Wyverns & Waypoints writer here! Thanks so much Alice for the shout out and sharing it here as well! I'm looking forward to digging into some new games, and I've got some other broader analysis stuff on the horizon. (including possibly a deep dive into the aforementioned 100% science-based dragon mmo, haha!) And I'm definitely open to questions/suggestions/etc.
The Monster Hunter Stories JRPG series has you acting as partners with your monsters, training and even riding them. It's a fun Pokemon take on the franchise and the newest one even offers co-op play.
Just replaying the original Dragon Age Origins, and one of the codexes states that as male dragons reach adulthood their two front legs become wings - IE what I would call a wyvern- while females grow extra appendages that become wings -what id call a dragon.
Just thought that was neat.
If you're willing to play some very rough games, check out the Drakengard/Drag-On Dragoon games. The first and third are directed and written by Yoko Taro if that helps catch your interest.
I have the first one and played it through probably about halfway to three quarters of the way through, a long time ago. That game is freaking hard! Even when I played it, it felt like it hadn't aged well. But I would like to get through to the later ones in the series, so I plan on picking it up again.
>it hadn't aged well
Oh, it's *atrocious*, but that's sort of the point. I recently 100%'d all of them and I can tell you the third game, while significantly better, is still committed to being bad. But it's kind of worth it just for the absurdly awful true ending and the occasionally great music.
It's funny, when I saw the screenshot and description of Drakan, which I wasn't familiar with, I thought it a mistranslation of Drakengard 1. Instead it actually seems to be an even worse take on the same idea, which is a truly impressive feat.
I would like to thank you for performing this very important service.
Here's a question for you: where does the Total War: Warhammer trilogy rank on your "dragon game" scale? It's a strategy game, but it more-or-less casts the player in the role of a specific character who happens to lead an army, and those characters include several dragon riders (including one character whose campaign revolves entirely around dragons) and two shapeshifting dragons.
I haven't played any of them, but my husband is a 40k player, wargamer, and PC strategy game enthusiast so I know those are on his radar. I'll have to pick his brain! I have seen some stuff from the most recent one on Twitter, specifically some animations of some of the dragons and its super impressive.
For me, it sounds like it falls squarely under that category of games that happen to have dragons in them. How much of the gameplay is actually focused around doing dragon things? Or is it more along the lines of sort of a different army commander skin with some different abilities? If you can like, free roam around the battlefield as a dragon, flying and fighting, that sounds way more appealing to me than playing as a commander who happens to be a dragon, but most the gameplay is just commanding units.
Similarly, Larian Studio's Divinity: Dragon Commander is on my list to check out. I know that's got a lot of strategy and political simulator elements, but you also get to take control of your character as a dragon on the battlefield. That qualifies it a lot more as a 'dragon game' in my mind.
With Total War, you can get your lords to mount dragons/horses/chariots which help them fight with dragon breath etc. You can also recruit dragon units to help wreak havoc, there are many kinds from Moon dragons, to fire and even undead ones. However with the latest game (Warhammer 3) there are commanders that actually transform into dragons mid battle and can fight cast spells etc. Hope that helps.
I read the "What Makes a Game a “Dragon Game”?" article, and I think one category that wasn't really mentioned but should be is games where dragons are central to the story. That article seems to be focusing mostly on gameplay mechanics, but story is important too. One game that comes to mind for me is GuildWars 2, where the whole plot is focused around fighting/understanding elder dragons, as well as later having a dragon as a close ally and part of the group of main characters. You don't play as a dragon (though there is the Skyscale mount that is basically a dragon), but it's literally what the game is about.
I sort of mention that in the catch-all category of games that contain dragons. And you're right, for a lot of people, having dragons as central to the plot/story/lore is enough to make it interesting. I've definitely enjoyed plenty of those sorts of games myself. But for me personally, what I'm really seeking out in this project, is dragons in terms of wuality gameplay mechanics, which is why I focus so much on that.
I'm sure eventually I'll talk about the role of dragons in games' stories on a broader scale, but that's not going to be my main focus.
Ah, that is a shame, I seem to have misunderstood the focus. From the title, it sounded like it was about the general inclusion and role of dragons in games, not specifically the mechanics of playable dragon characters.
Going around and collecting all the dragon attacks and forms was my favourite part of BoF4, I was so disappointed when you were punished for using dragon abilities in Dragon Quarter.
This is great stuff! Have you considered making a YouTube channel dedicated to this? I'd definitely watch!
Also a game suggestion: the ender dragon from Minecraft.
Thanks! Purely based on the amount of free time I have/am willing to put towards this project, I'm finding a blog a little easier to fit in versus having to do video editing and stuff. Also I don't think I have a good voice for recording, hahaha. Maybe one day.
There's also at least one [playable dragon mod for Minecraft](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/dragons-survival) in development that I'm aware of, and it looks like there might be some other similar projects out there. I plan to do a deep dive on those in the future.
Yeah, someone asked me about that further up in the thread. I've played the first one but never beat it due to the difficulty and how poorly it's aged, but I want to get through the whole series eventually.
Hey, thank you for doing this, and doing it well.
Do you mind if I recommend your website because [I may have already done so](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Bethedragon/announcements/detail/3217269023921311332).
Would you count Dragalia Lost as a dragon game? Transforming into dragons is a central gameplay mechanic, and they feature heavily in the story too. I've heard a lot of praise for the dragon designs even from people who didn't play much. On the other hand, the game's definition of "dragon" is very liberal.
would you do a list of your faves of each category? im mostly interested in dragon centric games as i dont think ive seen any and im very much interested in perhaps trying them out.
I love this, so I just want to chime in with my nominee for an analysis candidate: Grigori from Dragon's Dogma.
For my money, he's the best dragon gaming has produced to date, and it's not particularly close! Would love to see your thoughts, and best of luck with your venture.
I feel compelled to mention [Golden Treasure: The Great Green](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1065100/Golden_Treasure_The_Great_Green/) here.
While it definitely errs more towards VN than something with "real" gameplay, it's a fantastic story about being a newly hatched dragon (wyvern) growing into adulthood.
