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Some games rely on their stories and character development to grab your attention, using plot devices and memorable personalities to keep you coming back for more. Others depend upon their gameplay systems to keep you engaged, either through their unique implementation or by sheer force of addictiveness.

It’s hard to believe that it’s July, and we’ve already seen a number of highly-anticipated titles release in the first half of the year. Pillars of Eternity, The Witcher 3, and Final Fantasy XIV: Heavensward are all out, The Elder Scrolls Online has launched on consoles, and there have been open beta or “live” releases for Trove, Heroes of the Storm, and Skyforge.

Lost Dimension is one of those rare games that encourages you to get to know your NPC compatriots, while at the same time pressuring you to think carefully about whom you decide to buddy up with. Atlus’ upcoming scifi RPG puts party management at the forefront of its gameplay, and ties all of its systems back to the decisions you make about your compatriots.

At E3 last month, we got to catch up with Wargaming.net about three of their games. The developer’s flagship title, World of Tanks, will be releasing on Xbox One on July 28, and there’s also good news for fans of World of Warships and Master of Orion.

On a whim, I downloaded and started playing Trove a few days ago, oblivious to its launch this week. I had previewed it a little during the alpha and kept one eye on it while playing other things, but hadn’t paid close attention to any of the game’s updates through beta and leading up to release.

Once in a good long while, a game shows up with such a crazy amalgam of genres that your interest might be piqued before hearing anything else about it. Bedlam, a new Roguelike tactical-strategy RPG from Skyshine Games, is one of those such titles. It’s a post-apocalyptic, cyberpunk game with influences from Mad Max, Fallout, Domination Alley, and basically all of the 1980s. Thematically, it looks a lot like Gamma World, and its gameplay is comprised of a mix between Oregon Trail and chess.

To label Lost Dimension as either a traditional or modern JRPG would be a misnomer. Atlus’ newest PS3/Vita game shares a lot of the same tropes that we’ve come to expect from conventional Japanese roleplaying games, with a fresh approach to gameplay and world design that has the potential to pique your interest from the get-go.

WildStar has always been a terrific candidate for a non-subscription-based business model, and at E3 2015 last week, we got a chance to chat with Carbine Studios about their flagship MMORPG’s upcoming free-to-play transition. It’s no surprise that they’ve received a great response to the transition since their announcement of it a few weeks ago, with over 100,000 free-to-play beta signups in the first day.

The Chinese Wuxia genre is one of the most celebrated martial traditions in modern films and video games, and Blade & Soul, a new free-to-play MMORPG from NCSOFT, looks to put that genre on center stage. Blade & Soul, which will launch with a fully realized, three-act story at launch, will feature high-level, competitive PvP, with hardcore features like a 1v1 arena in which gear will be equalized to promote player skill.

As unorthodox as it may sound, Kobojo’s Zodiac: Orcanon Odyssey is an attempt by a western developer to create a JRPG that will be just as successful in both the Japanese and western markets. It’s an ambitious project that has been in development for the past two and a half years as a collaboration between Kobojo, Basiscape, and legendary writer Kazushige Nojima and composer Hitoshi Sakimoto of Final Fantasy fame.

Let's get this out of the way: by the time you're reading this, Heart of Thorns will have just gone on sale, so get yourself to the Guild Wars 2 website (or really, ANYWHERE) and pick yourself up a preorder.

E3 is one of my favorite shows, and although developer announcements seem to be happening earlier and earlier each year in anticipation of the conference (I’m looking at you, Fallout 4 and new Xbox One SKU), it’s still an exciting time to get an advanced look at what’s coming down the pipe for MMOs and RPGs.

The Persona games comprise an exclusive type of club, in that if you haven’t spent any time with them, you likely won’t have any idea what they’re about. Truly, even if you have played some of them, you might still feel confused about why they’ve engendered such a huge cult following and a number of anime and film offshoots.

There was a time when I would fork over $15 a month for subscriptions to multiple MMOs at a time, and although that’s crazy, I clearly remember Dungeons & Dragons Online being one of the few MMORPGs worth the concurrent investment. Here are four reasons to get back into DDO or give it a try for the first time!

As a fan of the Shadowrun setting and isometric RPGs in general, I find it ludicrous that I’m so late to the party with playing Shadowrun Returns, but I’m loving Harebrained Schemes’ entry into the cyberpunk RPG genre. It manages to convincingly capture the Shadowrun ethos while, somewhat surprisingly, fit the game setting’s mechanics into a modern isometric RPG mold.