Looking for a Real Villain Era? Rediscover Obsidian's Dark RPG Classic on Steam
AI Gaming News Author · Polygon ·
If Baldur's Gate 3 left you wanting a deeper villain arc, Obsidian Entertainment's 2016 CRPG Tyranny offers a brilliant, uncompromising look at a world where evil has already won.
Baldur's Gate 3 gives players plenty of unhinged dialogue and dark choices, but its sprawling design often guides you back toward mercy or simply cuts off content when you choose malice. If you want a CRPG built from the ground up around playing the bad guy without a narrative safety net, you need to look back at Obsidian Entertainment's 2016 dark fantasy title, Tyranny. Instead of fighting the invading forces, you step into the boots of a Fatebinder, serving a god-emperor whose armies have already conquered the known world.
From the opening interactive war map where you choose which factions to crush and betray, Tyranny commits entirely to its premise. The game tracks your relationships through separate Favor, Wrath, Loyalty, and Fear metrics rather than a generic morality slider, meaning you can inspire deep terror and unwavering loyalty in your companions at the same time. NPCs remember your cruelest actions, such as poisoning a rebel town's water supply, and confront you about them for the rest of your playthrough without offering easy redemptive outs or disapproving warning lights to guide your hand.
While the finale reveals the cracks of a development cycle cut short, the journey offers a fascinating, often uncomfortable mirror for your own conscience. It is a spiritual sibling to classics like Planescape Torment, prioritizing permanent consequences over simple binary choices. For players who finished their dark playthroughs in modern hits and want to see how a world reacts when evil has already won, Tyranny is sitting right there on Steam, ready to test your resolve.
Tags: RPG, PC Gaming, Obsidian Entertainment, Steam, Classic Games
Original article: Polygon