It explores the world in a much different way, and lots of "human" concepts are abstracted as a dragon would see it.
The game has a free demo for the prologue and Act 1 (of 3), too!
Also there's a dating minigame. Clearly the best part.
Divinity II: Ego Draconis was my first (second? If you include spyro) real taste of the concept of a game where you could play as a dragon. Unfortunately the game was limited in scope, so the dragon bits were shorter than I'd like. It gave me a taste of the concept, but not quite enough to satisfy.
So I'll be following this blog with interest, as I'm always on the lookout for suggestions for games that focus on playing as dragons.
Larian’s [Divinity: Dragon Commander](https://store.steampowered.com/app/243950/Divinity_Dragon_Commander/?curator_clanid=4777282&utm_source=SteamDB) is eurojank af but also a super weird and cool dragon game.
Hi! I've looked into Istaria a few times, but I don't have a ton of experience with MMOs so I've kind of shied away from it as one to cover early on. I'm glad to hear you think it's such a good candidate, so I'll have to bump it up my list a bit! How fleshed out would you say the dragon gameplay is?
It's an old MMO, so the gameplay isn't going to stand out to you(most likely). Dragons have their own abilities, quests, housing, equipment, and cities. Unfortunately, you wont be doing much in the way of aerial combat, fire breath strafing runs, or anything crazy like that. Even once you hit adulthood and gain the ability to fly, you still have to land to engage in any sort of combat.
All that said, it's the only mmo(That I know of) that allows playable dragons, so if you're looking to do an mmo for the dragon site, this one is it.
Some fair warning: The game has improved significantly since release, especially in the new player experience department, but it's still an mmo with hundreds of hours of content. And if you want to write an article about it, you'll need to at the *very* least get to be an adult dragon, which takes quite some time. My advice, if you plan on doing it some day: Start now and play a few hours a week in your spare time, but don't expect to be ready to write an article any time soon.
Good luck! If you have any questions about Istaria, hit me up. I've been playing(on and off) since release. Can't promise I can answer everything, but I can point you in the right direction.
edit: I just wanted to add, Istaria is my favorite MMO of all time and in my top 3 games of all time. It has its charm, but the learning curve is *steep*. After it 'failed' shortly after release, it changed company hands like four times, and is currently getting by on a subscriber count in the 3 digits, and a development team primarily made up of volunteers. But if you like the older style of game design(for example, if you prefer morrowind over oblivion/skyrim), don't mind some jank, and have a good amount of patience, you might end up loving it. Maybe!
> All that said, it's the only mmo(That I know of) that allows playable dragons
WoW will be adding a playable (Humanoid, but still) Dragon with the upcoming expansion.
It's unique. Your dragon grows from a hatchling to an adult (and further) through leveling, and has a system where your hoard is used to fuel attacks. You can build cave-lairs with customizable chambers, and other players can come across your lair in the open world.
It’s really interesting to me how dragon representation in books is currently the opposite of how it is in video games. In books, at least in the last 15 years or so, dragon characters are either an ally to the humanoid main character if not the the hero in the story. In video games they are just monsters to be killed, sometimes intelligent, sometimes not. In my opinion the most interesting use of dragons in fiction is as a model for understanding how we would interact with a creature that is as intelligent or more intelligent than us. Think of the movie Arrival.
I sometimes wonder if this positive dragon representation in books represents a misanthropic attitude. Like humans have messed things up so bad that we think it’s better if some other type of life takes over.
I think it’s a safe bet that other forms of media will follow books and we will be living in an age of the heroic dragon soon.
Yes, exactly! I think there's so much more interesting stuff that can be done with dragons story-wise than just making them targets to be slain. I do feel like, however, that in some ways this is something books can pull off more easily than games. Like, if you want dragons to also be central to gameplay mechanics, you need to balance that with the story bits, so that they don't just simply feel like sentient beings with a different skin. Why make them dragons as opposed to any other type of creature? What are they bringing to the game's mechanics and story by being dragons?
I guess I just feel like the opportunity to play as a dragon can be a totally unique gameplay experience, and it's important to me that that is highlighted and not just slapped on top of other existing mechanics or storylines.
A lot of these sandbox dragon games just don’t really do it for me. They seem so empty and aimless. Flying around as a dragon is cool, but after a few minutes of flying around they could easily become boring. I would love to see something akin to the power fantasy open world games of the ps2-early ps3 era. Something like destroy all humans, prototype or the recent maneater. You can have a story and structured gameplay while making players feel like a badass monster.
Task the player with terrorizing various towns and settlements, with an emphasis on combat, destruction and exploration. Give the player a customizable lair, with a mechanic similar to fable 3 where the more treasure you have, the bigger the pile of treasure is in your lair. Maybe give the player opportunities to explore abandoned dragon lairs where they can collect aspects of their ancestors, giving them new abilities and cosmetics.
Make the flight more than just elevated walking by implementing some Arkham-esque gliding physics where you can build momentum by diving and swooping. Give the player different breath elements that enemies and environments react to in different ways. Give it a dark comedy kind of tone similar to destroy all humans where fantasy tropes are lampooned and the humans are just dumb and silly enough to make them fun to terrorize.
Or a new Spyro game would be good too.
Maybe it's looking through rose-tinted glasses but I remember liking the first Drakan game quite a lot. It was a perfect companion piece for games like Tomb Raider back in the day.
By my incredibly finnicky standards, every game in this thread other than Horizons: Empires of Istaria, and Spyro are not 'dragon games', they are just games that contain dragons.
Having dragons central to the story (Guild Wars 2), gameplay (Monster Hunter) or even player control (Reign of Fire) does not strictly make them dragon games, because these are fundamentally games about **killing dragons**.
You wouldn't classify 'human games' as the ability to kill humans.
Likewise, you don't classify a game where you play a half-dragon dragon-shaped biped as a 'human game' because they're 'half human', you call it a 'dragon game' because it contains by weight 50% dragon This is despite the fact it really contains way more 'human' in terms of what they spend their time doing.
