War has been heavily depicted within the media entertainment format in general. From blockbuster movies to even video games, consumers are always interested in an over-the-top war story. Throughout the years, we’ve seen some incredible video games released into the market based on World War I. We’ve compiled a list below that showcases our favorite World War One video games to have released into the market.
#11 Commander The Great WarPlatform : PC
Release Date : March 15, 2012
Genre : Strategy
Commander: The Great War is a title that highlights the entire war from 1914 to 1918. This is a turn-based strategy game that has players going through different battles with five start dates to pick from. From there, it’s a fight to manage your resources and deal with a tricky AI opponent. Without a continuous campaign, players are starting up with different situations rather than players building up their XP or resources to make use of in the future. As a result, there’s a bit of a change-up to what you may have to research and build up for whatever the situation may call for.
#10 Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron GamePlatform : PC
Release Date : 5 April 2011
Genre : Real-time grand strategy
Darkest Hour: A Hearts of Iron Game is a real-time strategy title released in 2011. With that said, this title splits up two scenarios which is one based around The Great War and World War II. When a scenario is selected, players are given different campaign missions which may be based around certain nations or operations. From there, it’s up to the players to determine how they will build up their forces. For instance, you may decide to build up more troops, aircraft’s or naval warfare ships. Not only are players in an active battle, but they can make alliances as well to help you out in battles. Likewise, players could opt to build up their nation and alliance around a democratic policy or more of authoritarian control.
#9 Valiant HeartsPlatform : PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One, iOS, Android, Nintendo Switch
Release Date : 25 June 2014
PC, PS3, PS4, Xbox 360, Xbox One 25 June 2014 / iOS 4 September 2014
Android 26 November 2014 / Nintendo Switch 8 November 2018
Genre : Puzzle, adventure
Valiant Hearts is Ubisoft’s take on a game based around The Great War. The game focuses on four characters that grow closer together throughout the war as each attempt to save one another from the horrors that follow during the battles of World War I. Unlike the typical war-based video game, Valiant Hearts is a puzzle adventure where players must complete certain tasks which may require players to locate specific objects.
Although within the mixture of puzzle based levels, Valiant Hearts is broken up with sections of melee combat and time-based minigames. Not only does Valiant Hearts have a touching story but the gameplay is designed through Ubisoft’s UbiArt Framework, the in-house engine that was used to deliver Rayman Origins and Child of Light.
#8 Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted LandPlatform : iOS, PC, Android
Release Date : PC May 5, 2012 / iOS January 30, 2012
Android July 6, 2013
Genre : Tactical role-playing
Based off the novel The Call of Cthulhu by H.P. Lovecraft comes Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land, a tactical RPG that released in 2012 for iOS, Android, and Microsoft Windows. This particular video game took a bit more fantasy type storyline compared to other titles on this list. Instead of a traditional war setting, players take control of a team of investigators as they look into a conspiracy within the German army during World War I.
Apparently the German armies have started to re-animate corpses of their fallen soldiers to create a massive army of the living dead. As mentioned, this is a tactical RPG where players will use turn-based strategy combat while also allowing gamers to upgrade stats through an action point system. Fans of Fire Emblem along with XCOM may take an interest in Call of Cthulhu: The Wasted Land.
#7 To End All WarsTo End All Wars is a slightly advanced strategy title that is based within World War I. Players take control of a faction that attempts to overpower Europe. From there it’s all about maneuver troops around a map and strategize over a grand scheme to take out the other factions as they each expand their units in hopes to gain control of other nations and leaders. Fans of strategy based video games may enjoy To End All Wars though for newcomers, this game may require a steep learning curve in order to fully immerse themselves into the video game.
#6 Victoria IIPlatform : PC, Mac OS X
Release Date : August 13, 2010
Genre : Grand strategy
Victoria II, much like To End All Wars, is a grand strategy video game. However, unlike To End All Wars, Victoria II takes place from 1836 through 1936. Players are given control of a 19th century state where they must oversee the nation through the dawn of the 20th century. Not only will players take part of wars such as World War I, they must also manage various aspects of the controlled state which include political, diplomatic, economic, military, and even technological. Each action a player makes will have its consequences throughout the world that may benefit your particular nation or prove to be a fault that could cause battles to even a revolt of the nation’s people.
