Tyranny

Tyranny might get overlooked amid other modern isometric RPGs with bigger names like BG3, Divinity Original Sin or Pillars of Eternity, but this is a solid and unique offering. The unique story -- playing in a world where the evil overlord has conquered the land -- gives this game a different perspective and makes it much easier to roleplay a "bad' guy (especially for those of us like me who usually play good characters). But the game is deep and allows a lot of different paths and branches. It's a really unique world and the story ends up in a good place. My first run took about 30 hours, so it's a little shorter but has a nice payoff for the time invested. Not one to miss if you're a fan of isometric RPGs.

I just completed my first playthrough and I have to say that this is one of the most amazingly written RPGs I have ever played. The premise alone is unique but the pacing and overall execution bring it to life properly, creating an unforgettable experience.

Word of warning, this one's a little grittier than quite a few other fantasy RPGs. This is a war story, a war story well told, and war stories can be pretty rattling. Still, it balances the grim and the dark well against other elements and masterfully avoids the pitfalls of preachiness, cheap edginess or shallow fanfic angst. It doesn't sacrifice storytelling in the name of good taste, nor does it pile on putrid shock value unnecessarily. I found the occasional humor woven into the storytelling very enjoyable, a little dark and irreverent but never completely lapsing into crude for the sake of crude.

The voice acting is solid and in conjunction with writing, it made the companions and certain other characters quite memorable. And no, I'm sorry, you can't f... uh, romance your companions. That said, I never found myself missing the option and if anything,... it's somewhat refreshing in 2025.

The visuals, although a bit dated, are decent enough not to detract from the experience but by no means a selling point. Still, I did very much appreciate the art style in the cutscenes. It does a good job of solidifying the game's unique character.

I enjoyed the combat and the spellcrafting system - real time tactical combat with pauses is something that I fondly remember from other, slightly older games. If you're a turn-based tactical or action RPG player, it might take a tiny bit of getting used to but the learning curve isn't too steep.

Tyranny is absolutely worth a playthrough or three (and you bet I'll do at least two more).

Awesome cRPG where you play as the bad guys. One of the best cRPGs released in 2016.

Don't look at the hours, I have played the GoG version in full. A stellar RPG with an original premise and great execution. Back when Obsidian was synonymous with quality.

Do give it a try.

Tyranny is an incredible game even almost a decade after its release.

The story, characters, and world building are truly what brings me into this game. The gorgeous score written by Justin E. Bell coupled with the incredible art and stylization really bring home a well written narrative. While the combat isn't something that I find particularly engaging, all the other aspects of the gameplay are a ton of fun. Character building, exploration, narrative choices are all a blast. There are so many little details to this game like getting letters from various characters you can respond to, to tiny puzzles that exist all over the place that make this game so charming. I really reccommend this game if you love games like BG3. This is where the heart and soul of this genre comes from and I wish Obsidian was still making titles like this.

This was a frustrating experience! The main culprit is the real time combat system and more specifically the speed at which it takes place. It took me the best part of 50 hours to really get the hang of interrupting the action when needed to enter commands. After that it gets better but your tactics will become fairly repetitive.
The graphics are typical 2D isometric view RPG. The sound is average. Dialogues are rarely spoken.
The story is fine and fairly linear. You will explore all the areas of the map to complete the game (there is only 1 optional quest).
The game gives a choice of 7 characters. The interaction between characters is limited but can lead to special combo actions some of which being quite useful.
The one thing I really enjoyed was the ability to design your spells in a lot of detail as your lore increases.
In conclusion, this RPG is not the best of Obsidian RPGs.

Not the best in the isometric genre but was worth a play. Combat is fun with some great effects. Story is ok nothing really happens with some of the darker plot lines. I was expecting more from the secrets i found out about graven ashe. Nothing happened. Story takes about 25 to 30 hours to beat. Sad to say that even Baldur's gate 2 is better than this modern day game. I beat this on the second hardest difficulty with no problem.

Great CRPG with a very engaging story and difficult choices. If you enjoyed Pillars of Eternity and similar games, you'll love this one.

The combat is pretty rough in the beginning, but it gets better. This is one of the few games where I feel like the choices I've made throughout the game really shaped the lore of the world. I'd recommend this game purely for its story.

Amazing game, good story, solid design, coherent with it's concepts, Replayable with a different story arc if you've got the time and maybe even want to increase the difficulty!
Highly recommend it for players who like the D&D style isometric games

Absolutely a great game. A lot of permutations of choices and playthroughs. Top-notch writing,

I wish this game would be longer. Among all the RPGs I have ever played this has the best setting: you are already on the winner's side (which is Evil). What will you do next? There are several paths you can choose and I liked the way it is shown in the game. The 2d cutscenes are also amazing.

