Games Where You Play Multiple Generations: 14 Picks, and What Your Heir Inherits
In most games, death means loading a save. In a few, it means a funeral and a handover: the character you spent hours with is gone, and you carry on as their daughter, their son or whichever heir you managed to raise. When it works it's one of the best feelings in games, because your good calls and your mistakes outlive the person who made them.
We make Dynasty, a browser game built entirely around that handover, which is why we went looking for every other game that does it well. Dynasty is on the list, clearly marked as ours. The other thirteen are here on their own merits.
Short answer: choose by what the next generation gets from you.
- Land, titles and gold: Crusader Kings III, Old World, The Guild 3.
- An open world, and the sword or the axe that goes with it: Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, Medieval Dynasty.
- A house and a whole life to live next: The Sims 4, BitLife, Dynasty.
- Blood, meaning traits and talent: Massive Chalice, Rogue Legacy 2, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey.
- A throne, a few minutes at a time: Reigns.
The three things an heir can inherit
Put these games side by side and they come down to three things. Most pick one or two.
- Wealth. Money, land, titles, a business. This is the part that makes you plan: a will, a marriage for the right alliance, an heir raised for the job.
- Blood. Traits, talents and looks passed down from the parents. This is the part that turns you into a matchmaker, sometimes a ruthless one.
- Memory. A family tree, a name, a record of who did what. This is the part that makes you care.
The best of them make you feel two things at the same moment: the loss of a character you knew, and the weight of what they've left the next one.
How we picked them
A game made the list only if you actually take control of the next generation inside the game. Plenty of games have families; far fewer hand you the child when the parent dies. That rules out series where a sequel simply stars a descendant. We checked how each game handles succession against its developer's own description, reviews and player guides in October 2026. Prices change, so we haven't listed them, but every game here is paid except The Sims 4's base game, BitLife and Dynasty.
Dynasty sims: land, titles and gold
Crusader Kings III
Paradox Interactive, 2020. PC, and since 2022 PlayStation 5 and Xbox Series X|S.
The reference point for the whole idea. You play a medieval ruler, and when they die you carry on as their primary heir. Succession laws decide who gets what, and under partition your realm can be split between your children, which is how many promising kingdoms end up as squabbling family property. Some traits are genetic, so every marriage is a breeding decision as much as a political one. If your dynasty runs out of playable heirs, the game is over.
What passes down: titles, land, gold, your dynasty's prestige and, through blood, traits.
Old World
Mohawk Games, 2021. PC.
A 4X strategy game set in antiquity, from the studio founded by Soren Johnson, lead designer of Civilization IV. The difference from Civilization is that your leader is a person, who ages and dies. You marry for politics, raise and educate the heir, and when the throne passes, the new ruler picks an ambition of their own. A childless ruler will find the noble families of the realm very keen to suggest someone to adopt.
What passes down: the nation, and an heir whose character you shaped while they grew up.
The Guild 3
THQ Nordic, 2022, after five years in early access. PC.
A trade and life sim set in 15th-century Europe. You build a family business in a medieval town, marry well and push your way into office, and if you keep the line going the family can last for centuries. It's slower and far more economic than Crusader Kings: more workshops than wars.
What passes down: the family business, the money and the offices you climbed into.
Open worlds: the heir picks up where you fell
Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord
TaleWorlds, full release 2022. PC, PlayStation and Xbox.
In the sandbox campaign your character can die in battle or, eventually, of old age, unless you switch death off when you create them. When it happens, you choose an heir among the grown-up members of your clan and carry on. The clan keeps its fiefs and your heir gets your gear; if you were a king, the crown may not follow. With no adult heir, your story ends there, so it pays to marry and have children early.
What passes down: the clan, its fiefs and your equipment.
Medieval Dynasty
Render Cube, 2021. PC, and later PlayStation and Xbox.
