And TOTALLY AWESOME! Highly recommended.

In the breath of Fire series, the protagonist is a dragon but he is usually in human form. On the way to levelling, he gets some dragon transformation spells, though. If you like turned based, traditional J-RPGs, the breath of fire series is a pretty good one, well established and mainstream. 4 was even released in PC! 1 and 2 you can find in emulation, for Snes or GB handheld (advance), 3 you can get the PS1 disc image and use an emulator for PS1 on PC, 4 you can get on pc and 5, i think it is for PS2 (there are working emulators for this one, too).

Freedom Planet.

You can play as Lilac, the water dragon (so don't expect fire breathing...) and later in the game, you can be a dragon rider... something's fishy here.

The I of the Dragon

A personal fav ;D

edit: it's polish!

Hey, you ninja`d me!!! I wanted to mention The I of the Dragon!!! :-)

In neverwinter nights there is a dragon disciple prestige class, and once you reach level 10 in it, you get wings and fire breath. I think you can create a pretty overpowering character that way.

You can recruit dragons in Dungeon Keeper Gold and play them with the possession spell.

I loved Hoard. It might be simple, but it is fun to steal princesses, collect tribute from towns, and burn carriages, knights, and other dragons.

Trogdor!!! ;)

And another browser game, How to Raise a Dragon

Dragon: The Game, Early Access title on Steam, doesn't seem to be very well received though.

Time of Dragons, a dragon rider MMO.

Dragon's Wake, 2D platformer about a dragon hatchling.

School of Dragons, MMORPG, not very popular either.

Dragon's Prophet, another MMO, looks like you can ride dragons in this.

Dragons & Titans, MOBA with dragons.

If you own Forgotten Realms Unlimited Adventures, and you've learned how to apply (hacked) mods, you can play Legacy of the Dragon, a shorter adventure that allows you to take on the role of a young dragon hatchling (turn-based RPG though, not a dragon flight action game; check the readme file before playing).

As for Neverwinter Nights, additionally to the Red Dragon disciple class, there's also a Dragon Shape feat for high level shapeshifters, introduced with the Hordes of the Underdark expansion. I'm quite confident there has to be some module or multiplayer server that would let you play as a dragon as well, but off the top of my head, I can't think of any.

I remember playing Dragon Lord way back when it came out...pretty cool concept.

Altered Beast allowed you to transform into (among others) a dragon.

Jack Keane 2

This is one of the top search results for "games where you play as a dragon", so I'm gonna respond here.

Important: This thread is obviously about games for PC. Not all of these games are PC Games, however most of them can be run in an emulator.

First of all, this page, like many, made a great effort to list all of the games where you can ONLY play as a dragon. However, in doing so you missed out on pretty much all of the best games which allow you to CHOOSE to play as a dragon if you like.

First, my personal ranking:

1. Godzilla: Save the Earth
2. Torchlight 2 (with a mod)
3. Heroes of the Storm
4. Pokemon Tournament
5. Dota 2

Now for my complete list:

Primary Games (Playing a dragon)

Godzilla (series): Almost all of the Godzilla series games let you play as King Ghidorah, a 3 headed dragon and Rodan (who is actually a Pterodactyl). Some of them also allow you to play as Destoroyah (another dragon). If you enjoy destroying modern cities as a 300m tall dragon with a variety of giant monster opponents, these games are the best you can find, as they offer you a huge number of different moves and a completely destructable environment.

Pokemon (series): While all of the games let you control dragons, there's a few that also let you actually play as one: Pokemon Mystery Dungeon lets you play as Charizard and Pokemon Tournament lets you play as either Charizard or Garchomp. There's also Pokemon Unite (which is a MOBA) which isn't yet released at the writing of this post but it appears to let players play as Charizard as well.

Heroes of the Storm: Among MOBAs, HotS offers the greatest dragon experience: You can play as Deathwing, who has a ton of different moves (and two modes that let you play him as a ranged or a melee character), the faerie dragon Brightwing, and Alexstrasza who can temporarily shapeshift into a dragon. Out of the MOBAs, this one provides by far the most different moves and playstyles for dragon fans.

League of Legends: Lets you play as Ao Shin (a Chinese Dragon) and Shyvana who can temporarily shapeshift into a dragon. There's also the Prehistoric Anivia skin (which is actually a pterodactyl, but again, it looks a lot like a dragon as well). Only 5 different skills per champion though.

Dota 2: Allows you to play as Jakiro, the two headed dragon, Winter Wyvern, Puck the faerie dragon and the shapeshifter Dragon Knight (who can turn into a dragon with his ulti for a limited amount of time, very similar to Shyvana and Alexstrasza above). Only 4 spells per hero though. There's also Viper and Outworld Devourer which are kind of dragons but not really.

Dragon Rage: A decent game for like 30 minutes or so before it becomes repetitive. Play a dragon, eat villagers, destroy the city, kill hordes of soldiers. Sidescroller.

Heroes of Might and Magiv IV: Using the scenario editor, you can easily set up a scenario in which you don't have a hero and roam around with a bunch of dragons as your character. Not very deep experience, but a possibility nontheless.

