Summary
Poland is an underutilized setting for video games, especially story-driven games. While one of the most notable Polish developers in Triple-A gaming isCD Projekt Red, its games are either fantasy adapted from a Polish author or a cyberpunk version of America. Luckily,Bloober Team, former developers from CD Projekt Red, and other small studios branch out to make Poland its own focus.
You’ll be surprised at the variety of genres available already for video games set in this European country. From turn-based strategy rooted in WW2 history to a driving simulator, an FPS game, a sword-fighting game, a Werewolf: The Apocalypse entry, and survival horror, these are the Polish games you should know about.
Originally titled just Warsaw before receiving its name change in 2023 to Warsaw Rising: City Of Heroes and going free-to-play, this is a turn-based strategy RPG focused on the Warsaw Uprising period of the country’s history during WW2. What’s most remarkable about Warsaw Rising is how many actual historical facts about 1944 Warsaw the game includes for you to explore.
When you’re not engaged in combat with enemy combatants during the 63 days of the uprising, you can move around the map, which is filled with plenty of important landmarks and historical information that you can view from the menu, such as the University of Warsaw, Warsaw Citadel, and the Gęsiówka concentration camp, among others.
Developer Pixelated Milk partnered with the Institute of Polish Remembrance and the Warsaw Rising Museum to best capture the historical aspects of the game.
The developers also note that Warsaw Rising: City Of Heroes “was included in the Polish history books, and was recognised by German Digital Culture Foundation as a valuable educational tool to teach about World War II.”
Outside of historical games and the horror genre, another amazing way to experience what the cities of Poland have to offer is apparently by driving a truck.Euro Truck Simulator 2will have plenty of destinations for you to visit in Poland, especially if you have the Going East! DLC, which unlocks more regions like Warsaw, Kraków, Lublin, Olsztyn, Bialystok, and more.
If you’re looking to explore Poland, Euro Truck Simulator 2 offers richly detailed and immersive on-the-road gameplay, where you drive through the highways and streets of your desired destinations. Each major Polish city has key landmarks you’re able to discover, and there’s some managing sim mechanics as well, with growing out your Euro truck delivery business.
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If you likevideo games that play with perspectives, Torn Away is an underrated gem that does side-scrolling 2D with interactive first-person 3D really well. The game also sets out to tell an emotional story of a young Soviet girl’s journey home after escaping from a concentration camp during WW2.
The harrowing trip will take her across Germany and Poland, with a unique art style and a soundtrack said to be “inspired by the music of Hayao Miyazaki’s movies.” The main protagonist, Asya, also has a cute talking blue mitt companion with button eyes called Comrade Mitten, and the voice acting is performed in either English or fully in Russian with English subtitles.
The setting of Poland inWolfenstein: The New Orderis very vital to the story, as it’s where the psychiatric hospital that B.J. Blazkowicz is admitted to by the Nazis is located and where he meets his soon-to-be wife and mother of his kids, Anya Oliwa. You’ll have a couple of missions in Poland before you and Anya continue the resistance fight in other Nazi-occupied countries.
Wolfenstein: The New Order is a 2014 successor to the original series and brings new story and gameplay from MachineGames, which gets expanded in future sequels.It’s set in an alternate historywhere Nazi Germany defeated the Allies in WW2 and conquered most of Europe and America.
As Blazkowicz, you can dual-wield weapons and use stealth to brutally eliminate Deathshead’s Nazi forces.
Different Tales is a developer based in Warsaw, Poland that had the honor of creating a video game for the TTRPG Werewolf: The Apocalypsefrom the World of Darkness universe. Unlike Cyanide Studio’s Earthblood, this series is a choice-based RPG visual novel-style game focused on mystery and set in the Polish wilderness.
The first game, Heart of the Forest, follows protagonist Maia Boroditch as she seeks answers about her family in Poland’s Białowieża Forest. The 2024 follow-up, Purgatory, centers on Afghan refugee Samira Rahmani in Poland,a Garou werewolfcaught in a murder mystery amid the escalating Polish-Belarusian border crisis.
You’ll have a character sheet like in the TTRPG, and the sequel adapts the fifth edition ruleset.
Head on over and experience Poland in the 17th century with Hellish Quart, a realistic physics-based fencing sim out in Early Access. It’s trulyone of the best sword-fighting gamesyou can play if you love realistic combat and damage, and it offers a story mode fully voiced in Polish, a local 1V1 multiplayer mode with a roster of fighters, and survival mode.
Similar to Kingdom Come: Deliverance, the sword-fighting animations were motion-captured to be as authentic as possible, and there are four attack angles where you can try to land a hit on opponents.
And to be even more authentic to the 17th-century Polish setting, the character outfits are all scanned from reconstructed period clothing and all the enemies will be historically accurate.
If you’re a fan of Disco Elysium,The Thaumaturgeis one of the most underrated RPGs of 2024 with very similar qualities.
Created by Fool’s Theory, a Polish developer made up of former CD Projekt Red staff and whose previous works include Seven and support on Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 and Divinity: Original Sin 2, it tellsan original isometric RPG storyset in 1905 Warsaw, Poland.
In this period of Poland’s history, the nation is still under the Russian Empire’s control, so historical figures like Tsar Nicholas II and Grigori Rasputin play a big role in the story. You’re a thaumaturge named Wiktor (‘W’ as in Wiccan) Szulski, a supernatural detective investigating mysteries and fighting turn-based battles against the Tsar’s forces with the aid of collectible demons called Salutors.
Bloober Team is a Polish video game developer that’s really carved out a name for itself in psychological horror with titles like Layers of Fear, Blair Witch, and 2024’s Silent Hill 2 Remake.Observer is a detective horror-mystery gameset in the futuristic cyberpunk setting of 2084 Kraków, Poland, with late Hollywood legend Rutger Hauer voicing protagonist Daniel Lazarski.
Imagine if Longlegs took a wrong turn into a cyberpunk alternate future where detectives can hack into the minds of suspects and deceased victims, and you’ll arrive at this game’s premise. InObserver, Lazarski is investigating a string of murders that puts him in the crosshairs of a bigger conspiracy involving his son, Adam.
Bloober Team’s next horror game set in Poland after Observertakes on a more historical setting.The Mediumis set against the backdrop of 1999 Poland, nearly a decade after the communist People’s Polish Republic government had ended.
But the story takes the protagonist, Marianne, to an abandoned communist-era vacation resort called Niwa, where a grizzly massacre took place.
As a medium, Marianne can be connected to both the real world and the spirit realm via a split-screen, with puzzles and gameplay objectives requiring you to often switch between the two versions of her character.
The way the story is told is like a masterfully crafted film, featuring plenty of twists and shocking answers to the mysteries it sets up. The soundtrackis also co-composed by Silent Hill’s Akira Yamaoka.
Darkwood isa top-down Lovecraftian survival horror experiencein the Polish woods based on different day and night cycle mechanics. Exploration will happen during the day and, come nightfall, you must set up fortifications for your base and survive any horrifying intruders that arrive at your doorstep.
Although the exact location of the game is never explicitly mentioned, supplementary story materials, such as newspapers and the wrecked helicopter, allude to it being somewhere in Poland, and the game is developed by a three-person team from Poland. It’s quite the horror treat, delivering excellent lore, mystery, and atmosphere with little detriment to your storage space.
