5 fantasy settings that deserve their own video games

Fantasy is a wide-ranging and far-reaching genre. We've seen it spawn countless inviting and intriguing worlds in books, TV, and video games already, and while we're certainly not in a fantasy drought, it feels like there are some settings that could be explored further into making some great video games. Today, we'll go over some fantasy settings and worlds that could and should be explored with a controller in your hands. For what it's worth, while some of the entries on this list might be familiar to you, we're not going with the absolute mainstream of Harry Potter, Game of Thrones, and the like.

The First Law

Joe Abercrombie has made a few deeply immersive fantasy settings over the course of his authorial career, but none stand out quite like that of The First Law and Age of Madness trilogies. There's a few standalone stories set in the world, too, which give it the impression that it's a living, breathing world. Magic is powerful, but has quite a strict set of rules around it in The First Law's world, meaning we probably wouldn't be playing as a mage (unless we were willing to eat people, which could be a unique mechanic in itself). There's plenty of bloody, muddy battles in the books that would be great cinematic set pieces in a game, and stand-out characters that we could interact with over the course of our adventures. To approach a game in this world, we might have to wait until Abercrombie wraps up a new trilogy within it, so then a team of developers could take an approach similar to The Witcher, where the game or games act as a fanfic continuation of the original works. Either that, or just give us a gritty RPG set in the north, fighting flatheads in brutal battles.

The Nevernight Chronicle

I'm using the name of the book series these settings come from, if you haven't noticed, but if we're being pedantic, I would like to see a game, or perhaps even a trilogy of games, follow the story of Mia Corvere taking on the rulers of the Itreyan Republic, seeking revenge for her family. A world where you barely get proper darkness would be an interesting one to explore from an art and design perspective. Especially considering Nevernight by Jay Kristoff feels like a series begging for a stealth-action game. The use of magic in Kristoff's work is also unique, largely focusing on shadowy creatures, blood and flesh manipulation. There's a lot of potential in the world to make a game the likes of which would feel unlike the majority of other fantasy stories.

The Warlord Chronicles

Bernard Cornwell is an author primarily known for his historical fiction works, which have already been adapted into TV already with the likes of Sharpe and The Last Kingdom. The Warlord Chronicles does blend in some historical fiction, as it is set in Britain, technically, but it weaves fantasy in with its Arthurian influence. We've seen an Arthurian world or one inspired by Arthurian Britain in plenty of games before, Tainted Grail: The Fall of Avalon being the most recent well-known example. But, Cornwell's trilogy, looking at the stories of Merlin, Arthur, and Lancelot feel unique enough to warrant their own adaptation in a video game format. The stories take heavy influence from the original Welsh legends, rather than the Malory-inspired works we're probably more familiar with. Conflicts between old, druidic faiths and the Christian religion could spark interesting ways of interacting with the world, and we already have a protagonist to place in the game through the series' own Derfel Cadarn, someone close to Arthur and Merlin who will give us easy ways to interact with both figures of legend.

The Black Company

This one is kind of cheating, as in 2024 Arc Dream Publishing announced they are working on an RPG based on The Black Company, but it's honestly a shock it has taken 40 years for Glenn Cook's fantasy series to get its own video game. Perhaps the world of The Black Company isn't quite as important as the eponymous band itself, but there's so much potential in the saga of the Black Company that it's hard to see how this fantasy series has been ignored by wider media for so long. Fantasy and military action are mixed together in a grimdark setting that has plenty of potential whether we're following the Black Company during their time in the Empire of Lady, or their journey home to Khatovar. Hopefully we can hear something substantial soon about the Arc Dream Publishing game, just to prove how successful this setting should be outside of the books.

Esctarp/Witch World

Witch World is a bit of an odd series. It's collaborative in nature, started by writer Andre Norton in 1963 and then spinning off from the 1980s all the way until Norton's death in 2005, it has had many influences and explored a lot of different regions in the alternate universe that is the Witch World. Unlike our world, in Estcarp and the other continents of the Witch World, magic has superseded science, and yet it can only be practised by women. I imagine a certain portion of the internet would have a hissy fit were this game to ever get made, but it would be a shame not to see Witch World get some more love from wider media, if only to see some more interpretations of what the maigcal continent of Estcarp might look like outside of the pages of the novels.