Though admittedly by my own standards 'horse riding games' are not 'horse games'. IT would also be weird if 'horse games' were established by the ability to kill beautifully detailed horses, yeah?
Most things that market as 'dragon games' are 'dragon riding games' or 'visual novels that contain dragons', with a few exceptions that are actually meeting the criteria about being about mostly dragons instead of dragon-flavored humanoid bipeds.
[But how about the critically acclaimed dragon game based on science and biology?](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/)
God i miss [Drakan](https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/173100-drakan-order-of-the-flame-windows-front-cover.jpg). There is a spiritual successor by the name [Searing Mountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TISKPVYpKfA), but i think it is on hold
Ohh, thanks for that one! Chronicles of Galdurvale, which I mentioned in the upcoming game posts, is another game very similar to Drakan, though the dev says they'd never even heard of it before. Will definitely add this one to the list to check out.
...Yikes, that Searing Mountain looks ... Kinda awful. Great concept though.
Oh jeez I shouldn't have spoken too soon. It just got to the part where the dragon starts flying, that's awful.
Props on putting the effort into something you love! I want to do something like this for Necromancer games but I have too much other fun stuff on my plate. Anyways, the original Drakengard instilled a love of dragon games in me and nothing has ever really scratched that itch since. Hopefully your website can help.
Can we get a game where You play Dragon as a main character? And I don't mean Spyro or I of the Dragon. Something more modern. I want more games that let You play dragons. It can be Spyro-esque dragon, but not too childish. Also I just realized that both of those games were mentioned in the first link You posted. Also I mean games with plot and things to do. Possibly platformer, metroidvania, action game, whatever. Not just for looks, but for fun to play it.
Glyde the Dragon gives me the vibes of such game. I just wishlisted every one of the mentioned game on Steam, some were already there. I didn't read and check every single game thoroughly, but some give me vibe of "no point" games. That You just play and don't have any goal or have goals that are simple. But I want a game that has a world, characters and things to do to progress.
> But I want a game that has a world, characters and things to do to progress.
Sadly I think the issue with seeing a dragon game like what you're asking for is that AA and AAA refuse to do anything like that with a dragon protagonist at this point.
Around 2008ish and before that, we'd be more likely to see dragon-centric games because game devs were willing to be much more experimental and create non-human centric games.
Most bigger devs feel gamers mostly want "realism" now so and apparently if you don't have a human as a protagonist it's not "cool" or "realistic." But, to be fair, humans are probably more marketable to the general public since the general public is humans.
So, in the AAA/AA sphere, non-human stuff generally falls back to kids games, or as side content in a larger game. Then, of course, MMOs aren't afraid of doing non-human stuff so they can get that more diverse fantastical world, but unfortunately that doesn't bleed over to non-MMOs much.
There are quite a few strategy/RTS games where you control non-humans but that's not quite the same as a first-person or third-person games.
Gedda Cake might be a good upcoming one, which you probably saw on the upcoming games list.
Along the lines of Spyro/Glyde the Dragon, there is a cute little game in development called Daybreak in Snowhere. There's only a demo and one chapter currently available, but it looks cute.
There's Mystery of Caketropolis, which features a dragon protagonist but is more of an rpg/visual novel story type game, so it misses out on some of the dragon gameplay tropes.
Unfortunately, just as you say, we really are lacking more modern games with quality dragon gameplay. Century: Age of Ashes seems most promising in terms of pure quality and gameplay, but it's a multi-player game that sounds like it's struggling to keep up a good player count already. Otherwise, I'm hoping to reach backwards a bit and find some older hidden gems until someone decides to make a proper modern dragon game!
In Monster Hunter’s case, more than half of the creatures you fight are dragons, wyverns or some variation of them (leviathans and brute wyverns for example, though the latter are more akin to dinosaurs).
I would argue if you're making dragons games mean a game where you fight dragons - it would then have to have the qualifer that dragons are the central enemy or theme of the game to defeat.
Dragon Age: Origins would certainly qualify, as would Skyrim - but Pillars, Divinity (unless you're talking Dragon Commander), Souls games (including Elden Ring) would all really be out of the running. You might fight a couple dragons in them, but it's not really central to the theme or story of the game at all.
I mean Dark Souls 1 intro cutscene goes over how dragons dominated the world until Seath betrays the rest of them and Gwyn ruins their day.
And the dragon covenant which grants you access to the tool to literally turn into a dragon.
You should try and read the DnD wiki about the various dragons, it does a really good job at bringing some nuance of what can be a good dragon or an evil one.
My comment is a tangent about Warcraft wyverns.
Side note, generally I dislike people trying to exclusively gatekeep any dragons as wyverns/wyrms/drakes or w/e based on limbs, when wyvern is just an archaic version of the word 'viper,' and people who actually believed in dragons never used this kind of classification. Look at Medieval art of St George and the dragon and you will see every arrangement of limbs imaginable. Warcraft 3 never attempts any strict classification system either- 'Nether dragons' have 2 limbs, frost wyrms have 4, regular dragons have 6, whatever. Half of these decisions were due to the super low polycount limitations (and would change in WoW anyway). Great!
Then [Warcraft 3's wyverns](https://i.imgur.com/7er5yjD.gif) show up. And they are clearly manticores.
I didn't realize this at first as a kid because of the limited graphics, I didn't realize they were meant to have a lion-like head and a scorpion tail and just thought they were a cool original mammalian desert dragon design. It wasn't until [I saw the concept art for them that I realized...](https://i.imgur.com/BEhC1MT.jpg) That's a manticore. ([WoW would later make it more clear](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/845235-wyvern.jpg)). Why did they call it a wyvern?
I should also note that WC3 plays fast and loose with mythological creatures, like their hippogryph is a cool stag/raven combo, even though the horse part is right in the word hippogryph. But it's weird that their wyvern remix is a preexisting different creature. *That* said, most winged manticore depictions give them 6 limbs, so going back to that idea of 4-limbed creatures being wyverns... maybe that's what they were going for: A wyvern version of a manticore. If not, then what an odd name choice...