HOARD: An indie game that makes you kidnap princesses, collect gold, and raze down cities. Not very exciting imo, very fast paced, kind of repetitive gameplay though.

Super Smash Bros. Ultimate: Lets you play as Ridley from Samus as well as Charizard via Pokemon Trainer

SMITE: lets you play as a dragon via Kukulkan's Dragon's Rage skin.

Heroes of Newearth: Another MOBA that lets you play as Draconis who is also a dragon and has some cool spells.

Magic: Arena and Shadowverse both let you set your player avatar as a dragon, but I don't count that as actual gameplay.

Games that let you control dragons

Pokemon (series): The series has many catchable Pokemon that look or play like dragons, not all of them (most notably Lugia and Charizard) being marked as Dragons. It offers a very wide variety for all tastes. In the traditional series games you can have up to 6 of them in your party at a given time, each of them can learn 4 different moves. In Pokemon: Sword and Shield there's also Dynamaxing and Gigantamaxing which allows your dragons to temporarily become huge. Some example characters: Lugia, Charizard, Flygon, Salamence, Dragonite, Goodra, Druddigon, Haxorus, Altaria, Latias, Latios, Rayquaza, Garchomp, Reshiram, Zekrom, Kyurem, Giratina, Hydreigon, Noivern, Eternatus.

Heroes of Might and Magic (series): All installments in the series (later named Might and Magic: Heroes) allow the player to recruit dragons, usually in various colors and shapes. In Heroes 3, there are Green, Gold, Red, Bone, Ghost, Faerie, Rust, Crystal and Azure Dragons as well as Wyverns. You can build large armies of dragons in normal gameplay or via specially constructed custom maps.

For the following Strategy games I strongly suggest creating your own custom maps using their shipped map editors in order for the best dragon-only experience, which even allows these games to move up to the "play as a dragon" category: Warcraft 3 has Nether Drakes, Frost Wyrms and Faerie Dragons, Age of Mythology lets you control the Nidhogg (and with the Tale of the Dragon Addon also the Azure Dragon and the Dragon Turtle), Battle for Middle Earth 2 allows you to control a (temporary) Dragon as well as Mordors Fellbeasts, Age of Wonders 3 allows you to recruit dragons (and you can also play as a dragon born civ) and Endless Legend allows you to play as a dragon civ (Drakken).

Magic: Arena: You get a large selection of different dragon cards in this card game, among different colors (usually red, blue or black). Just like in the physical game, you can play this with pure dragon only decks and have a lot of fun with it. For pure dragon decks you need to play this in the Historic format, as there's usually not enough dragon supportive cards in standard (except in rare cases)

Eternal TCG: While you probably will have a hard time creating pure dragon decks in this game, it also features a large variety of dragons.

Hearthstone: Lets you play pure dragon decks in its wild format, usually on Priest or Paladin. Just like with MtG, in rare circumstances there can be enough dragon cards in Standard for a dragon deck, but most of the time you will have to play Wild.

The Elder Scrolls: Legends: There's many dragon cards in there, allowing for pure dragon decks as well.

Total War: Warhammer 2: Allows recruiting different kinds of dragons depending on which civilization you chose. They have a large set of animations, both ranged as well as melee and are quite entertaining to watch in battle.

Modded Games (Playing a dragon)

There are also some games that let you play as a dragon if you mod them:

Torchlight 2: This has to be the most sophisticated Dragon mod out there. Rampage through the world, level up your dragon and learn new skills, use a variety of melee and ranged attacks to crush thousands of enemies. You are huge, and boss fights feel like Godzilla vs King Kong. There's also tons of gold to collect in this game. One of the most satisfying dragon experiences you can get. The dragon is called Vyrax and used to be an opponent. You can play the hack'n'slay in various difficulty levels, here's a short teaser of me one-shotting everything: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dx_F4Qok7Rw

Stellaris has a mod that gives you a dragon civ. Unfortunately this is basically limited to the name and your avatar as well as to some perks that just affect your stats a bit.

Skyrim, Minecraft and Ark: Survival have playable dragon mods, however there's not really much you can do with them. You definitely won't be able to play through the games with them, but they can be fun for a short while.

Divinity: Original Sin 2 has a mod that allows your character to shapeshift (permanently) into a dragon.


If you find some more great games, please share them.

This thread was last active in 2016 so some might consider this a necro, but I don't think the thread's subject had any "prize of expiry". I'd say if you had things to contribute (and you did) it was better than opening a new thread just because this one is old.

So, a few suggestions of mine:

In Final Fantasy Tactics there is a pair of characters that enter your team around the 3rd chapter and one of them is a dragon. (Well, technically... Nah, forget it)

Total Annihilation: Kingdoms + Iron Plague is an RTS where you play as the leader of one of 4 factions. Each leader is riding a dragon. In the Iron plague expansion you get to command all 4 in the same map against a common enemy.

And finally there's a fairly new hack+slash game for Android called Guardian Tales where you recruit several heroes to join your team. At least two of those are humanoid dragons, one is among the higher tier units.

Edit: I just realized there must be games based on Dreamworks's How to train your dragon™ movie franchise. I was correct. I haven't played any of them so I can't guarantee that they have dragon riding, but it makes sense that they do.