No, not for me. It starts exciting but that dropped with every conquest step, with choices between rocks and hard places.
The first conversation wasn't better and with the first fight i lost all interest in the fate of my character or any other person in this world.

A truly unique perspective on choice. Inspired magic/rune system. Interesting characters and deep dialogue + opportunity for multiple playthroughs. Amazing--wish there was more!

Loving the world, but also the magic system and the faction reputation system. Can't believe I never played this to now.

Please let me give you a unique rundown on a predicament I incurred during my wrath. During the character creation phase, Tyranny has you build a "conquest history" instead of simply choosing a background. This is a prolonged prologue that details your actions across multiple battlefields... supply chains, civilian subjugation, multiple fronts of war strategy... this ultimately involved me favoring the "purple" faction in certain areas of the map, since their methods seemed the most practical at the time. However, playing through the story and making my own emergent opinions, I began to favor the "red" faction's approach to war and understanding their battle philosophy on a deeper level. This led to me belittling the "purple" men and soon our faction relationship tanked. So, I'm with the reds, but in my previous "conquest history" I left many areas for purple rule! When visiting major city hubs, they transform into hostile places, places of former alliance, former friends. When I kill, I think of names, of thoughts... I don't know how to feel about that. Even if I am above the law, am I immune to my own judgement?

Tyranny features very challenging additions to the Pillars of Eternity formula, proving to require a much more involved use of its gameplay systems to succeed on normal difficulties. The pleasure that comes in this game mastery mirrors the pleasure of conquest. Ascending from the traditional approval/disapproval in CRPG dialogue, Tyranny introduces a dual loyalty/fear system which means your companions don't need to like you to keep them under your boot (or click) of control. If your favorite aspect of RPGs is manipulating the mastery of your environment, and all those individuals therein, Tyranny is your next big bet. Thoroughly enjoying this. Quality compared to Pillars is definitely a little different, some reused assets and some less voice acted segments, but I enjoy the areas of the game that seem a little more developed than Pillars. Where combat in Pillars felt commonplace and passing, Tyranny makes me feel my heart beat.. and often stops my heart when I fail. Winning here is more difficult, but it makes me feel that much stronger.

I want to add that it's not very often you find a game where you want to talk to your companions and everyone around you at length. Talk their heads off even! I really appreciate the character writing here, a definite step above some other Obsidian titles. I find myself taking a moment to enjoy a story. I haven't enjoyed characters this much since my playthrough of The Outer Worlds! Nice!

The layers of plot on this one is a gem. The world would be a better place with more games like this one.

I pretty much got to make every awful decision that my heart desired. It's a rare gem that lets you have that much freedom, that truly effects the game world and the people in it. The game is outstanding.

one of my top 3 games, and my top rpg. Great variety of choices/paths/solutions for all the problems presented and all make sense in-game and are consistent with the world

An absolutely amazing experience

Tyranny is by far, the most original universe I have seen in an RPG, the game is bold in it's proposal and it makes an tasty narrative experience with an excelent choice system and bold consequences. Although it is a little bit hard to catch up and it has a terrible combat system.

I really enjoyed playing it, cause the game didn't forced me to be the hero in any situation, it felt actually FREE. And the narrative is really original and so it is the worldbuilding, it's needless to say that it has amazing writting. That's the actual obsidian studios we want, not that generic souless thing they've shown us with their last 2025 game. Original, compelling, unique and with a really tasty season that makes people atracted to it, and with amazing art direction.

There is but a great problem, the game has a terrible combat system that made me almost give up more than one time, the learning curve extends til almost middle game and it can make you really annoyed towards it, it's easily the worst factor in all game, it can make some people give up the game faster than the overlord get's mad.

I can label it easily a 8.0/10. If the combat was better, and if it was easier to catch up, it could be one of the best CRPGs of all time, thiking right now it is one of the best modern ones we have.

Game seems fine... but the words are so damn tiny for no damn reason. I even increased the size but that didn't seem to change the in shop menu. Obnoxious. I don't know why this type of game loves to use excessive text without allowing for it to be large. I can read it but it's just too much. Too wordy and I don't feel like reading endless tiny script.

Good RPG, peak writing and nice accessibility. The only downside is the lack of graphic settings.

