Baldur's Gate

1990th were best time for RPG games industry. Every year new and new projects released, offering player more and more breath-taking story-lines. But 1998 was a turning point for the genre. Baldur's Gate arrived and showed what must be truly epic party-based RPG. You could spend many hours, just walking here and there in Candlekeep, training and preparing for unpredictable events. To explore the whole world, with its mysteries, alive characters, epic side-quests you needed at least hundreds of hours. Not to say about Big World Project.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QIcBDjUcGLU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=syWAx6GUhe4

Dark Souls

You Died! Just one unwanted step forward, and you need to start over from fire. Dark Souls is unmerciful to every your error. You must calm your nerves. You need to think several steps ahead. You have to understand actions of your opponent. That is the only way to win the battle. And that is why Dark Souls became so popular. Next parts just enriched stuff that was already present in first. Or even Demons Souls, truthfully speaking.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9IbPrk-yuts

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=afK8KYGpVYI

Dragon Age Origins

Released in late 2009, it recovered old-school RPGs from oblivion and made new era of party-driven games possible. Just epic story alone was a reason to make your way from one of several possible starting to final battle with archdemon. Nothing to say about other amazing features resulting in great replay possibilities. Battle diversity, choices influencing the story, a lot of classes and skills and few additional story-lines, - that were main reasons why a lot of players started over and over.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ojFGcjJSfcE

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fg-qSoEkVo0

Unfortunately, next two parts were not so breathtaking. Self-repetition isn't good way to make a good product. Especially if there is too much repetitions.

Fable

Created with the proper guidance of Peter Molyneux, Fable is simply a... fable. Enemies burned the native hut, guild trained young soldier, soldier started to spread vendetta. Various magic, fabulous characters, influence of reputation, gormandize and starvation, different peaceful engagements, - that is not even a full list of features, driven into game by Lionhead Studios.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=X4f1eDrqt_w

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1YizvhmfHFE

Fallout

Oh wait! Why is there not any ponies and butterflies? What the heck is this mutant doing here? Post-apocalyptic world isn't a fabulous place. Get used to it. Firstly released in 1997, it devoured players from all over the world for some weeks and even months. They left native vault to find water chip and never returned. Nevada offered a lot of activities for them, from deratization to running away from supermutants.

Sequel became reference for everybody, who wanted to make really saturated post-apocalyptic world. Even now perk system is something I personally lack in new projects. Years have passed, everything changed, but war... war never changes.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KhM3jVehVo

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2FcEaeMjviQ

Unfortunately, Fallout 3 was just a trial of feather, chance to make 3D version of project, so loved by many players. At that time, it was fantastic engine, but engine is not a game. Only Fallout New Vegas, despite a lot of bugs at start, digged out traditions, laid into franchise by Interplay.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YhEUZSKszuc

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W_-6ymuk9i4

Gothic

Nobody knows, why nameless hero was thrown into mining colony. Having no time to regain consciousness, he got another kick into face. What a mess! Disrespect to heroes! Everything here needs to be changed. That's how the story of Gothic series begins. You could choose camp, win respect by helping locals and uncover the mystery of what-the-heck-is-happening-here. Polish modification Dark Mysteries offered new and epic side-quest stories, elongating the life of the game. Not to say anything about sequel and various monstrous add-ons for it, like Returning, Slash-n-Craft and Rebalance.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3-GoMSIVX9c

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tCyIWkblDt8

Mass Effect

Fans of Star Wars always wanted to get an epic qualitative game, full of space exploration and meaningful choices. Actually, there were different games before, and even based on Star Wars series. But none of them offered such a cinematographic story-line, ability to disentangle mystery covered all the races, to visit various planets, to ride the Mako. Let the planets weren't well-developed, the overall atmosphere was really great. As all the parts of trilogy are tightly connected with each other, there is no way to choose best of them. Fourth is just another story. Will see in next years where it will come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqJuJTIus7U

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oQD3nTOLf0A

Neverwinter Nights

Neverwinter Nights story begins in early 2000th. Many players bypass them, telling that it is just another copy of earlier giant - Baldur's Gate. But at that time, when Internet wasn't so widespread and people didn't know about existence of one or another, they were equally popular. In comparison to BG, NWN with add-ons was less skill-demanding, but offered identically interesting story, variety of progress ways and great replayability.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6dckenxaxJY

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Rcwb3fwGnw

Online servers inbreathed new life into game. People from all over the world gathered together to speak with each other, take part in the currently-driven event etc. Even now you can see people playing online modifications here and there. As with other games in this list, sequel and multiplayer version didn't do the trick.

The Elder Scrolls

Release of TES Arena started new era for first-person RPGs. Weak story as always, but the whole world to discover. A lot of towns and cities, different characters with their own day regime, wishes, unpredictable amount of side-quests, breathtaking books. Every next part spread the boundaries more and more. Hordes of modifications released every week, new epic stories devoured player minds and time. Decades of development made it just like Tolkien's Middle-earth.

Morrowind

Nobody, who played TES3 at least once, will not forget Jiub, guard leading you onto the ship board, Socucius Ergalla with the famous cake, captain giving you orders to use silt strider to get to Balmora, Fargoth, taking his ring back and leaving it in trunk after several minutes. Even in Seyda Neen you can see a lot of interesting quests, books, characters and other stuff. It is really huge, alive and undetermined world.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l47lRUX8K50

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cr3TCWPlDrw

Oblivion

Oblivion engine started golden time for modifications. As always, story-line of original game was much more poorer than side-quests. So, creators started to correct developers horse-armor-like errors, filling the world with various lore-based and not-so-lore-based stuff. Careful combination of mods let enrich the Cyrodiil and balance the gameplay, thus elongating games life.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mWLZ07U85h0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AaMWNOURKjE

Skyrim

First E3 demo of TES5 was really breath-taking. Epic panoramas, monstrous dragons and cool first-player camera, - that was what personally I waited from from new part of saga. In combination with epic story and nice balance, of course. Anyway, Skyrim showed new path for modifications, which allowed to fix all the problems. That's why it is in this list. And that's why we wait next part.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JSRtYpNRoN0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NhevGw_qBw

Witcher

Based on stories of Andrzei Sapkowski, Witcher was really a unique RPG. Demons and spirits of slavic mythology in combination with fine-tuned balance revealed a monstrous bomb of gameplay. Add to this unforgettable music, world-influencing choices, continuation of book plot - and you will understand, what its release meant for fans.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WkjvmGtZ1SA

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2-XED5zifig

I didn't list action-RPGs like Diablo, JRPGs like Final Fantasy, Indie ones advisedly. That is just another story.

As for me, all of these may pretend for the first place. So, it's up to you to choose your top 3.