#5 Toy SoldiersPlatform : Xbox 360 (XBLA), PC
Release Date : PC April 27, 2012
XBLA March 3, 2010
Genre : Action, strategy
Toy Soldiers is an action strategy title by developers Signal Studios. The video game plays out as miniature toy soldiers within a World War I setting. Players will find themselves inside a model diorama within various home locations such as a child’s bedroom.
Likewise, players will be able to control a variety of units and give commands in order to take down the enemy forces. Speaking of which, there are a total of fifty different units available to take control during the battles throughout the campaign.
#4 NecroVisioNPlatform : PC
Release Date : 2009-05-25
Genre : First-person shooter
NecroVisioN is an FPS that is set during the First World War Players will take on the role of Simon Bukner who is recruited into the British Army. During his journey within the war, Simon finds that he’s not only having to battle against man but a slew of mysterious supernatural forces. Players will be battling against zombies, vampires, and demons. It’s certainly quite a step away from the traditional WWI setting that we may be used to, but it’s a decent twist to give players something different to play around with.
#3 VerdunPlatform : PC, OS X, Linux, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date : PC, OS X, Linux 28 April 2015
PS4 30 August 2016 / Xbox One 8 March 2017
Genre : First-person shooter
Verdun is a first-person shooter based on the first World War. Players will fight within the trenches while using authentic weapons from the time period. Gameplay is intense and merciless with developers showcasing a realistic World War I setting within the western front between 1914 and 1918.
Since the game is set to be as realistic as possible for the time period, players will also be able to play with friends in a tactical squad-based game mode. You and your squad mates will go through battles within the trenches to fend off the enemy factions through the smog of dirt and gunpowder.
#2 TannenbergPlatform : PC, OS X, Linux, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date : PC, OS X, Linux February 13, 2019
PS4, Xbox One July 24, 2020
Genre : First-person shooter
From the same development team that brought out Verdun, we have Tannenberg. This video game came out in 2019 which has the same style of gameplay as Verdun. However, here in this game, players are going through a war based around the Battle of Tannenberg which took place in East Prussia. This 1914 battle is a first-person shooter that again the developers brought out weapons, equipment, battlefields, uniforms, to the injuries that a soldier would sustain authentically. Being a multiplayer game, players can get over sixty gamers together on PC or just forty if on consoles. From there, players can expect a few video game modes to play which are based around capturing points, a standard style team deathmatch, or a free-for-all.
#1 Battlefield 1Platform : PC, PS4, Xbox One
Release Date : October 21, 2016
Genre : First-person shooter
Developed by EA DICE, the Battlefield franchise has recently taken a step back by taking players back to World War One with Battlefield 1. The video game is the fifteenth in the Battlefield series and much like the past installments, Battlefield 1 is an FPS.
While the game features a fully fleshed out multiplayer filled with game modes, players who pick up the game also have a narrative campaign. The campaign will have a few different characters from around the globe who will offer their story of the war.
20 Of The Best Forgotten Xbox Gems
We've been on quite the history tour this month, and as our 20 defining Xbox moments series comes to a close, we've still got more classic Xbox love to share. Today, we'll be looking back at some of the overlooked, forgotten, or unsung Xbox classics from yesteryear. We've tried to limit the list to games that were either exclusive to an Xbox platform or at least usually associated with one, and in some cases it's not so much that nobody knows about the game today, rather that we're unlikely to see it make a return any time soon for one reason or another. With the preamble out of the way, let's get into the games...Quantum Redshift When Microsoft wanted a counter-play to Sony's WipEout series — the futuristic racer that proved instrumental in helping PlayStation make gaming 'cool' — who better to turn to than a team that used to work on WipEout? Curly Monsters was a six-man studio made up of former Psygnosis devs, but sadly, Quantum Redshift would be its second and final game. That's no reflection on its quality, mind... It's a superb racer, just one that was pretty much sent out to die. Quantum Redshift reviewed well, but got precious little marketing, and Microsoft, having paid for the game to be made, took packaging into its own hands with a frankly awful cover that art director Neil Thompson openly branded "a piece of s**t" speaking to Eurogamer back in 2012. Curly Monsters was originally contracted for two Xbox games, although Microsoft apparently walked away from the deal after Quantum Redshift didn't take off as hoped, dashing our hopes for a sequel to this fantastic racer and shuttering the studio in the process.Boom Boom Rocket Considering Bizarre Creations was best known for its world-class