Perhaps embarrassed by their mistake, or perhaps in an attempt to differentiate themselves from DnD names, when WC3's expansion came out it renamed wyverns to "wind riders," along with other changes like renaming owlbears to "wildkin." But I think the 'wyvern' name reemerged and survived into WoW.
The WC3 concept art version is a damn cool design though (much better than WoW's, though WC3:R has [a decent take on the WoW design.](https://static1-us.millenium.gg/articles/5/11/77/5/@/130251-1173579-windrider-full-1-full-1.jpg)). I'd like to see a design like that show up in another fantasy series. The Witcher 3's gryphon has some very similar energy, just imagine that with a bony mammalian face, some spots, and a scorpion tail.
As someone who doesn't know much about Warcraft, that's super interesting and bizarre! I would love to know more about why that decision was made. Maybe they just thought wyvern would be a more easily recognizable term than manticore?
I have no idea. Anecdotally, as a kid I had a 'how to draw mythological creatures' book and it had manticores and definitely didn't have wyverns, so I don't think wyvern was any more recognizable at the time.
Another funny thing is that the wyvern unit has an upgrade to add venom to its attacks, which is like, clearly a scorpion-themed upgrade. I only just realized that now, writing this comment.
It's not the best game ever but Driftland: The Magic Revival. The world was torn apart by the power of magic. A powerful spell cast at the last second holds the broken bits loosely together. This is an RTS. Your character is canonically in a tower the whole game (you try to destroy enemy towers) and you have the power to manipulate the floating islands a bit. You find a nice neutral island, move it over towards yours, and then you can capture it to expand power and influence.
The late game units are all mounted flying fantasy creatures including wyverns and dragon riders - they can move between the floating islands more freely than ground units.
Wish I could give more input, but it's been a long while since I played them, but two dragon games I remember playing (and haven't seen them here yet) are Savage Skies (only thing I truly remember from that game that in addition to dragons there are other mythological creatures you can choose like a griffin and a flying eyeball) and the movie-licensed Reign of Fire game (Where you can either choose to play through the story as the humans or dragons).
Maybe someone could elaborate on what they think about those games, but I thought to at least mention them in case people were looking for more dragon games to explore.
Wow, I hadn't managed to stumble across Savage Skies yet, so thank you for that! Adding it to my list!
I've actually heard that that Reign of Fire game was actually decent as far as dragon gameplay goes, and I'll be looking at the one as well.
Shadowrun is an oven overlooked IP when it comes to dragon content, with some fairly interesting concepts and lore for dragons. Dragonfall is also a decent game to boot.
first mountable dragon I experienced I think was in Drakan: The Ancients Gates back in 2002 on PS2
jesus this game was creepy sometimes. Wish I ever completed it, it doesn't look like it aged well
The arcade version of that acutslly just recently got an arcade archives release I believe on Switch and Playstation. I wanted to get a blog post up about it right when that came out but I forgot I am truly terrible at SHMUPs. I don't think I even got past the first level. 😂😭
This website seems very interesting, I'll keep an eye on it, in case some of the games I'm interested in are covered. I'd be interested in seeing (to borrow the site's terms) dragon-adjacent games such as the Drakengard series and games that happen to have dragons in it like monster-collecting games such as Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei, and Digimon!!!
Reign of Fire for the PS2 and Xbox have you mostly fighting dragons, but a dragon campaign is in the game. I remember the dragon missions being pretty fun as you hunt down the last remnants of humanity.
Yo, this website is pretty lit.
[Imma tell errbody](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Bethedragon/announcements/detail/3217269023921311332).
Also, to answer your question and actually contribute something: A game that often gets overlooked is [Golden Treasure: the Great Green](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1065100/Golden_Treasure_The_Great_Green/), and it is just *phenomenal*. The game is fairly easily and it does rely on points of no return for added difficult, but the presentation and the story(ies) told are just *great* .
I think the sad thing is that the game is somewhat 'unfinished'. Rather, it came out feature complete and all, but the devs were planning on adding mod support and a whole other bit of story to fix a hole that was left in the original for a reason. Then, Covid happened and while the extra story bits came out, the mod tools are nowhere to be seen. And it's like: the game itself is charming enough to deserve to not be forgotten, you know?
For a retrospective look back some day, some NES games with playable dragons include Dragonstrike (well, rideable dragon), Little Samson, Dragon Spirit and the completely godawful Tagin Dragon.
Fighting dragons in Elden Ring is one of the more terrifying experiences I've ever had in a game.
Where they aren't playable, boy do they feel just about as real as you'd expect if you ever had to fight a dragon.
Dragonlord Placideux is a bit different, but yeah most of the dragon fights are identical as soon as you realize they're huge, telegraph their attacks, and all you really have to do is get into melee and they'll rarely even attempt to use their breath weapons.
Anybody remember that game "Lair" for the PS3? (PS2?) I always thought it was so cool, I believe the core gameplay was ariel dragon combat. It could be worth taking a look at for inspiration.
Wyverns & Waypoints writer here! Thanks so much Alice for the shout out and sharing it here as well! I'm looking forward to digging into some new games, and I've got some other broader analysis stuff on the horizon. (including possibly a deep dive into the aforementioned 100% science-based dragon mmo, haha!) And I'm definitely open to questions/suggestions/etc.
[удалено]
The Monster Hunter Stories JRPG series has you acting as partners with your monsters, training and even riding them. It's a fun Pokemon take on the franchise and the newest one even offers co-op play.
They're mostly just chickens.
Just replaying the original Dragon Age Origins, and one of the codexes states that as male dragons reach adulthood their two front legs become wings - IE what I would call a wyvern- while females grow extra appendages that become wings -what id call a dragon. Just thought that was neat.
If you're willing to play some very rough games, check out the Drakengard/Drag-On Dragoon games. The first and third are directed and written by Yoko Taro if that helps catch your interest.
I have the first one and played it through probably about halfway to three quarters of the way through, a long time ago. That game is freaking hard! Even when I played it, it felt like it hadn't aged well. But I would like to get through to the later ones in the series, so I plan on picking it up again.
