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The 10 Best Urban Fantasy Games, Ranked
Collider presents a ranked rundown of the best urban fantasy video games, a subgenre in which magic, monsters and supernatural drama play out against real or realistic city backdrops rather than traditional high-fantasy settings. The piece highlights how the genre has spread from books into film, television and gaming, working equally well in open-world RPGs and more linear, level-based titles.
Among the entries covered are Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, a cult first-person RPG set in modern Los Angeles; Darksiders III, which sends the horseman Fury through a ruined, apocalyptic city to defeat the Seven Deadly Sins; Ghostwire: Tokyo, an open-world horror-fantasy in which a young man possessed by a vengeful spirit must save Tokyo's Shibuya district after its population vanishes; and Vampyr, a niche but well-regarded title with a dedicated following. The full list runs to ten games, though the supplied text is truncated before the remaining entries are detailed.
In short
- Collider ranks the best urban fantasy video games, a city-set magic subgenre.
- Highlights include Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines, Darksiders III and Ghostwire: Tokyo.
- Vampyr also features; full ten-game list extends beyond the excerpt provided.
Explained simply
Urban fantasy brings magic and supernatural events into recognisable modern cities, rather than imagined medieval worlds. In games, that can mean exploring an open city or moving through a series of more tightly arranged levels.
The games in this genre take different approaches: Vampire: The Masquerade – Bloodlines is a role-playing game set in modern Los Angeles, while Ghostwire: Tokyo centres on supernatural events in Tokyo’s Shibuya district. Darksiders III uses a ruined city as the setting for a fantasy battle, and Vampyr has built a dedicated following.
These settings let games mix familiar urban places with monsters, spirits or magic. The genre spans different styles of play, so its games need not share the same kind of story or gameplay.