Wanted: Games for young players who want for hazardous journeys

August 31, 2015 4:34 PM

RPG PC Games for pre-teens? RPG adventure PC games can be from Steam, choose your type of character, go adventure, for the roughly 10-13 crowd. Any suggestions?

More details: There used to be PC games where the hero solved the problems and saved the princess - Hero's Quest, Quest for Glory for example. Maybe the old games would be a good solution but I'm guessing they are too linear for the current young'ns. Something like this but updated to the current decade with some additional D&D type features such as character customization and leveling would be great. Single-player or multi-player but not open/online/massive so not playing with people outside the house. The game should have some fighting to increase experience but not be the main focus, a main quest but side quests and other goals too. Current favorite app as example: Aralon Sword and Shadow.

I'm having a really hard time weeding through the number of options. Thank you.

posted by RoadScholar to Computers & Internet (8 answers total)

Best answer: Pillars of Eternity? It's a new single-player PC RPG in the style of older games like Baldur's Gate or Planescape: Torment, fairly non-linear with lots of side quests and NPC interaction and moral choices you can make. Very nice game, high production values considering it's from Kickstarter, content is typically PG-13ish, occasionally going up to soft R.
posted by phoenixy at 4:45 PM on August 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Best answer: I'm enjoying Pillars of Eternity as we speak.

Maybe Torchlight I / II would be fun for the younger gamer.

Dragon Age: Origins is pretty damn good if you want to dip into the archives a bit.
posted by humboldt32 at 5:03 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Avadon (and its sequel.)
posted by kagredon at 5:30 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Divinity Original Sin is great, and is getting a (free) upgrade soon that allows for couch coop.
posted by Sebmojo at 5:37 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Tales of Zestiria may be a good one - it's being released on Steam on October 16th. I've played all the games in the Tales series and there is nothing that would be inappropriate for the 10-13 crowd. It is a Japanese RPG though, so it has a very anime like style.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tales_of_Zestiria
posted by valoius at 6:53 PM on August 31, 2015 [2 favorites]

Response by poster: Much thanks, great answers so far, so excited. Keep them coming.

I should note that the players participate in Sims and other games where there are borderline non-PG-13 topics and that is okay.
posted by RoadScholar at 7:07 PM on August 31, 2015

Best answer: Broken Age
The Banner Saga
Shadowrun Returns and Dragonfall
posted by robcorr at 9:50 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]

Best answer: Hand of Fate is quite different to a lot of stuff out there at the moment, but really fun.
posted by terretu at 11:41 PM on August 31, 2015 [1 favorite]