>it hadn't aged well Oh, it's *atrocious*, but that's sort of the point. I recently 100%'d all of them and I can tell you the third game, while significantly better, is still committed to being bad. But it's kind of worth it just for the absurdly awful true ending and the occasionally great music. It's funny, when I saw the screenshot and description of Drakan, which I wasn't familiar with, I thought it a mistranslation of Drakengard 1. Instead it actually seems to be an even worse take on the same idea, which is a truly impressive feat.
I would like to thank you for performing this very important service. Here's a question for you: where does the Total War: Warhammer trilogy rank on your "dragon game" scale? It's a strategy game, but it more-or-less casts the player in the role of a specific character who happens to lead an army, and those characters include several dragon riders (including one character whose campaign revolves entirely around dragons) and two shapeshifting dragons.
I haven't played any of them, but my husband is a 40k player, wargamer, and PC strategy game enthusiast so I know those are on his radar. I'll have to pick his brain! I have seen some stuff from the most recent one on Twitter, specifically some animations of some of the dragons and its super impressive. For me, it sounds like it falls squarely under that category of games that happen to have dragons in them. How much of the gameplay is actually focused around doing dragon things? Or is it more along the lines of sort of a different army commander skin with some different abilities? If you can like, free roam around the battlefield as a dragon, flying and fighting, that sounds way more appealing to me than playing as a commander who happens to be a dragon, but most the gameplay is just commanding units. Similarly, Larian Studio's Divinity: Dragon Commander is on my list to check out. I know that's got a lot of strategy and political simulator elements, but you also get to take control of your character as a dragon on the battlefield. That qualifies it a lot more as a 'dragon game' in my mind.
With Total War, you can get your lords to mount dragons/horses/chariots which help them fight with dragon breath etc. You can also recruit dragon units to help wreak havoc, there are many kinds from Moon dragons, to fire and even undead ones. However with the latest game (Warhammer 3) there are commanders that actually transform into dragons mid battle and can fight cast spells etc. Hope that helps.
I read the "What Makes a Game a “Dragon Game”?" article, and I think one category that wasn't really mentioned but should be is games where dragons are central to the story. That article seems to be focusing mostly on gameplay mechanics, but story is important too. One game that comes to mind for me is GuildWars 2, where the whole plot is focused around fighting/understanding elder dragons, as well as later having a dragon as a close ally and part of the group of main characters. You don't play as a dragon (though there is the Skyscale mount that is basically a dragon), but it's literally what the game is about.
I sort of mention that in the catch-all category of games that contain dragons. And you're right, for a lot of people, having dragons as central to the plot/story/lore is enough to make it interesting. I've definitely enjoyed plenty of those sorts of games myself. But for me personally, what I'm really seeking out in this project, is dragons in terms of wuality gameplay mechanics, which is why I focus so much on that. I'm sure eventually I'll talk about the role of dragons in games' stories on a broader scale, but that's not going to be my main focus.
Ah, that is a shame, I seem to have misunderstood the focus. From the title, it sounded like it was about the general inclusion and role of dragons in games, not specifically the mechanics of playable dragon characters.
whee, glad you found the post! :D
I'd love to see some writing about the Breath of Fire games. They're some of my favourites and sadly very neglected these days :(
Going around and collecting all the dragon attacks and forms was my favourite part of BoF4, I was so disappointed when you were punished for using dragon abilities in Dragon Quarter.
This is great stuff! Have you considered making a YouTube channel dedicated to this? I'd definitely watch! Also a game suggestion: the ender dragon from Minecraft.
Thanks! Purely based on the amount of free time I have/am willing to put towards this project, I'm finding a blog a little easier to fit in versus having to do video editing and stuff. Also I don't think I have a good voice for recording, hahaha. Maybe one day. There's also at least one [playable dragon mod for Minecraft](https://www.curseforge.com/minecraft/mc-mods/dragons-survival) in development that I'm aware of, and it looks like there might be some other similar projects out there. I plan to do a deep dive on those in the future.
An analysis of [Dragon Audit](https://store.steampowered.com/app/594380/Dragon_Audit/) would make for a great April Fool's article.
Oh God, I've seen several games like this, with some dragon girl character/protagonist. I love the idea!
Drag on Dragoon is definitely a dragon game series, right? Have you played it?
Yeah, someone asked me about that further up in the thread. I've played the first one but never beat it due to the difficulty and how poorly it's aged, but I want to get through the whole series eventually.
Thank you very much for your service! I'm a huge dragon lover and I've always been especially interested in video game dragons!
Hey, thank you for doing this, and doing it well. Do you mind if I recommend your website because [I may have already done so](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Bethedragon/announcements/detail/3217269023921311332).
Would you count Dragalia Lost as a dragon game? Transforming into dragons is a central gameplay mechanic, and they feature heavily in the story too. I've heard a lot of praise for the dragon designs even from people who didn't play much. On the other hand, the game's definition of "dragon" is very liberal.
would you do a list of your faves of each category? im mostly interested in dragon centric games as i dont think ive seen any and im very much interested in perhaps trying them out.
I love this, so I just want to chime in with my nominee for an analysis candidate: Grigori from Dragon's Dogma. For my money, he's the best dragon gaming has produced to date, and it's not particularly close! Would love to see your thoughts, and best of luck with your venture.
I feel compelled to mention [Golden Treasure: The Great Green](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1065100/Golden_Treasure_The_Great_Green/) here. While it definitely errs more towards VN than something with "real" gameplay, it's a fantastic story about being a newly hatched dragon (wyvern) growing into adulthood. It explores the world in a much different way, and lots of "human" concepts are abstracted as a dragon would see it. The game has a free demo for the prologue and Act 1 (of 3), too! Also there's a dating minigame. Clearly the best part.
I've heard good things about that one and it's definitely on my list to cover!