Nice game outside of combat, but fighting is not fun. Also didn't understand why there were so few portraits, and I see that instead of giving more choices for base game, they sell freaking portraits as DLC? Man. They don't deserve a positive review. At least the story and the choices are nice, but that's it.

An engaging cRPG with a compelling story and rich choices, game offers different perspectives and unique dialogues depending on your faction choice, this must me done in four separate playthroughs tho.

CRPG where you're the bad guy, good writing, novel concept

scratched an itch left by PoE, loved the impact that your choices made on the rest of the game and the magic system was an absolute breath of fresh air. bastard's wound dlc was buggy as fuck which was a bit of a late-game annoyance

Wow, I can’t believe I waited so long to play this. Finally a game where I have choices and where the villain path is actually fleshed out. I wish there was more games like this. Only con is I wish there were more fantasy races included and that the protagonist could not be human. But that’s just me, I prefer non human protagonist.

This was a good game, I enjoyed it. I heard about it after playing the Pillars series which became my new favorite series. This game has a good feeling when compared to Pillars but I think its in its own boat. There was only a few things I didn't like but thats with any game.

The game has excellent writing, worldbuilding and role playing mechanics. If it was a book or tabletop game it would be a 10/10.

But this game has some of the worst combat I have seen in a CRPG. Rtwp without any of the things that make that system fun and constant cutscenes which prevent you from being able to position your characters. No amount of good writing can fix terrible gameplay.

I liked the gameplay and the lore which was written by an industry veteran. The dialogue, however, is atrocious. The formerly great Obsidian started to go down here by hiring untalented fan-fiction writers whose dialogue, when spoken by a woman, needs to be spiced with curse words which don't fit what's being said at all. It's also painfully gender balanced; I honestly believe if you make a spreadsheet of male vs female NPCs, it's going to be very close to 1:1. I got no problem with female leads (my favorite Shepard was a gnarly FemShep, say), but it feels so forced.

a solid 7.5. great cRPG mechanics. great world building and atmosphere. bit of a weak 3rd act though.

A LOT of replay value out of this game as there are 4 different 'paths' you can take. The concept of the world is really neat as well.

One of the best cRPGs ever made, don't let my playtime fool you, I bought it here as a second copy just because I like it so much.

The writing on this is incredibly on point, and I hope one day we get a proper continuation to the story.

Great setting, great writing, great implementation. Probably one of the best CRPGs I've played.

I am bummed that this game didn't get more traction. It was such an out-of-left-field entry into the CRPG genre. I don't mean from a design perspective (because I think the design takes a lot of elements from other obsidian CRPGs and other CRPGs in general--which is not bad, just to be clear), but rather the timing of it and it being a brand new IP, kind of like the Pillars series to an extent. It isn't the first CRPG to dabble in being the villain or have a dark setting. But the way it was executed felt different when I was playing. There was a bleakness to everything that I really enjoyed--kind of a sense that I was choosing the best of a bunch of bad options all the time (or leaning into being a villain and choosing the worst of the worst).

If I were a very wealthy man, I would bankroll a sequel to it just so I could see where the creative minds behind it wanted to take it.

Oh, also the writing and voice acting were S-tier.

Fantastic story with morally gray characters. Surprising alliances. Hard choices and truly a smart examination of playing as an agent of the bad guy. Love it!

Most of the dialogues are not voiced, so it was a bit hard to keep myself invested in the story but other than that a very good game

A competent CRPG that turns the usual themes of the genre on their head. It was fun to embrace being the bad guy and decide the fate of terratus. The companion combos and faction/weapon abilities turn what would otherwise be stale combat into combat I looked forward to engaging with. The lack of enemy variety pulled it down for me a little bit, along with limited voice acting and visual flair with the characters. The lore and world building is the usual great work from Obsidian and kept me wanting to reach the conclusion. Easy recommend for fans of the genre.

I love setting of Malazan so I naturally also loved the setting of Tyranny. Disfavored faction really reminds me of Bridgeburners. One of the best examples of good writing in the genre. Features interesting characters (both archons and companions), very unique approach to magic system (creating your own spells from sigils) and choices which impact the story. Also music fits really well the theme of the game. People complain that the ending comes too fast - it's true that the 3rd act can be completed in 1-2h. I think the closest thing that can be compared to the last act is The Landsmeet from DA:O. And it might be even better executed in Tyranny. Personally, I wouldn't list it as a negative.

There are two negatives for me though - it's obvious that the game was released too fast (missing dialogue lines errors/empty lines, broken formatting of some UI, sound effects being glitchy). Second thing is that all DLCs are basically cut content from the base game, which should have been there in the first place. Made just to get more money and are not really expansions.

