Games

The Best RPGs Based On Folklore

Published

58 seconds ago

January 21, 2025

Christoph Rediske

Summary

Table of Contents

Folklore-based storytelling in games allows for magical elements and historical blending.
Where The Water Tastes Like Wine uses folklore as currency, emphasizing the value of oral tradition.
Games like Sekiro and Black Book engage with mythology, folklore, and historical fantasy.

Folklore is the basis of some of the most brilliant storytelling that games have to offer. Writers and developers take what makes these stories so enduring and allow the player to become immersed in that world. Nowhere is this truer than in the historical RPG.

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However, unlike games that try to be historically accurate, folklore can delve into magic, monsters, and mythology. There is freedom in exploring the distant—and not-so-distant— past filtered through the stories passed down through generations and whispered in fearfull tones. This list has a mix of RPGs based on folklore from around the world and various eras of folklore, up to the modern folklore of urban legends.

6

Where The Water Tastes Like Wine

Devilishly Clever Story Collecting

Systems

Released: February 28, 2018
Developer(s): Dim Bulb Games
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OpenCritic Rating: Fair

Where the Water Tastes Like Wine is an adventure game in which folklore itself is the currency. It is set in an ambiguous time around the Great Depression in North America and has a darkly Dust Bowl canival-esque aesthetic. A wanderer has stumbled into the wrong card game and becomes the undead thrall of a devilish wolf who demands stories from across the U.S.

The wanderer must talk to people to uncover their stories or witness peculiar events to collect folklore that might be interesting to other itinerant characters or the wolf himself. Using a tarot card-style system, the player must tell the right type of story to appease their audience. It is a game about the value of oral tradition and the connections made through storytelling.

5

Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

The One-Armed Wolf

Systems

Released: March 22, 2019
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty
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Sekiro has limited character attributes and skill tree functions for players to experiment with, hence the degree to which it is an RPG compared to other Soulslike games is contested. That is why it is not higher up on this list. However, there is no doubt that Sekiro engages with a blend of mythology, folklore, and modern cinematic representations of 1500s Sengoku-era Japan. The game blurs historical inspiration and fantasy esthetics to fantastic effect, and there are allusions to Buddhist philosophy throughout.

It is a brutally hard but astonishingly beautiful game that rewards persistence and adaptive, aggressive play. Basically, be prepared to sink about 50 dedicated hours at least into the game to get the most out of its stunning historical fantasy world. There is a lot of wonderful optional gameplay and story connected to folklore that is easy to miss if players are too focused on finishing the core game as quickly as possible.

4

Black Book

Idle Demons Do Bad Work

RPG

Adventure

Indie Games

Strategy

Released: May 5, 2020
Developer(s): Morteshka

Black Book is a surprisingly accessible deckbuilding RPG in which a young sorceress named Vasilisa seeks to reunite with her dead husband. To do so, she must open the seals in the titular Black Book. This involves the use of dark magic and the building of a demonic army. Vasilisa discovers cards through events like conversational encounters, and then she can use those cards in combat against monsters and mythical beings.

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There are quite a few moral and strategic choices to make along the way that significantly impact available options and cards. It is set in 19th-century Russia and explores Slavic folklore primarily through Russian and Komi traditions. The developers consulted Russian ethnographers to ensure the authenticity of their depiction of the folkloric traditions of the area.

3

World Of Horror

Old Gods And Urban Legends

Systems

Released: December 8, 2023
Developer(s): panstasz
OpenCritic Rating: Strong

World of Horror is a black-and-white pixel art RPG that wears its RPG elements on its sleeve. Not only are players completely at the mercy of RNG, but there are also explicit Perception checks and a dedicated window in the user interface to track stats. Players recruit allies to offer stat boosts and the risks and consequences of failure are often numerically expressed.

From a folklore perspective, World of Horror engages directly with urban legends and modern folklore influenced by Junji Ito

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2

Ghost Of Tsushima

Master The Blade

Systems

Released: July 17, 2020
OpenCritic Rating: Advertisement

Mighty

Ghost of Tsushima is a fantastic third-person RPG with dynamic sword combat set in feudal Japan. It is the story of Jin, who is one of only a few survivors of a bloody battle between samurai and the invading Mongols in 1274. He goes on a quest to rescue his uncle who was taken prisoner during the battle and uncovers mythic stories, told through ink-painted vignettes, along the way.

Jin’s companion, Una, creates and builds up folklore around Jin himself, spreading the word that he is a vengeful spirit (or “ghost”) seeking revenge for the deaths in the Battle of Tsushima. As he travels through the land, the legend surrounding him begins to build, and he becomes a mythic figure in his own right.

1

Pentiment

By The Book

Released: November 15, 2022
OpenCritic Rating: Mighty

Pentiment is a 2D role-playing mystery game that takes place in 16th-century Bavaria. The art style of Pentiment is inspired by illuminated manuscripts, and ornate books that were a mainstay of literature reproduction before the invention of the printing press. There are narrative choices that inform the player character’s backstory, personality, and skill set.

There is heavy engagement with the folklore of the area through conversations about the history of Bavaria and the religious traditions of the time. These folkloric accounts demonstrate the conflict between Christian ideology and Pagan history. It is a murder mystery that hinges on subjective interpretations—and misrepresentations—of history.