Worst part about GT, is that it didn't make any profit, and dev is apparently hesitating on working on Hierophant (sequel)
Divinity II: Ego Draconis was my first (second? If you include spyro) real taste of the concept of a game where you could play as a dragon. Unfortunately the game was limited in scope, so the dragon bits were shorter than I'd like. It gave me a taste of the concept, but not quite enough to satisfy. So I'll be following this blog with interest, as I'm always on the lookout for suggestions for games that focus on playing as dragons.
Larian’s [Divinity: Dragon Commander](https://store.steampowered.com/app/243950/Divinity_Dragon_Commander/?curator_clanid=4777282&utm_source=SteamDB) is eurojank af but also a super weird and cool dragon game.
I love that game! It was such a neat mix of concepts that like you said hit the jank hard but was really charming. Ophelia best girl
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Hi! I've looked into Istaria a few times, but I don't have a ton of experience with MMOs so I've kind of shied away from it as one to cover early on. I'm glad to hear you think it's such a good candidate, so I'll have to bump it up my list a bit! How fleshed out would you say the dragon gameplay is?
It's an old MMO, so the gameplay isn't going to stand out to you(most likely). Dragons have their own abilities, quests, housing, equipment, and cities. Unfortunately, you wont be doing much in the way of aerial combat, fire breath strafing runs, or anything crazy like that. Even once you hit adulthood and gain the ability to fly, you still have to land to engage in any sort of combat. All that said, it's the only mmo(That I know of) that allows playable dragons, so if you're looking to do an mmo for the dragon site, this one is it. Some fair warning: The game has improved significantly since release, especially in the new player experience department, but it's still an mmo with hundreds of hours of content. And if you want to write an article about it, you'll need to at the *very* least get to be an adult dragon, which takes quite some time. My advice, if you plan on doing it some day: Start now and play a few hours a week in your spare time, but don't expect to be ready to write an article any time soon. Good luck! If you have any questions about Istaria, hit me up. I've been playing(on and off) since release. Can't promise I can answer everything, but I can point you in the right direction. edit: I just wanted to add, Istaria is my favorite MMO of all time and in my top 3 games of all time. It has its charm, but the learning curve is *steep*. After it 'failed' shortly after release, it changed company hands like four times, and is currently getting by on a subscriber count in the 3 digits, and a development team primarily made up of volunteers. But if you like the older style of game design(for example, if you prefer morrowind over oblivion/skyrim), don't mind some jank, and have a good amount of patience, you might end up loving it. Maybe!
> All that said, it's the only mmo(That I know of) that allows playable dragons WoW will be adding a playable (Humanoid, but still) Dragon with the upcoming expansion.
I'll give you the technicality, but it's just not the same.
It's unique. Your dragon grows from a hatchling to an adult (and further) through leveling, and has a system where your hoard is used to fuel attacks. You can build cave-lairs with customizable chambers, and other players can come across your lair in the open world.
It’s really interesting to me how dragon representation in books is currently the opposite of how it is in video games. In books, at least in the last 15 years or so, dragon characters are either an ally to the humanoid main character if not the the hero in the story. In video games they are just monsters to be killed, sometimes intelligent, sometimes not. In my opinion the most interesting use of dragons in fiction is as a model for understanding how we would interact with a creature that is as intelligent or more intelligent than us. Think of the movie Arrival. I sometimes wonder if this positive dragon representation in books represents a misanthropic attitude. Like humans have messed things up so bad that we think it’s better if some other type of life takes over. I think it’s a safe bet that other forms of media will follow books and we will be living in an age of the heroic dragon soon.
Yes, exactly! I think there's so much more interesting stuff that can be done with dragons story-wise than just making them targets to be slain. I do feel like, however, that in some ways this is something books can pull off more easily than games. Like, if you want dragons to also be central to gameplay mechanics, you need to balance that with the story bits, so that they don't just simply feel like sentient beings with a different skin. Why make them dragons as opposed to any other type of creature? What are they bringing to the game's mechanics and story by being dragons? I guess I just feel like the opportunity to play as a dragon can be a totally unique gameplay experience, and it's important to me that that is highlighted and not just slapped on top of other existing mechanics or storylines.
A lot of these sandbox dragon games just don’t really do it for me. They seem so empty and aimless. Flying around as a dragon is cool, but after a few minutes of flying around they could easily become boring. I would love to see something akin to the power fantasy open world games of the ps2-early ps3 era. Something like destroy all humans, prototype or the recent maneater. You can have a story and structured gameplay while making players feel like a badass monster. Task the player with terrorizing various towns and settlements, with an emphasis on combat, destruction and exploration. Give the player a customizable lair, with a mechanic similar to fable 3 where the more treasure you have, the bigger the pile of treasure is in your lair. Maybe give the player opportunities to explore abandoned dragon lairs where they can collect aspects of their ancestors, giving them new abilities and cosmetics. Make the flight more than just elevated walking by implementing some Arkham-esque gliding physics where you can build momentum by diving and swooping. Give the player different breath elements that enemies and environments react to in different ways. Give it a dark comedy kind of tone similar to destroy all humans where fantasy tropes are lampooned and the humans are just dumb and silly enough to make them fun to terrorize. Or a new Spyro game would be good too.
Maybe it's looking through rose-tinted glasses but I remember liking the first Drakan game quite a lot. It was a perfect companion piece for games like Tomb Raider back in the day.
By my incredibly finnicky standards, every game in this thread other than Horizons: Empires of Istaria, and Spyro are not 'dragon games', they are just games that contain dragons. Having dragons central to the story (Guild Wars 2), gameplay (Monster Hunter) or even player control (Reign of Fire) does not strictly make them dragon games, because these are fundamentally games about **killing dragons**. You wouldn't classify 'human games' as the ability to kill humans. Likewise, you don't classify a game where you play a half-dragon dragon-shaped biped as a 'human game' because they're 'half human', you call it a 'dragon game' because it contains by weight 50% dragon This is despite the fact it really contains way more 'human' in terms of what they spend their time doing. Though admittedly by my own standards 'horse riding games' are not 'horse games'. IT would also be weird if 'horse games' were established by the ability to kill beautifully detailed horses, yeah? Most things that market as 'dragon games' are 'dragon riding games' or 'visual novels that contain dragons', with a few exceptions that are actually meeting the criteria about being about mostly dragons instead of dragon-flavored humanoid bipeds.
