the perfect foundation for your civilization. So, you guide the survivors to a new home, free of diseases, outlaws, religious fanatics, and barbarians. With simple 3D terrain tools, you can create multi-level buildings where your villagers can work and live. It’s easy and yet effective and addictive. The setting opens up a relaxing gameplay loop. You gather materials, design, build and expand your settlement. Over time, your small wooden village can grow into a stronghold. Along the way, you’ll need to craft, research, and craft gear so your villagers can fend off attackers.
Total War: Medieval II (Definitive Edition) – Best Medieval Warfare Game
Total War is another genre-defining RTS series. We could add many of its games on any list, but for a Medieval option, we went for Medieval II. You probably already know how massive this game was and still is. It’s also a top contender for the best medieval RTS, but, unlike most RTS, the battles are absolutely massive. The game offers four historical campaigns across the world. The map includes the British Isles, Teutonic Northern Europe, the Americas, and the Middle East. These campaigns can take hundreds of hours, and it can take dozens of hours to master its many systems. If you’re unfamiliar, TW games are two things. First, it’s a turn-based RTS. You play in the world map where you can micro-manage construction in your cities, taxes, army recruitment, diplomacy, and more. Secondly, it’s a full-on warfare game. Every army you recruit comes as a squad of, say, 60 soldiers. That means when two armies meet in the field, you’re controlling hundreds of soldiers on large fields. Even against the AI, every battle is memorable. It requires strategy, micro-managing your troops, and mastering medieval rock-paper-scissor counters.
Crusader Kings III – Best Medieval Board Game
Strategy games tend to live in the Medieval ages. There’s something about spears, shields, bows, and horses that’s just perfect for the genre. So, we bring you Crusader Kings III. It mixes fictional stories and characters, Total War mechanics, and traditional board-strategy systems for unique gameplay. We’re looking at a grand strategy game. You play through a world map (a board) and several interfaces. On the board, you move your armies, diplomats, and other pieces. On the interfaces, you control the many aspects of your medieval royal family. The plot is about keeping power within a family of kings and heirs. You’re to guide the dynasties across centuries of conquest and domination. That includes the drama and struggles of medieval times: pilgrimages, peasant revolts, raiders, war, conquest, diplomacy, marriage, and politics. Overall, Crusader Kings 3 is a sandbox atop a web of interconnected systems. As a result, the game delivers a complex narrative and complex mechanics across multiple generations of a royal family. No wonder why Crusader Kings 3 has gotten so much critical and fan acclaim.
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt – Best Medieval Fantasy Game
The Witcher 3 is one of the most influential titles of all time. It’s an open-world action-adventure RPG set within a high-fantasy fictional medieval world. And its fictional world is one of the best in the gaming industry. Main characters, side characters, villains, and places are fully-fledged. Side content is also amazing, and the main story is something you would want to see. The storytelling value is hard to pass, and we could say the same about its brimming cities, towns, and villages. The main character is Geralt the Rivia. Polish writer Andrzej Sapkowski created the franchise, but he ended the book saga in 2013. Then, polish developer CD Projekt RED continued the story with a non-canon trilogy. Still, it lives in a fictional medieval world that rivals the depth of LOTR. Gameplay-wise, you’re a Witcher. Witchers are part of a nearly-extinct guild of mutated humans able to hunt magical monsters. So, you roam a vast, gorgeous open world with swords, bombs, a crossbow, dodges, rolls, and parries. Other mechanics include choices, character progression, crafting, alchemy, optional romances, and more.
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord – Best Medieval Open-World Game
Mount & Blade is an open-world sandbox series. In essence, it’s the definitive medieval experience: you play as a knight and a king on a war-torn land in search of peace. To that end, it mixes classic action-adventure with RTS interfaces for conquering and warfare. The sequel picks up 200 years before the original game. You’re a ruler, racing to stop the civil war. To that end, the game delivers complex RPG systems for an immersive medieval simulator. The meat of the sequel is establishing an empire to create a new world, free of war-torn times. Game mechanics include conquering, raiding, and exploring the continent. However, you can play in any way you want: it’s a sandbox experience allowing you to do whatever you do within the world. There’s still the main quest, though, and it goes across the fictional continent of Calradia. Along your journey, you’ll be able to forge alliances, make enemies, raise armies, and command troops to battle. On top of that, there’s an extensive character creation and progression system. There’s also a realistic in-game economy and skill-based directional combat gameplay with swords, shields, and similar. It’s an immersive, free-roam medieval experience.