racing games, its catalogue sure does have a bunch of one-off wonders in there. From cartoon shooter Fur Fighters to the arcade action of The Club, the studio proved time and again that it wasn't just racers that it could produce to a fantastic standard. This simple (in concept, at least) firework-themed rhythm-action game was a blast, with jazzed-up versions of classical greats and chaotic note charts that would send your hands racing all over the controller as the pace picked up. Despite a limited track list, Boom Boom Rocket is a great time, especially when facing off against a skilled opponent in the local multiplayer Endurance mode, where the song gets faster as you complete 'laps' of it and things quickly get pretty intense. It's not exactly an easy completion and, as an original Xbox Live Arcade (XBLA) release, only has 200G up for grabs, but it's playable via backwards compatibility if you fancy a spot of challenging musical magic.Phantom Crash Genki's arena combat gem Phantom Crash was an early original Xbox release, with the 2002 oddity allowing players to fully customise the mechs they took into battle. It's presented as a futuristic sport of sorts — much like in the more recent PS VR exclusive, RIGS Mechanized Combat League — and has a quirky sense of character and style that helped Phantom Crash stand out from similar games, such as the more straight-laced Armored Core series. Like Bizarre Creations, Genki was better known for its arcade racers, which goes some way towards explaining the breakneck pace of this great little mech shooter. A sequel, S.L.A.I.: Steel Lancer Arena International, released exclusively for PS2 three years later, but both games have been long lost to history, which is a real shame.Panzer Dragoon Orta We spoke at some length about Sega's involvement in the early days of Xbox in our Xbox20 feature series, and Panzer Dragoon was just one of the Japanese publisher's big series that would find its way exclusively onto the Microsoft console. Orta was a brand new entry into the cult franchise, making great use of the hardware to deliver a beautifully crisp stylised fantasy setting and snappy arcade-style shooting, which was declared by many at the time to be the pinnacle of this kind of on-rails action. Now almost 20 years old itself, Orta remains the latest new game in the series, although we did see a spiritual successor of sorts in Xbox One launch title, Crimson Dragon. Which, sadly, was sort of terrible. Still, MegaPixel put out a faithful remake of the original Saturn game late last year (with the sequel due before the end of this year), so between those and Orta being back-compat, it's not like we have a shortage of pretty dragon-riding shooters...A Kingdom for Keflings NinjaBee was somewhat prolific in the early XBLA era, frequently popping up on the service with some quirky new release or another. Of those, laid-back town-building game A Kingdom for Keflings was a definite highlight, and not just thanks to its super-chill soundtrack. Wandering around as a giant and helping the villagers proved such a nice change of pace, and was doubly neat as you could even play as your own Xbox Avatar when the New Xbox Experience update rolled out. This sedate sim proved popular enough to spawn a sequel a couple of years laters, and while it was pretty much just more of the same, A World of Keflings was also really good. But then it all went quiet on the Keflings front, and it seemed the series was done. While there hasn't been a follow-up on Xbox, we at least saw VR title A Handful of Keflings pop up in 2018, so it's good to know that NinjaBee hasn't given up on the little folks after all.Metal Wolf Chaos This one comes with the caveat "until very recently," but still deserves a spot here due to the quirky mech shooter being the rarest of beasts: a Japan-exclusive original Xbox game, and one which remained that way for the best part of 15 years. Before Devolver put out the remastered version, Metal Wolf Chaos XD, in 2019, this over-the-top mech shooter was a cult classic, if an extremely expensive one. The bonkers story sees you play as the US president, taking the fight to terrorists in your ludicrously overgeared mech. With dumb dialogue to match the nonsense narrative (think early Resident Evil or House of the Dead), Metal Wolf Chaos is a laugh riot, which isn't something you can really say about most FromSoftware games.‘Splosion Man Everybody loves doughnuts... There's a nice little earworm for you if you played this anarchic platformer back in the day. Twisted Pixel is another team that was extremely active in its heyday, putting out four great XBLA games and Kinect retail title The Gunstringer over the course of just two years. This great run led to Microsoft acquiring the studio in 2011, although after the disappointing Xbox One launch title LocoCycle and not much else, Twisted Pixel left the Xbox family in 2015 and now focuses exclusively on VR games. This wacky game sees our titular hero leaping and 'sploding around the Big Science labs, and features both tricky platforming and some light puzzles as you hurtle around causing chaos. Particularly entertaining was the multiplayer mode, with ingenious level design forcing players to ricochet off one another in coordinated explosive parkour displays. As the team now focuses on more involved VR experiences, it seems unlikely that we'll be seeing 'Splosion Man (or his other half) again any time soon...Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth This first-person horror game was a really pleasant surprise (well, an intentionally unpleasant one, really) when it arrived towards the end of the original Xbox generation, as developer Headfirst didn't exactly have a glowing track record — several cancelled projects and the poor Simon the Sorcerer 3D were all the Adventure Soft follow-up had to show at the time, and this ambitious title seemed rather wide of its point-and-click wheelhouse. Despite being somewhat clunky (again, by design, to an extent), this retelling of Lovecraft's The Shadow Over Innsmouth absolutely nailed the bleak tone and oppressive atmosphere the mythos is known for, and Dark Corners of the Earth remains one of the best Cthulhu-based video games to this day. Excitingly, Headfirst had several promising follow-ups and companion titles in the works, but none would ever see light of day — the studio went into administration mere months after the game launched.Kingdom Under Fire: The Crusaders I've always had a lot of time for Phantagram's mash-up of large-scale RTS battles, hack-and-slash action, and RPG-esque character progression, and while it might not have set the world on fire, the Korean fantasy combat game remains one of my favourites from that generation. It was always fascinating to see battles break out from a distance, then to zoom in and take direct control of a hero to try and help turn the tide — the two individual gameplay styles had been done to death by the time this arrived in 2004, but combining them in real time just made for one of those 'why has nobody done this before?' moments that don't come around all that often. Phantagram came out with a sequel the following year, with Kingdom Under Fire: Heroes feeling rather more like an expansion than a brand new game, and being the last on Xbox to employ this interesting hybrid approach. 360 follow-up Circle of Doom was a pure hack-and-slash game and really suffered for it, and while true successor Kingdom Under Fire II was announced way back in 2008 with a console release planned for 2009, it would spend the next decade in development hell, shedding most of its target platforms along the way and only making it to PC in 2019. The Crusaders did get a PC remaster last year, and given that other titles from that era (like the Bloodrayne games) have seen the same treatment and later come to Xbox, there's still hope that I'll get to see my boy Rupert again. Oh yeah, everyone has really daft names, too. It's great.Blinx 2: Masters of Time and Space Most people know about Blinx — Microsoft's failed attempt to get a friendly Xbox mascot in the vein of Mario or Sonic — but I'm always surprised by how few people seem to know that it got a sequel. While the original was a fairly simple 3D platformer with a time-bending mechanic that made ingenious use of the Xbox's hard drive to allow real-time manipulation of the flow of time in a level, Masters of Time and Space is... Well, it's really weird. Gameplay is split into two parts, with the Time Sweepers exploring open environments and problem-solving with those same time mechanics from the original, while the Tom Tom Gang (biker pigs, obviously) sections are more like stealth shooters as you try to run interference with the cats, for some reason. Blinx himself barely even shows up... You instead use your own custom cats and pigs during gameplay, with the star of the show only turning up (alongside a host of others) in cutscenes and dialogue. Of which there is a lot — this game loves the sound of its own voice. It's interesting how much of a shift this is from the original both in terms of gameplay and tone, and while I'm not sure it's for the better, it's certainly a different experience and one I found oddly enjoyable.Steel Battalion Steel Battalion was perhaps the very definition of niche when it launched for Xbox in 2002 — a mech sim with its own bespoke (and massive) cockpit controller including sticks, levers, buttons, switches, dials, pedals, and even an eject button that you had to use to prevent your save file being wiped if your mech got taken out. This unwieldy custom controller was naturally only made in limited numbers and that made it both expensive and rare, so I'd wager a good amount of people reading this will have never known the embarrassment of losing billions of pretend dollars' worth of mech tech after accidentally hitting the button for the wipers rather than the fire extinguisher. Remarkably, Steel Battalion did actually get a sequel that same generation, with Line of Contact being an online-only offering that let enthusiasts use that expensive peripheral to compete with mech-heads around the world. The cult legacy of the brand also gave Capcom a launchpad for a Kinect-based follow-up in 2012's Heavy Armor, but the shift to vague motion control didn't end well. The game got absolutely panned for controls that were barely fit for purpose — Steel Battalion was always a better experience than it was a game, in all honesty, so taking away the fun of dozen of buttons and levers only to replace it with abstract, non-functioning gestures was a recipe for disaster that likely means this series is on the scrapheap forever.The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai Ska Studios came up out of the Xbox Live Indie Games (XBLIG) scene, with The Dishwasher: Dead Samurai being the one-man team's first 'proper' release on the store after an early version picked up top honours in the first ever Dream-Build-Play contest to win a $10,000 prize and an XBLA publishing deal for the full game. In what we now know as Ska's signature style, Dead Samurai is a gritty 2D hack-and-slash game that takes cues from character action games like Devil May Cry, rewarding fast-paced, stylish combat and brutal executions. 