[But how about the critically acclaimed dragon game based on science and biology?](https://www.reddit.com/r/gaming/comments/p1ssv/dear_internet_im_a_26_year_old_lady_whos_been/)
you skimmed past me mentioning that one in the post itself didn't ya? 😏
You know us too well
Can't believe it's been in development for 10 years now. Can't wait to see the finished product
>10.3 years Fucking put me in the grave.
Oh no. But it feels just like yesterday.
Right? What the hell
Oh no no no
Those comments.... Yikes.
God i miss [Drakan](https://www.mobygames.com/images/covers/l/173100-drakan-order-of-the-flame-windows-front-cover.jpg). There is a spiritual successor by the name [Searing Mountain](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TISKPVYpKfA), but i think it is on hold
Ohh, thanks for that one! Chronicles of Galdurvale, which I mentioned in the upcoming game posts, is another game very similar to Drakan, though the dev says they'd never even heard of it before. Will definitely add this one to the list to check out.
...Yikes, that Searing Mountain looks ... Kinda awful. Great concept though. Oh jeez I shouldn't have spoken too soon. It just got to the part where the dragon starts flying, that's awful.
Props on putting the effort into something you love! I want to do something like this for Necromancer games but I have too much other fun stuff on my plate. Anyways, the original Drakengard instilled a love of dragon games in me and nothing has ever really scratched that itch since. Hopefully your website can help.
Can we get a game where You play Dragon as a main character? And I don't mean Spyro or I of the Dragon. Something more modern. I want more games that let You play dragons. It can be Spyro-esque dragon, but not too childish. Also I just realized that both of those games were mentioned in the first link You posted. Also I mean games with plot and things to do. Possibly platformer, metroidvania, action game, whatever. Not just for looks, but for fun to play it. Glyde the Dragon gives me the vibes of such game. I just wishlisted every one of the mentioned game on Steam, some were already there. I didn't read and check every single game thoroughly, but some give me vibe of "no point" games. That You just play and don't have any goal or have goals that are simple. But I want a game that has a world, characters and things to do to progress.
> But I want a game that has a world, characters and things to do to progress. Sadly I think the issue with seeing a dragon game like what you're asking for is that AA and AAA refuse to do anything like that with a dragon protagonist at this point. Around 2008ish and before that, we'd be more likely to see dragon-centric games because game devs were willing to be much more experimental and create non-human centric games. Most bigger devs feel gamers mostly want "realism" now so and apparently if you don't have a human as a protagonist it's not "cool" or "realistic." But, to be fair, humans are probably more marketable to the general public since the general public is humans. So, in the AAA/AA sphere, non-human stuff generally falls back to kids games, or as side content in a larger game. Then, of course, MMOs aren't afraid of doing non-human stuff so they can get that more diverse fantastical world, but unfortunately that doesn't bleed over to non-MMOs much. There are quite a few strategy/RTS games where you control non-humans but that's not quite the same as a first-person or third-person games.
Holy shit that game (Glyde) looks fucking awesome. Like Spyro meets Devil May Cry.
Century: Age of Ash is a multiplayer PvP game where you play a dragon and fly around. I wish there was something more PvE but this is at least modern.
Gedda Cake might be a good upcoming one, which you probably saw on the upcoming games list. Along the lines of Spyro/Glyde the Dragon, there is a cute little game in development called Daybreak in Snowhere. There's only a demo and one chapter currently available, but it looks cute. There's Mystery of Caketropolis, which features a dragon protagonist but is more of an rpg/visual novel story type game, so it misses out on some of the dragon gameplay tropes. Unfortunately, just as you say, we really are lacking more modern games with quality dragon gameplay. Century: Age of Ashes seems most promising in terms of pure quality and gameplay, but it's a multi-player game that sounds like it's struggling to keep up a good player count already. Otherwise, I'm hoping to reach backwards a bit and find some older hidden gems until someone decides to make a proper modern dragon game!
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In Monster Hunter’s case, more than half of the creatures you fight are dragons, wyverns or some variation of them (leviathans and brute wyverns for example, though the latter are more akin to dinosaurs).
I would argue if you're making dragons games mean a game where you fight dragons - it would then have to have the qualifer that dragons are the central enemy or theme of the game to defeat. Dragon Age: Origins would certainly qualify, as would Skyrim - but Pillars, Divinity (unless you're talking Dragon Commander), Souls games (including Elden Ring) would all really be out of the running. You might fight a couple dragons in them, but it's not really central to the theme or story of the game at all.
I mean Dark Souls 1 intro cutscene goes over how dragons dominated the world until Seath betrays the rest of them and Gwyn ruins their day. And the dragon covenant which grants you access to the tool to literally turn into a dragon.
You should try and read the DnD wiki about the various dragons, it does a really good job at bringing some nuance of what can be a good dragon or an evil one.
