2024 has been an incredible year for action RPGs: I've played the best of them, and here's why I think you should too

When I think about all the games I played this year, there's a very obvious throughline that I didn't quite put together until recently. Action RPGs, those monster bonking simulators with sparkling loot, represented the majority of my gaming diet. OK—most of it was Diablo 4, but I dabbled in almost all of the action RPGs that came out this year and not a single one was a miss.

Part of the action RPG genre's strength is, admittedly, its broad definition. Loot lovers have Diablo 4, soulslike sickos have Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree, roguelike ruffians have Hades 2, and then there's Dragon's Dogma 2 for anyone who wants their action RPGs to be delightfully weird. Black Myth: Wukong and Final Fantasy 16 veer heavily into the action side of things, and we just got a new Dragon Age that is a better action RPG than I think anyone expected. And don't forget Path of Exile 2, which didn't quite make the cut, but is still on track to come out in early access this year.

My favorite part about action RPGs are the stories you hear about players coming up with ridiculous challenge runs or builds that the developers surely didn't really intend. That's the charm of a genre that hands you a buffet of combat systems and lets you gorge on whatever you're hungry for. Let's dig into each game, what ridiculous things players did in them, and what makes them stand out.

The bizarre action RPG: Dragon's Dogma 2

Most impressive player feat: Beat the game naked in under 2 hours.

Play it to simulate a D&D party made up of player-created NPCs who can kill you at any moment.

Fast travel in Dragon's Dogma 2 is a pain in the ass. To travel between towns, you need to catch an oxcart before it departs and then pray you don't get attacked by a griffon along the way. Teleporting around the world is possible, but you need to have visited your destination once before and have a specific item on you. Dragon's Dogma 2 is an inconvenient action RPG where any quest could turn into a fantasy epic.

And then there are the pawns, NPC buddies who you recruit throughout your journey. Without them, Dragon's Dogma 2, like your main character, would lose its heart. "It feels like I'm in a proper RPG adventuring group, and each journey is made better by their company and funny little eccentricities," Fraser wrote in his Dragon's Dogma 2 review. He gave it a score of 89% for its originality and ambition.

I can still picture my party of pawns and all the surprises we encountered on the way to finish some mundane task. I owe them my life for how many beasts they kept off of me while I shot arrows from relative safety, and for being good sports whenever I hurled them toward items I didn't feel like jumping across a gap to get.

The slick action RPG: Hades 2

Most impressive player feat: Beat every boss without taking a single point of damage.

Play it for the jetpack that was just added.

The first Hades is up there with some of my favorite games of all time. Supergiant knows how to make unbelievably satisfying action RPGs that slowly unfold their complexity over time. Hades 2 isn't finished yet, but already has some new toys that might make me kick Hades 1 down a few ranks.

Simple things, like Melinoë's quick dash that leaves a trail of stars behind her to indicate how long you have until you can do it again, are the kind of little touches that give Hades 2's combat a sturdy foundation. If the basic act of moving around weren't so satisfying, Hades 2's entire arsenal of creative weapons and powers wouldn't work.

Every run you can stack boons together to turn your grenade launcher into an explosive shotgun or your sprint into Poseidon's tidal wave. Supergiant makes it almost impossible to stumble into a build that doesn't work, activating the right neurons that keep me coming back to do it all over again and again.

The relentless action RPG: Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree

Most impressive player feat: Beat it with 1 HP, 1 FP, and 1 Stamina over 55 hours and 1,900 deaths.

Play it for its dual-wielded blades that let you slide behind enemies like a ninja.

Apologies to the other action RPGs on this list, but Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is easily the best one I've played this year. FromSoftware's enormous expansion delivers a beautiful new landmass, terrifying new monsters, and weaponry that stretches what I thought was possible in this flavor of action RPG.

As I said in my Shadow of the Erdtree review, it "rivals Dark Souls with a corkscrew world design layered with wondrous and horrific secrets to discover." And like Dark Souls, normal enemies—not just bosses—can tear you apart. One of my issues with Elden Ring is how uneven its difficulty scaling becomes in the last third. The expansion dodges this problem by having its own leveling system that almost makes you feel like you're level 1 again.

The challenge goes hand in hand with where FromSoft chose to set the expansion: In a land that echoes the base game with remixed enemy types and bosses built to exploit all the habits you used to rely on. Shadow of the Erdtree can see right through you and I was happy to be threatened by the smallest enemies in a world that is practically screaming at you to leave.

The bold action RPG: Black Myth: Wukong

Most impressive player feat: Beat the entire game without dodging.

Play it for its marvelous 10-minute intro.

This is the only action RPG on the list where you get to duel a tiger with a katana. I guess you also play as a monkey man with a polearm, so maybe that isn't surprising.

The creativity in Black Myth: Wukong's powers impressed me the most. The idea of turning into a giant frog to slap enemies with your tongue sounds like a joke but in Wukong it isn't, and it somehow doesn't feel out of place. You transform into a lot of different creatures in this game, and each one shifts the pace of the combat in satisfying ways. I spent so much time as a wolf man slicing enemies apart with a fiery blade that going back to the monkey man felt like a punishment.

Wukong is also just a great entry point for anyone who doesn't play a lot of soulslikes or action RPGs. It certainly gets difficult by the end, but most of it is fairly lax as long as you can handle fast-paced combat like you find in Devil May Cry.

The cerebral action RPG: Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred

Most impressive player feat: Discovered powerful bugs that let the new class hit for billions of damage.

Play it to summon a giant poison-spitting centipede as its speedy new class.

Vessel of Hatred reboots Diablo 4 into an even stronger action RPG than I ever thought it could become; an expansion that revitalizes the endless loot chase with a variety of new dungeon types and items to discover.

Clicking demons and picking up loot remains almost unnervingly pleasing, and now there are even more ways to do it. You can speed through the Undercity for runes to steal skills from other classes, battle waves of enemies in Infernal Hordes with 'boons and banes' that randomize each run, and challenge yourself in The Pit, a 150-tier dungeon for benchmarking your build.

There's an entire buffet of activities to sample as you scoop up loot to make whatever build you can dream of. I made a spiritborn who electrified the entire screen using one button and a rogue who turns into a spinning top flinging knives in every direction. Blizzard's stellar visual effects and tactile combat design elevate Diablo 4 above the other loot-heavy action RPGs. It's one of the most expressive, satisfying games on this list and only promises to expand as each new season releases.

The unexpected action RPG: Dragon Age: The Veilguard

Most impressive player feat: OK, this one is too new, but I'm sure someone will beat it blindfolded or something by next week.

Play it for its snappy combat and gorgeous setting.

Where Dragon Age: The Veilguard misses with its early game character writing, it really hits with its completely revised action RPG battles. I liked the earlier games in the series, but I wasn't there for combat. In Veilguard, I've found myself poking through the skill tree, eager to see what kind of abilities and bonuses I can unlock. And after only a handful of hours, it's starting to click.

I'm playing a spellblade mage, a caster who likes to stab, and for the first time in a Dragon Age game, I don't want to drop the difficulty down to forgettably easy and skip straight to the cutscenes. BioWare nails the fun of rhythmically flinging magic at enemies and teleporting in to strike them with a devastating finisher. I'm essentially a magical rogue empowered by allies who can slow down time or buff my damage output.

Lauren says the dialogue finds its footing deeper into the game in her Dragon Age: The Veilguard review. And that's absolutely fine with me because I'm currently having way more fun than I expected fighting off darkspawn in its gorgeous high fantasy ruins and forests. Part of me wants to try the other classes too, but as this list makes clear, I probably won't have time for that.