Summary
- Knights of the Old Republic 2 has an extensive and useful weapon crafting system that makes RPG skills more valuable and allows for the creation of powerful weapons.
- Cyberpunk 2077's simple crafting system lets players disassemble weapons for components and craft weapons through blueprints or upgrading existing ones.
- Dragon Age: Inquisition features a highly customizable weapon crafting system that requires schematics and allows for modding to achieve unique bonuses.
Crafting has been a large part of RPGs for many years now, almost always appearing in AAA open-world games, with a good deal of indie games basing their gameplay around crafting.
One genre that includes crafting more often than not is the action RPG, and while many do include crafting, not all of them allow the player to craft new weapons. Furthermore, games like Skyrim can often have tedious crafting systems that require players to fulfill frustrating prerequisites or are so basic in their design that they don't allow for enough customization.
8 Knights Of The Old Republic 2
This sequel to the acclaimed RPG, Knights Of The Old Republic, included a helpful crafting system that helps distinguish itself from the original game. Although Knights Of The Old Republic did have crafting elements with its upgrade system, Knights Of The Old Republic 2's weapon crafting system is far more extensive.
Although Knights Of The Old Republic 2 is an old game, released back in 2004, its crafting system makes some of the game's less useful RPG skills useful. Furthermore, the game's weapon crafting can be used to create some of the most powerful weapons available. However, KOTOR 2's crafting is UI-based and not very customizable, so it's one of the more simplistic systems.
7 Cyberpunk 2077
This expansive sci-fi open-world RPG from CD Projekt Red is an action-packed FPS experience with a strong narrative and plenty of weapons to acquire and craft. Although the game's crafting system is fairly simple, it allows players to make use of sub-par weapons by disassembling them for components.
Although Cyberpunk 2077 does require players to invest in some skills to craft the more powerful, higher rarity weapons in the game (primarily the "Grease Monkey" and "Edgerunner Artisan" perks), this is easily done and also a much better alternative than spending heaps of credits on weaponry. There are two ways to craft weapons in Cyberpunk 2077: finding blueprints or upgrading already collected weapons to a higher rarity.
6 The Witcher 3
This open-world action RPG from developers CD Projekt Red is one of the most revered RPGs of recent years with its detailed open world and extensive variety of quests to complete.
The Witcher 3's crafting system is hardly complex, but it does encourage players to explore by tasking them with finding the right components and diagrams to craft weapons. Furthermore, players will need to find a good blacksmith if they want to forge any of the more powerful weapons in the game.
5 V Rising
V Rising is an open-world survival game with the combat and progression of an isometric action RPG. The game includes unlockable abilities and a variety of weapons with unique movesets that allow for distinct playstyles.
While V Rising may not have the most complex crafting system, it allows players to focus on the action-packed gameplay. All players need to do to craft a new weapon in V Rising is find the prerequisite materials, the right place to craft it, and the recipe. However, despite its ease of use, V Rising's weapon crafting can be fairly linear.
4 Path Of Exile
This free-to-play hack-and-slash action RPG is deep, complex, and offers plenty of content for players to indulge in. Path Of Exile may be known more for its extensive skill tree than its crafting system, but engaging in the game's crafting can reap fantastic rewards.
However, Path Of Exile's weapon crafting can often rely on RNG, something that players might not want to gamble with given that crafting is an expensive process. Path Of Exile's crafting system is primarily focused on adding various modifiers to weapons, but due to the costs of crafting it could be argued that it's only worth engaging with this system to craft high-level gear.
3 Fallout 4
The Fallout series has been a reliable source of RPG action since the release of Fallout 3, which itself allowed players to craft weapons from schematics. Although Fallout 4's crafting system is fairly simplistic, it allows players to fully customize their weapons with relative ease.
Furthermore, most modifications are open to the player without prerequisites, making Fallout 4's crafting system one of the least tedious to engage with. Using the game's initial weapons as blank slates, players can craft some extremely powerful weapons that they wouldn't have access to without crafting.
2 Vagrant Story
Vagrant Story is an action RPG originally released for the PlayStation in 2000, over twenty years ago. Despite its clunky, dated UI, the game still holds up today as an enjoyable action RPG and has one of the most intuitive weapon crafting systems.
In Vagrant Story, all players need to craft a weapon is a blade and a weapon grip compatible with it. The blade determines the weapon's class, type, and affinity, while the weapon grip determines the damage and the gemstone capacity of the weapon.
1 Dragon Age: Inquisition
While Dragon Age: Inquisition may not be the fan favorite of the Dragon Age series, it has one of the best weapon crafting systems that can be found in action RPGs, allowing for both weapon crafting and modding that allows for plenty of customization.
Crafting weapons in Dragon Age: Inquisition does require schematics, but these can be found fairly easily in the game's open world either through exploring or by purchasing them from specific merchants. Each weapon that can be crafted has different slots available, which determine the type of bonuses that can be applied to that weapon through the components players choose to use.