2011 sequel Vampire Smile would improve just about every aspect but seems just a little more well-known, hence why we settled on the original for this list. Billy's gigantic robot was right — Ska is not dead, and the success of recent games like Salt & Sanctuary just shows this tiny team going from strength to strength. You love to see it.Voodoo Vince Tom asked, nay demanded that this make the cut, so I'll let him explain why: "Voodoo Vince inhaled his first breath of life in 2003, when the moronic henchman duo Jeb and Fingers covered him in zombie dust on the OG Xbox. For those of you too young to have enjoyed Vince’s exploits, the game takes you on a platforming journey to rescue Madam Charmaine from the diabolical Kosmo the Inscrutable. The journey takes us all over New Orleans, battling it out with Piggy Banks of Doom, gas pumps, and skeletal dinosaurs by using Vince’s voodoo powers. It was remastered in 2017 by Beep Games for Xbox One and PC, and still offers the same humorous, wacky, and absurd adventure — but it looks even better! Honestly, Voodoo Vince really is a hidden gem, which is a shame because the little zombie dust-huffing, pin-pricked doll deserves another outing… it’s not too late, Beep Games."Lost Odyssey This one is here not as some kind of obscure game you've never heard of, but as potentially 'one that got away' for Microsoft. Courting Mistwalker — an RPG-centric studio headed up by Final Fantasy legend Hironobu Sakaguchi — was a masterstroke, giving MS a leg-up in a field where it had no experience or expertise and leading to some great 360 exclusives in Blue Dragon and this, arguably the stronger of the two JRPGs. But after Lost Odyssey, Mistwalker was gone, turning its attention to Nintendo platforms and later mobile when this could have been the perfect studio to fill a gaping hole in Microsoft's portfolio on an ongoing basis. We'll never know exactly what happened behind closed doors, but this — or indeed Blue Dragon — could be a popular series up to its fourth or fifth releases by this point, and I always wonder why that early blast of two high-profile JRPGs was such a flash in the pan, especially considering MS still doesn't have any first-party teams in that space to this day. File this one as forgotten by Microsoft, rather than players.The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape From Butcher Bay Back in 2004, movie licenses were bad. That was the rule, that was law, and exceptions were extremely rare. Hopes weren't exactly high, then, for a relatively green Starbreeze to buck that trend, but oh, what a feat of trend-bucking occurred. That's precisely what makes Escape From Butcher Bay our next port of call here, with this first-person adventure surprising many with its tight gameplay and incredible visuals for the time. Although cutscenes, conversations, and certain gameplay elements would pull the camera back to see Vin Diesel reprising his role, the first-person perspective of general gameplay proved a far cry from the usual celeb-pandering of which licensed games like this were usually guilty. If you weren't around at the time, you might not realise that Escape From Butcher Bay is, unlike the vast majority of ties-ins/cash-ins of the era, actually really good. You might also not know that 360 follow-up Assault on Dark Athena came with a remake of the OG Xbox game, although sadly it's not backwards compatible and the stupidly grindy multiplayer achievements make it something a lot of folks probably wouldn't be happy to put on their tags anyway. Still, Vin for the win. Something something family.1 vs. 100 This was included on the shortlist long before news broke earlier this month about a potential revival, but I think it deserves a spot all the same. You see, if I was to try and explain to someone new to Xbox gaming that a highlight of the 360 era was playing an online version of a TV game show, they'd probably think I was a pretty simple fellow. But it was. And maybe I am. Whatever. 