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There are many games made in Europe that really worth your time. Yes, unfortunately if you buy them from Steam or other stores besides GOG, a significant cut will go to these market monopolists. But the rest will hopefully fund European studios.

Here is a list of the European games I have played in the last five years or so and the country where studio is mostly based Feel free to add more!

Open world and RPGs

• Cyberpunk 2077 (Poland) I have been playing games since the Commodore 64. I sincerely believe this to be one of the best games ever made. If you like sci-fi, if you like Cyberpunk and have not yet played this masterpiece, you need to buy it now. The gameplay, the story will change you. Close reddit and go buy it on GOG! Or… you can choose to play the American Starfield, with the americanicased United Colonies vs american Libertarian Colonies in space, with no universal healthcare and people living underground on a paradise world (true story).

• Baldur’s Gate 3 (Belgium) This game also needs no introduction. One of the best RPGs ever made. You can do almost everything you can think of, romance everyone. The voice acting is top notch, the combat is fun and you can even play it in couch co-op in split screen. I played it a second time with my partner in this way.

• Kingdom Come Deliverance 1 and 2 (Czech Republic) I have yet to play the 2nd one. The first KCD was a fresh take on the open-world RPG genre, with one set in medieval times in Bohemia. No dragons, no magic. Just a bit of alchemy. The combat system was a bit difficult to get adjusted to, but it’s definitely worth a lot of your time! Will buy the 2nd one as soon as I finish a few other titles through my backlog. I think many more studios should do “historical RPGs.” It’s truly a shame (as an Italian) that there are NO open-world RPGs set in the times of the Roman Empire. A game of the quality of KCD would be like a fountain of gold.

• Disco Elysium (Estonia) This is a bit older, from 2019 but it’s truly a masterpiece. It’s a surreal RPG with basically no combat and it is entirely focused on the narrative aspects. A lot of choices, a lot of reading, and the possibility to build 0.00001% of communism! There is a bit of controversy regarding the studio, however. From what I have gathered from the wikipedia article, the IP is no longer owned by the original authors, who have launched a new studio and are working on a spiritual successor to DE.

Strategy and Tactics

• Paradox Games (Sweden) There are just too many. If you like staring at maps (who doesn’t?) you only need to pick the genre you like the most. Medieval times? Crusader Kings. WW2? Hearts of Iron 4. Modern period? Victoria 3. Space? Stellaris. Unfortunately the DLC model of Paradox is a bit infamous but these games have kept me entertained for thousands of hours combined.

• Endless * games (France) are “competitors” to Paradox games. There’s Endless Space for turn-based 4x like Civilization, Endless Legend is a fantasy civilization, Humankind is a direct competitor to Civilization, Endless Dungeon is a roguelike. I heartily recommend all of them. They are working on Endless Legend 2 I think and there’s a lot of anticipation around it.

• Ixion (France) is a sort of city builder based in space, where you need to build up sectors of a travelling spaceship. I won’t spoil it too much, I liked the story. It’s a grim take on the peril of tech billionaire too. Music is awesome.

• Other older tactical / simulation game. Surviving Mars (2018, Bulgaria) is a city builder set on Mars. Very captivating and realistic. The game is old now and I think it contains some positive references to Elon, from the before times. Frostpunk 1 & 2 (Poland) lets you manage a colony of survivors in a world that entered an ice age. I haven’t played the 2nd one yet but the first was really worht it. The city must survive! Cities Skylines 1&2 (Finland) are the de facto genre standards for successors of Sim City

Action & Adventure games

• Helldivers 2 (Sweden). I haven’t played this one personally, but there’s a huge following around it. Everybody by now should now that is extremely important to defend democracy! Not many might know that it is made in Europe.

• Alan Wake series (Finland). The last AW2 was truly a remarkable survival-horror game. If you like the genre and haven’t played you need to catch up. Plus you can’t say you have lived until you have seen this.

• Hitman series (Denmark). This also needs no introductions. It’s the one of the best game in the stealth genre. The story is also well developed and there are ways to make your target suffer a fatal accident that you have never thought of.

• Indiana Jones and the Great Circle (Sweden). Surprisingly, this game was made in Sweden (distributed by Bethesda Softworks). It’s a great Indiana Jones story. I liked the Vatican part a lot but the game has been overall very entertaining. I’d love to see a remake of the Fate of Atlantis. Plus, this game has the best 3D rendition of an Italian cornetto. I was salivating when I saw it!

Indie games

• Observation (Scotland) is a classic sci-fi story about a space station where something has gone wrong. It’s a “walking” (or zero-g walking at least) simulator, but the story is captivating.

• Observer (Poland) is a sci-fi horror game set in a cyberpunkish world. The protagonist is played by the late Rutger Hauer (Blade Runner). My partner loved it. Other great games from this studio are The Medium, Layers of Fear, and the remake of Silent Hills 2.

• Silicon Dreams (Austria), this is truly a very obscure game but as a lover all things Cyberpunk, I really liked it. It’s a narrative game, a sort of visual novel, where you have to interrogate androids who are accused of being deviants. You’ll need to decide whether to dismiss the charges or sentence them to recycling. It’s basically a cyberpunk version of Papers, Please, but a lot more developed in terms of narrative.

• Suzerain (Germany), is another narrative based adventure game. You play the role of a politician in a fictional country that rises to power. Through your actions you will need to decide what kind of country it will become.

• The Invincible (Poland). I just finished this last night. It’s a sci-fi story that serves as a prequel to Stanislaw Lev’s novel of the same name. It’s a short game, but very atmospheric and will offer you a great sci-fi story on another planet.

I’m also working on an indie-game, it’s called Sine Fine. It’s a space exploration game set after humanity’s extinction, where you play the role of an AI supercomputer tasked with the mission of finding a new habitable planet by sending out probes at relativistic sublight speeds in a desolate and seemingly empty galaxy. If you like hard sci-fi be sure to keep an eye out for it. Steam page will come soon!

Thanks for having read so far and feel free to add more games!