While I felt as though I was losing my grip on the story near the end, I really enjoyed this one.

This is a fun bite-sized CRPG. It just goes to show that not all of these games need to be massive.

Really interesting world, it felt like your choices actually changed things. I could tell that if I'd made different choices I would have had a very different experience, so I'm looking forward to playing it again someday. It did end abruptly, felt like maybe they were planning for a sequel that sadly didn't get made.

Original, compelling, and conceptually different in so many awesome ways. Frees you from some of the more tropey "Save the world / You're the chosen one / The power of friendship and love overcomes all" stuff in RPGs. If you like playing RPGs that truly allow you to be your own character rather than railroading you toward 4 or 5 versions of the same character, this is it. Obsidian, PLEASE MAKE ANOTHER GAME SET IN THIS UNIVERSE!!!!!

enjoy spending time alone play this if you wanna enjoy that time more

Are you tired of seeing the same fantasy tropes recycled in every rpg? Bored of seeing good and evil depicted in a black-and-white manner? Want to play a game that doesn't spell things out for you and actually treats you like the adult you technically are? Then this game is for you!
Don't go into this looking for a quick dopamine fix, or your typical (and rather stale) straightforward power fantasy/heroes journey arc. Don't expect to feel warm and fuzzy inside like when you feed an antelope at the zoo (incidentally, there are no antelopes in this world. Sadge).
That's what Tyranny is. Or, what it's supposed to be. Sure, this game doesn't quite deliver on the deeply fleshed-out dystopia that it promises, but that's mainly because the last 'act' of the game was rather rushed, and I wish the story was longer. The game seems to end just when things are getting good.
If you're looking for gameplay, this game follows a similar ruleset to other pausable real-time tactics CRPGS (only Pillars of Eternity and Pillars of Eternity 2, pretty much). The spell crafting system is unique, and spells are only limited by their cooldown, not by spell slots per day. Magic is king, but there's actually a lot of depth to combat as a whole, even on the purely physical side of things. You can make niche ideas work, such as a warrior who dual-wields throwing knives imbued with poison, or a heavily-armoured frontline spellcaster with a big shield, or a 'commander' who doesn't do much actual fighting, but is able to point to companions who are knocked out and tell them to get back up. Sure, there is a bit of a meta (light armour and deflection is considered stronger than heavy armour, magic is king, melee is kinda ass) but you can make anything work if you understand how recovery/penetration/hit rates/damage types etc. work.
People complain that nOt EvErYtHiNg Is VoIcE aCtEd, but who cares, you can piss people off and get them to say "fuck you", and that's part's definitely voice acted. Sirin's singing in combat is just lovely. When your weapon isn't very effective, Verse may remark that they are as useful as nipples on a man. When certain enemies set Sirin on fire, she will flail her arms and scream "PUT ME OUT! PUT ME OUT!"
If you still aren't convinced, this RPG lets you be a gigantic dickhead in a completely *believable* way!!! If someone doesn't listen to you, you can smack them around (and get xp at the same time) as a dialogue option, for example. I should stop. Just buy the game, seriously. Okay, it's a bit more expensive now than when I bought it, so maybe wait for a sale, or whatever. There are many games out there with far bigger budgets that aren't half as compelling.

One of the most interesting settings in an RPG out there with an fantastic magic system

For Kyros!

This game is CRIMINALLY underrated. Isometric RPGs are some of my favorite games of all time, and this one delivers a great story and has crazy good world building. You get to be a tyrant (or not). The spell crafting system is really cool. I want more games in this universe. Play this game to support Obsidian, they have the balls to make games that don't need to make AAA money but are in fact AAA quality.

Great RPG, amazing writing, voice acting, story, music, BUT I felt like combat is sluggish and uninteresting. Might be my dislike of "real time, but with pause" mechanic in general, but it always feels like either you can leave the party to kill all enemies in sight in real-time mode on their own (so what's even the point of having the combat in the first place if you can just sit back and watch it happen) OR you need to min-max all the actions of all the party members by constantly pausing and un-pausing the game, which slows the combat a whole lot and defeats the purpose of having "real-time" combat at all. Haven't been able to make myself finish the game, but not including combat, it was good experience.

Good idea. Would like to see more variability in the progression of the scenario. Anyway good game.

Great game mechanic to set the stages for the game changing the route and people you will experience based on the beginning questions planning the invasion.

Greatest magic system in CRPGs, also very enjoyable evil play through