1 vs. 100 was one of those 'you had to be there' moments, so players who missed out on it would likely struggle to understand why the MMO trivia game is so fondly remembered by those who got to experience it during the fairly brief two-season window that it was active. Until we hear something more about this rumoured comeback, I think it's certainly fair to call it 'forgotten' as well, if again on the Microsoft side rather than by the quizzers who would love to see it return. It was lauded as such a big deal at the time, only to quickly fall out of favour as new trends replaced it, and I do wonder how a modern version would even work with today's tighter gambling laws when people in some US states weren't even eligible for prizes the first time around.Top Spin Between the likes of the Links games, Sega's newly-homeless sports series, and some motorsport titles like Climax's ace MotoGP games (and another we may or may not discuss imminently), Microsoft started out on pretty decent footing with sports games — one area in which other platform holders don't really excel aside from the odd (usually arcade-style) release. So when it published Top Spin in 2003 under the XSN Sports label, it added yet another string to its racket, potentially setting up a console-exclusive line of tennis games to add another differentiator between Xbox and the competition, if one eerily similar to Sega's own Virtua journey. Alas, that was not to be. Good as Top Spin was, that only attracted the attention of other publishers, with 2K later picking up the franchise and the subsequent regular releases outpacing the popularity of the sport until the series was milked into non-existence by the release of the fourth game in 2011. The market apparently simply wasn't (and probably still isn't) there for tennis games on that kind of turnaround, and the promising series likely isn't coming back any time soon.Dance Central This one fell on Kinect's sword a long time ago, but recent news of Harmonix being bought out by Epic means the chances of us ever seeing a new Dance Central game on Xbox are now slim-to-none. It's a genuine shame, too, as Dance Central was a rare dancing game that actually properly tracked and gave feedback on full-body movement. As mentioned in our fall of Kinect entry in the defining Xbox moments series, that initial wave of success for Kinect saw Microsoft lean into the add-on a little too heavily, with four Dance Central games in five years burning out consumers in the exact same way that peripheral-based music games had done. Harmonix did actually put out a new VR version of Dance Central after that Kinect honeymoon period was over, so it'll be interesting to see if Epic maybe does let the team out of the Fortnite dungeon one day to continue the series...RalliSport Challenge DICE wasn't always a Battlefield factory, having risen to power off the back of some kick-ass 16-bit pinball games (of all things), and the Swedish team was still very much in its variety phase back when this exclusive landed in the early days of Xbox. It was a technological tour de force, showing off what Microsoft's first console could do and with its exclusive nature suggesting that this kind of graphical fidelity wouldn't be found elsewhere in the console sphere. Which, to be fair, wasn't entirely inaccurate. The 2004 sequel would go on to right some of the wrongs of the original game, such as introducing a cockpit camera, but releasing a racing game in the same year as Burnout 3 and OutRun 2 would be a test for even the greatest developer, and DICE drew a line under the series there as its Battlefield march began.Every Extend Extra Extreme I loved E4 back in the day, and its journey is almost as interesting as its premise. Every Extend started life as a PC puzzle-shooter made as kind of a love letter to the games of Rez creator, Tetsuya Mizuguchi. Well, Mizuguchi would later pick up on this, with his firm Q Entertainment getting on board for the subsequent PSP and 360 revisions of the game. E4 — Every Extend Extra Extreme — would be the last of these, and while it arguably took the concept of blowing things up to trigger chains a little far and made things too easy, it remains one of my favourite XBLA titles purely because of how utterly nonsense it is. It's not going to be toppling Rez any time soon, but the influence was clear.That'll do it for this rundown of forgotten Xbox gems, but if you've got some of your own, drop them in that handy box down there. That's what it's for. What Xbox classics do you miss? Anything here you'd forgotten about? Use your words below!
How To Host Your Own Dungeons & Dragons Stream (or Any Other Role-playing Game)
From Critical Role’s upcoming animated series to Jeff Goldblum’s foray into the scene, one thing is certain: Tabletop actual play content is having its day in the sun. The pandemic’s creation of a content void fueled the rapid growth of the once basement-bound hobby, as Dungeons & Dragons and other popular tabletop role-playing games like Call of Cthulhu and Shadowrun have become the centerpieces of a broadly accepted, dare I say cool, underground scene. Think early 2000s alt rock, but with more dice and just as much flannel.
If you’re here, you probably know this already. You want to start streaming TTRPGs, right? I’ve put together some tips below. (Alternatively, If you’re a total newbie, I recommend this article about where to start with D&D specifically.)
Be originalPretend you have to pitch your show to Mr. Twitchy, network president of Twitch.Tv. Ask yourself: “What original spin on actual play streaming can I offer?” Start from a place of your unique skills and perspective. What makes you engaging as a GM, player, or channel host? Are you funny? Are your character voices awe-inspiring? Can you create soundscapes in real-time with your synth? Your originality will be the main appeal of your channel. This is freeing, but it can also make failure feel personal, which reminds me ...