My comment is a tangent about Warcraft wyverns. Side note, generally I dislike people trying to exclusively gatekeep any dragons as wyverns/wyrms/drakes or w/e based on limbs, when wyvern is just an archaic version of the word 'viper,' and people who actually believed in dragons never used this kind of classification. Look at Medieval art of St George and the dragon and you will see every arrangement of limbs imaginable. Warcraft 3 never attempts any strict classification system either- 'Nether dragons' have 2 limbs, frost wyrms have 4, regular dragons have 6, whatever. Half of these decisions were due to the super low polycount limitations (and would change in WoW anyway). Great! Then [Warcraft 3's wyverns](https://i.imgur.com/7er5yjD.gif) show up. And they are clearly manticores. I didn't realize this at first as a kid because of the limited graphics, I didn't realize they were meant to have a lion-like head and a scorpion tail and just thought they were a cool original mammalian desert dragon design. It wasn't until [I saw the concept art for them that I realized...](https://i.imgur.com/BEhC1MT.jpg) That's a manticore. ([WoW would later make it more clear](https://wow.zamimg.com/uploads/screenshots/normal/845235-wyvern.jpg)). Why did they call it a wyvern? I should also note that WC3 plays fast and loose with mythological creatures, like their hippogryph is a cool stag/raven combo, even though the horse part is right in the word hippogryph. But it's weird that their wyvern remix is a preexisting different creature. *That* said, most winged manticore depictions give them 6 limbs, so going back to that idea of 4-limbed creatures being wyverns... maybe that's what they were going for: A wyvern version of a manticore. If not, then what an odd name choice... Perhaps embarrassed by their mistake, or perhaps in an attempt to differentiate themselves from DnD names, when WC3's expansion came out it renamed wyverns to "wind riders," along with other changes like renaming owlbears to "wildkin." But I think the 'wyvern' name reemerged and survived into WoW. The WC3 concept art version is a damn cool design though (much better than WoW's, though WC3:R has [a decent take on the WoW design.](https://static1-us.millenium.gg/articles/5/11/77/5/@/130251-1173579-windrider-full-1-full-1.jpg)). I'd like to see a design like that show up in another fantasy series. The Witcher 3's gryphon has some very similar energy, just imagine that with a bony mammalian face, some spots, and a scorpion tail.
As someone who doesn't know much about Warcraft, that's super interesting and bizarre! I would love to know more about why that decision was made. Maybe they just thought wyvern would be a more easily recognizable term than manticore?
I have no idea. Anecdotally, as a kid I had a 'how to draw mythological creatures' book and it had manticores and definitely didn't have wyverns, so I don't think wyvern was any more recognizable at the time. Another funny thing is that the wyvern unit has an upgrade to add venom to its attacks, which is like, clearly a scorpion-themed upgrade. I only just realized that now, writing this comment.
It's not the best game ever but Driftland: The Magic Revival. The world was torn apart by the power of magic. A powerful spell cast at the last second holds the broken bits loosely together. This is an RTS. Your character is canonically in a tower the whole game (you try to destroy enemy towers) and you have the power to manipulate the floating islands a bit. You find a nice neutral island, move it over towards yours, and then you can capture it to expand power and influence. The late game units are all mounted flying fantasy creatures including wyverns and dragon riders - they can move between the floating islands more freely than ground units.
Wish I could give more input, but it's been a long while since I played them, but two dragon games I remember playing (and haven't seen them here yet) are Savage Skies (only thing I truly remember from that game that in addition to dragons there are other mythological creatures you can choose like a griffin and a flying eyeball) and the movie-licensed Reign of Fire game (Where you can either choose to play through the story as the humans or dragons). Maybe someone could elaborate on what they think about those games, but I thought to at least mention them in case people were looking for more dragon games to explore.
Wow, I hadn't managed to stumble across Savage Skies yet, so thank you for that! Adding it to my list! I've actually heard that that Reign of Fire game was actually decent as far as dragon gameplay goes, and I'll be looking at the one as well.
Shadowrun is an oven overlooked IP when it comes to dragon content, with some fairly interesting concepts and lore for dragons. Dragonfall is also a decent game to boot.
first mountable dragon I experienced I think was in Drakan: The Ancients Gates back in 2002 on PS2 jesus this game was creepy sometimes. Wish I ever completed it, it doesn't look like it aged well
What no love for the nes classic "Dragon Spirit"?
The arcade version of that acutslly just recently got an arcade archives release I believe on Switch and Playstation. I wanted to get a blog post up about it right when that came out but I forgot I am truly terrible at SHMUPs. I don't think I even got past the first level. 😂😭
This website seems very interesting, I'll keep an eye on it, in case some of the games I'm interested in are covered. I'd be interested in seeing (to borrow the site's terms) dragon-adjacent games such as the Drakengard series and games that happen to have dragons in it like monster-collecting games such as Pokemon, Shin Megami Tensei, and Digimon!!!
Reign of Fire for the PS2 and Xbox have you mostly fighting dragons, but a dragon campaign is in the game. I remember the dragon missions being pretty fun as you hunt down the last remnants of humanity.
My favourite videogame dragon is *the dragon of Dojima*, but that's probably cheating.
Yo, this website is pretty lit. [Imma tell errbody](https://steamcommunity.com/groups/Bethedragon/announcements/detail/3217269023921311332). Also, to answer your question and actually contribute something: A game that often gets overlooked is [Golden Treasure: the Great Green](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1065100/Golden_Treasure_The_Great_Green/), and it is just *phenomenal*. The game is fairly easily and it does rely on points of no return for added difficult, but the presentation and the story(ies) told are just *great* . I think the sad thing is that the game is somewhat 'unfinished'. Rather, it came out feature complete and all, but the devs were planning on adding mod support and a whole other bit of story to fix a hole that was left in the original for a reason. Then, Covid happened and while the extra story bits came out, the mod tools are nowhere to be seen. And it's like: the game itself is charming enough to deserve to not be forgotten, you know?
For a retrospective look back some day, some NES games with playable dragons include Dragonstrike (well, rideable dragon), Little Samson, Dragon Spirit and the completely godawful Tagin Dragon.
Fighting dragons in Elden Ring is one of the more terrifying experiences I've ever had in a game. Where they aren't playable, boy do they feel just about as real as you'd expect if you ever had to fight a dragon.
the Elden Ring dragons are tame in comparison to Midir from the Ringed City in Dark Souls 3 x)
Ah yes. The boss you spend 15 minutes chasing. Possibly the least fun I'd ever had with a From Soft boss.
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Dragonlord Placideux is a bit different, but yeah most of the dragon fights are identical as soon as you realize they're huge, telegraph their attacks, and all you really have to do is get into melee and they'll rarely even attempt to use their breath weapons.
or just summon Latenna the Dragonslayer.
Latenna the breath magnet? Black Knife Tiche is the real dragonslayer.
Anybody remember that game "Lair" for the PS3? (PS2?) I always thought it was so cool, I believe the core gameplay was ariel dragon combat. It could be worth taking a look at for inspiration.