The best Star Wars RPG is still Knights of the Old Republic, and it is $9.99 on Steam. KOTOR II is second at the same price, and The Old Republic is third and free to start, so the three best role-playing games in Star Wars cost less than $20 between them. Zero Company, the newest game here, is fourth.
For this list, an RPG is a game where you build or grow a character through choices and progression. That rule lets in seven games, including a tactics game and two action games, and keeps out one of the most successful Star Wars games ever made. Where the line fell close, we say why.
How we ranked them
The evidence is the same as in our all-time ranking: what critics said, what Steam's players say now, and who is still playing, which our tracker reads off Steam through the day. On top of that we asked one more question: how much of the game is the role-playing?
That question is why Zero Company, fourth on the all-time list, sits below KOTOR II and The Old Republic here. It is also why the two Jedi games finish below Star Wars Galaxies despite better review scores. They are very good games that hand you a character already written.
The seven at a glance
| # | Game | Metacritic | Steam reviews | Price, Sep 18 | Busiest this week |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 | Knights of the Old Republic | 94 | 91% of 33,985 | $9.99 | 437 |
| 2 | KOTOR II: The Sith Lords | 86 | 94% of 26,082 | $9.99 | 542 |
| 3 | The Old Republic | 85 | 90% of 75,418 | Free to start | 5,897 |
| 4 | Zero Company | 85 | 83% of 20,423 | $49.99 | 19,526 |
| 5 | Star Wars Galaxies | 71 | not on Steam | Free, fan servers | not counted |
| 6 | Jedi: Survivor | 85 | 71% of 86,255 | $10.49 | 1,824 |
| 7 | Jedi: Fallen Order | 79 | 88% of 175,417 | $7.99 | 1,076 |
The last column is our tracker's busiest reading of the past week, which for all six Steam games was the same moment: Sunday afternoon, September 13.
The ranking
Knights of the Old Republic 2003
BioWare
- Metacritic
- 94
- Playing now
- 437
Still the best, twenty-three years on. You make a character, pick one of three classes, and spend around forty hours deciding what kind of person to become, with companions who argue with you and with each other. It holds the highest Metacritic score of any Star Wars game, and 91 percent of nearly 34,000 Steam reviewers recommend it today.
- Who it is for: anyone who has never played a Star Wars RPG. Start here.
- Before you start: buy it on Steam or GOG rather than Amazon, and install the Community Patch and a widescreen fix first. Our KOTOR guide covers both, and our planet-order guide has the one route rule every walkthrough agrees on: leave Korriban for last. Do not wait for the remake, which has no date.
KOTOR II: The Sith Lords 2004
Obsidian Entertainment
- Metacritic
- 86
- Playing now
- 542
Darker and stranger than the original. It shipped unfinished in 2004, and the fan restoration below puts back much of what Obsidian was not given time to finish. Your companions change with how much influence you hold over them, and several can be trained as Jedi, which makes it the deeper character builder of the two. Steam's players rate it higher than the first game, and our tracker has counted more people in it than in KOTOR at every reading we have taken since August 24.
- Who it is for: anyone who finished KOTOR. Play the first game first; this one is written as a reply to its ending.
- Before you start: install the Restored Content Mod (TSLRCM) from Deadlystream, using its own installer. The Steam version has had native widescreen and controller support since a 2015 update, and Steam's Workshop carries TSLRCM too, but the community's maintained mod build, updated in August, says not to use the Workshop version of it or any other mod.
The Old Republic 2011
BioWare
- Metacritic
- 85
- Playing now
- 5,897
Eight fully voiced class stories, each a separate RPG campaign with its own companions and light and dark side choices, inside an MMO you can mostly play alone. BioWare built it, Broadsword runs it now, and at nearly fifteen years old it is still getting expansions: Masters of the Force is targeted for this holiday season. The 5,897 is only the Steam slice. The game reached Steam in 2020, almost nine years after launch, and our player-count breakdown explains why the real audience is bigger.
- Who it is for: anyone who wants the most Star Wars RPG story for the least money, and does not mind an MMO wrapped around it. The class stories themselves are played solo.
- Before you start: free covers levels 1 to 60, which is all eight original class stories plus the Rise of the Hutt Cartel and Shadow of Revan expansions. Everything after that needs a subscription. Free accounts also get restricted chat and trading and four character slots per server; buying Cartel Coins once, or subscribing for a month, moves you to Preferred status with twelve.
Star Wars: Zero Company 2026
Bit Reactor / Respawn
- Metacritic
- 85
- Playing now
- 19,526
Our own 9 out of 10, and the only game here where the character you build is a whole squad. You create Hawks, the commander, then recruit, design and specialize the operators around them, and a second specialization slot later in the campaign is where the real builds happen. It places fourth because the role-playing lives in the squad and in the choices between missions more than in conversations. If you want dialogue that decides who your character is, the three above do more of it. Three weeks after launch it is still the most played game on this list by a distance.