It’s okay to failThe vast majority of success stories are really stories of repeated failure, followed by a single success. Persistence, more than any of your other skills, will be the largest factor in your success. Failure won’t hurt your shot at channel growth, but fear of failure most definitely will. Even if an individual campaign falls apart, there’s a good chance folks who like your content will stick around for whatever you try next.
Treat it like a jobNot in the “get up and grind” become your own boss way, but in the standards that you hold yourself to about running late or skipping entirely. Take your schedule seriously and offer your collaborators and your audience explanations when a stream’s time changes or when you have to cancel. Set a similar expectation of communication and punctuality with the people you stream with. No one should show up 20 minutes late with a frappe.
Comedy and tragedy aren’t enemiesOne of the most popular misconceptions about tone in storytelling is that everything works in service of that tone. I think most of the time, with something like streamed TTRPGs, the tendency is towards comedy, but if you look at popular tabletop comedies like The Adventure Zone or Dimension 20, they share an interesting commonality: narrative depth. The more grounded the story and the more dire the stakes, the funnier jokes appear by comparison. While genre can benefit your branding, it also puts more pressure on you and your players to succeed at meeting certain expectations.
Choose a game wiselyWhen it comes to what game to stream, there’s no right answer, but there are several key factors to consider, the main one being interest. I like to support smaller creators whenever I can, but if you’re just getting started, Dungeons & Dragons (specifically 5th edition) has the largest built-in fanbase, and more importantly, the largest swathe of people who know the rules. Just like with sports, you’re less likely to engage people when they don’t know what’s happening.
If you’re not playing Dungeons & Dragons, another key factor to consider is how entertaining the game is to watch. In the end, that largely comes down to personality, but some games are inherently more exciting or entertaining than others. For instance, a 10-hour game of Sid Meier’s Civilizations 6 might be fun for the players, but it doesn’t seem like the most broadly entertaining programming.
If you’re dead set against D&D, I strongly recommend picking a game that mechanically encourages collaborative problem solving, like Call of Cthulhu or Blades in the Dark.
Choose your cast carefullyIf you, like me, avoid confrontation like it’s hot magma, you might have a hard time finding the right table of people for your game, because for every “yes” you offer, you’ll likely have to hand out four or five “no”s. No one likes to reject others, but to be entertaining on stream goes further than being funny or adept at navigating the challenges of the game.
Team players make for the best stream players. People who don’t hog the spotlight, who work to tie their characters to others’, these are the people to say “yes” to. Improvisational skills are also high on my “nice-to-have” list, but nothing outweighs attitude. At the end of the day, if you’re trying to create a community, the people you choose to feature are your most valuable resource.
It’s also important to set boundaries for where the story and the action goes. Making everyone feel comfortable at the table is paramount, and that means using good safety tools. The X-Card, pioneered by John Stravropoulos, is an excellent resource. So too is the concept of “lines and veils,” which should factor into your early pre-production meetings with your cast.
Part of building a community is also being mindful of the voices you’re inviting to the table. Representation matters, especially in traditionally gatekept spaces like TTRPGs. Having a table of intersectional players helps make it clear that everyone is welcome in your community, and that community spaces are safe spaces for otherwise marginalized groups.
Community > audienceStreaming as a medium is designed around engagement. When you’re a less popular creator, there’s an expectation to engage with chat, to acknowledge people. Discord helps extend this community engagement to times when you’re not streaming.
It’s better for channel growth to have a community of five than an audience of 25, because those five will do a lot of outreach on your behalf. This isn’t some multilevel marketing sorcery; it’s just natural human behavior to want to share the things you enjoy with the people you care about. This extends to other social media platforms, as well, mainly Twitter for the TTRPG community. Self-promo Saturday, in particular, is a great opportunity to engage with other creators and potentially find opportunities for cross-promotion.
Streaming platform & methodTwitch is home to the lion’s share of D&D TTRPG streamers. The two main tools folks use for streaming to Twitch are Streamlabs and OBS+StreamElements. Unfortunately, most features of Streamlabs (notably overlays, which can be very useful for TTRPG streaming) are stuck behind a $150/month pay wall. For that reason, I recommend using the equally flexible, albeit a bit more involved duo of OBS and StreamElements.
Player arrangementThe three main factors to consider for layout are how many people need to be on-screen at once, how heavily you plan to integrate secondary visuals, and whether the players are sharing a table IRL.
Critical Role highlights its players, because they tend to be the focus. Because it’s an IRL game, they also put the players horizontally on-screen. Matt Mercer is separated from everyone else, making it clear to a new viewer that he’s the DM.
Check Ds Out, by comparison, informs the audience of the campaign and both player and character names. For this particular campaign, the DM is more central, and gameplay information is communicated in the bottom right corner. As someone in the audience, I interpret this setup as more suitable for a role-play heavy game, since there’s a lack of real estate to portray combat visually, and because class and race aren’t indicated along with character name.
For Carnisideshow, the stream that I’m a part of, our real names and character names are included in our overlay, which cycles between that and our character’s class and race. The GM is always in the top left corner, and the central panel is a visual representation of the setting, or sometimes where combat plays out visually in Roll20. Chris also uses it to show character likenesses and world maps. To me this communicates an even split in value placement between the characters, the players, and the world development.
MusicThere’s a clear best choice for adding music to your streams and it’s Syrinscape. The platform is flexible, effective, and all you need to do to ensure you’re using music legally is to provide credit for the music that’s played. How and where you choose to do that is up to you as long as it complies with Creative Commons guidelines.
VisualsI tend to consider a visual representation of play to be a meaningful, if ultimately optional, value add. I’m admittedly most familiar with Roll20, which is a versatile, game-agnostic platform for visual representation of your characters in 2D space, and includes built-in dice rollers, distance measurers, and other combat-centric features. Alternatively, Fantasy Grounds has some excellent integrated exploration mechanics, and Tabletop Simulator is an open source option that’s probably the most flexible of the three. I recommend watching a tutorial for each, and going with whatever gels best with your needs.
VideoIn comparison to streaming video games, TTRPG streams often include a lot more … you. As a result, camera type and quality is more important from the start. The two important performance benchmarks for cameras are resolution, which is the level of clarity in each frame of video, and frame rate, which is the number frames of video being captured per second. A higher frame rate means a greater fluidity of movement.
The free versions of Zoom and Discord limit resolution at 720p and frame rate at 30 frames per second (the default for most laptops), so, for your players, camera resolution and frame rate aren’t all that important. Both platforms offer premium subscription plans that change the maximum video quality, but I don’t recommend them, at least at first. That being said, if you care greatly about your own video quality, I recommend investing in a portable digital camera with 4K video, as it’s a more versatile tool than a 4K webcam. The same is true if you’re streaming from an IRL meetup location.
One other lesson I learned the hard way: Avoid wide lenses for personal use. Most comfortable places to mount the camera are at least 18-24 inches away from your face, and with a wide lens, you may as well be giving a home tour from that distance.
Audio & microphoneThis is likely going to ruffle some feathers, but as one of those pretentious people who calls themselves an audiofile, I find the nicest USB mics all have the same problem: A lack of phantom power. Because they all draw power from your computer, they get much less juice than a wall outlet might provide. Most nice microphones rely on a fairly delicate balance between gain, output volume, and compression if you’re fancy. When you have to boost them too greatly in any one place, the result often doesn’t sound great. Also, having to menu dive to adjust your audio on the fly is more work than a couple of dials. What’s the solution? Behold: That one audio interface all TikTok musicians and Bo Burnham have.
Audio interfaces allow you to boost gain and overall output volume separately. They also let you hear yourself as you sound through the mic, which is incredibly helpful for character voices and general volume adjustment. The secondary benefits of something like this include having your headphones connected somewhere more mobile than your computer’s port, and the ability to use a secondary device to control music and sound effects, or even play instruments on the stream. I personally prefer this so I can use a tablet or phone as a dedicated soundboard, but as I said before, I’m also pretty pretentious. My microphone is a combined mic and interface, which is nice, but comes at a premium.
Microphone recommendationsThe best sounding microphones for stereo audio from a single source are cardioid condenser microphones like the budget-friendly MXL 770 and NEAT Worker Bee. Whether you go with these or something higher-end, they’ll have you sounding as close and crisp as an NPR reporter, without that flat voice sound. Most condensers have some serious power draw, so this is another big win for the audio interface approach.
In conclusionStreaming TTRPGs means trying to build a community that likes you, or at least the way that you portray yourself on stream, enough to return week after week. In my experience, streams are social clubs that form because they bring a group of people joy, and the players are just the entertainment.
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