- Who it is for: anyone who would rather design a team than play a hero, and anyone who liked XCOM.
- Before you start: permadeath is on by default. A third injury kills any operator except Hawks for good, and our permadeath guide explains how to stay ahead of it. It is also the one full-price game here, at $49.99.
Star Wars Galaxies 2003
Sony Online Entertainment
- Metacritic
- 71
- Playing now
- fan servers only
The deepest character building Star Wars has ever had, and the hardest entry here to act on. In its first years you built a character out of dozens of skill-box professions mixed however you liked, and the Jedi path had to be discovered rather than picked. Sony closed the game in December 2011, so everything you can play now runs on free, unofficial fan servers. The 71 is its 2003 launch score, for a game that changed twice before it closed. Our all-time list left it out for that reason. A list about building a character cannot leave out the game that let you build the most.
- Who it is for: players who want a sandbox more than a story, and anyone who misses 2003.
- Before you start: pick a server by era. SWG Infinity runs the original skill-box game and SWG Legends runs the final 2011 version, and neither needs the old discs. Our Galaxies guide covers all four main servers and how to install them. None of them is licensed, and any of them could close.
Star Wars Jedi: Survivor 2023
Respawn Entertainment
- Metacritic
- 85
- Playing now
- 1,824
An action game first, with more RPG in it than it gets credit for. Each of its five lightsaber stances has its own skill tree, you carry two stances at a time, and perks you slot at meditation points change how Cal plays. Cal himself is written for you, though, and the choices you make are about how he fights. The 85 is the console score. The PC version scored 78, for a launch port that took until Patch 9 in September 2024 to fix, and Steam's 71 percent is mostly that launch talking.
- Who it is for: players who want lightsaber combat first and character building second.
- Before you start: play Fallen Order first, because Survivor's story assumes you know its crew. It is $10.49 on Steam until September 28, 85 percent off, and it is on EA Play, which Game Pass Ultimate includes. Our Survivor guide covers how the PC version runs now.
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order 2019
Respawn Entertainment
- Metacritic
- 79
- Playing now
- 1,076
The start of Cal's story and the lightest RPG on this list. A skill tree split between the Force, the lightsaber and survival adds moves and health as you go, and the lightsaber parts and ponchos you collect are cosmetic. It is here because the growth is real, and last because there is less of it than anywhere above. Steam's players like it more than its sequel, at 88 percent.
- Who it is for: anyone new to the Jedi games, or anyone who wants a tighter game: it runs about 17 hours to Survivor's 25 to 35.
- Before you start: it is $7.99 on Steam until September 28 and also on EA Play. Play it before Survivor.
Close calls we left out
Star Wars: Galaxy of Heroes. You level, gear and upgrade characters from across the films, which is progression, but you never make a character of your own and nothing you choose changes a story. It is a collection game built around energy limits and spending, and a hugely successful one: $1.4 billion across 100 million downloads by 2023. It fits a different list.
Coming, and not ranked yet
Fate of the Old Republic is the one to watch. It is a single-player action RPG from Arcanaut Studios, directed by Casey Hudson, who directed the original KOTOR, with new characters and a new story set in the Old Republic era. It was revealed at The Game Awards in December 2025 in early development, and Hudson has said it will be out before 2030. There is nothing to play or rank yet.
The KOTOR remake is still in development at Saber Interactive. It showed up in Lucasfilm Games' 2026 reel on September 12, using footage from 2021, and it has no date. We track both on our upcoming games page.
Which one to play first
Never played a Star Wars RPG: KOTOR, then KOTOR II with the restoration mod. Twenty dollars and a couple of months of evenings.
Want the most story for nothing: The Old Republic. Pick the class whose story sounds best and play it like a single-player game.
Would rather build a team than a hero: Zero Company.
Want to make a character from scratch and live in the galaxy: Galaxies, on Infinity or Legends.
Care most about the lightsaber: Fallen Order, then Survivor. Both are on sale until September 28, for $18.48 together.
Waiting for something new: Fate of the Old Republic is years away, and KOTOR is ten dollars today.
The details
- Metacritic figures are each game's headline score on Metacritic. For KOTOR and KOTOR II that is the original Xbox release, and for the Jedi games the PlayStation release. On PC, KOTOR scored 93, KOTOR II 85, Fallen Order 81 and Survivor 78. The Old Republic's and Zero Company's are their PC scores, and Galaxies' 71 is its 2003 PC score.
- Steam review percentages and prices are Steam's own, read on September 18, 2026. The Jedi discounts end on September 28, according to Steam's store pages.
- Player figures are our tracker's busiest reading of the week to September 18. They count Steam only, which undercounts The Old Republic most, and Galaxies' fan servers do not publish numbers we can compare.
- The order is ours. It builds on our all-time ranking and weighs how much of each game is role-playing, which is why it differs from that list and from our Steam list.