A survival and village-building game set in the early Middle Ages. You arrive in a valley with almost nothing, build a settlement and marry so the family has a future. Once your son is an adult he can take over, either when your character dies or earlier, if you choose to hand over. The village, its buildings and its villagers all stay. A later patch, the Heir Update, added more family quests and events.
What passes down: everything you built.
Life sims: the next life starts where yours ended
The Sims 4
Maxis and Electronic Arts, 2014. The base game has been free since October 2022. PC, Mac, PlayStation and Xbox.
Sims grow up through life stages and, with ageing switched on, die of old age. The household carries on and you keep playing whoever is left, which is how generations happen in The Sims without any special mode. Players turned that into the Legacy Challenge, a fan-made set of rules for taking one family through ten generations.
What passes down: the house, the household's money and a family tree you can open from any Sim.
BitLife
Candywriter, 2018. iPhone and Android, free with optional purchases.
A text life simulator: you're born, you age a year with each tap, and every choice is a line of text. When your character dies you can carry on as one of your children, and your will decides who gets what. Plenty of players keep a single family going for generation after generation. It's single-player, though, so everyone in your family's story is someone the game invented. If that bothers you, we wrote about it in Is BitLife multiplayer?
What passes down: whatever your will leaves.
Dynasty (our game)
Free, in the browser, on a computer or a phone.
Dynasty is a life sim where every player shares one world and one game year passes every real day, at the same moment for everyone. You start at 18 and live a whole life: study, work, buy or build a home, marry, run for parliament, go to war. If nothing goes wrong, a character lives around two months of real time. Then the eldest child takes over, or sooner, if you choose to retire to a rest home after 70.
What the heir gets is spelled out to the dollar. The cash and company funds pass on minus an inheritance tax that each nation's parliament votes on (20% unless they change it), along with every property, company, share and special item, a random family heirloom and the family dog. What doesn't pass on is your education. The heir starts at 18 with no degrees and no job, so a banker's heir can own the bank but can't set its interest rates until they earn a degree of their own. Inheritance & Dynasty in the wiki has every number.
Because the world is shared, so are the families. A child by birth needs two parents who are both real players; every couple can adopt. Marry into another player's house and their crest appears next to your spouse in your family tree, where everyone who dies is hung as a portrait with the title they're remembered for (Statesman, Olympian, Outlaw and so on) and a frame that reflects how great their life was. Any player can visit any other house's tree.
The weak points, honestly: there's no 3D world or battle to watch, since it's played through menus and text. The community is small. And you can't speed time up, so a generation takes weeks. Die without a child and the dynasty ends: you start over from nothing.
What passes down: wealth, property, an heirloom and a place in the family tree. Not degrees, and not talent.
Bloodlines: the heir inherits talent
Massive Chalice
Double Fine, 2015. PC and Xbox One.
You're an immortal ruler fighting a 300-year war, so your heroes age, retire and die while you don't. Between battles you make veterans regents of noble houses and arrange their marriages, and children are likely to inherit their parents' traits and class, good and bad. The cruel trick is that your best fighter is often more useful at home, making better grandchildren, than out on the battlefield.
What passes down: genes, class, and the relic weapons of famous heroes.
Rogue Legacy 2
Cellar Door Games, 2022. PC and consoles.
Every time you die, you choose one of three heirs to send into the castle next, each with a class and traits that are sometimes helpful and sometimes just funny. The gold you bring back pays for upgrades to the family manor, and those stay for good. The heirs themselves are random, so the bloodline is more a running joke than a breeding plan, but the manor is a proper inheritance.
What passes down: the manor and everything you've built into it.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey
Panache Digital Games, 2019. PC and consoles.
You play a clan of early hominids in Africa, millions of years ago, switching between members as they live and die. Every so often you move the clan forward a generation, about fifteen years. Before you do, you choose which of the skills you've learned to reinforce; the rest, the new adults will have to learn again. Mutations appear in the children, and a larger evolutionary leap can make them permanent.
What passes down: reinforced skills and mutations, on the scale of a species rather than a family.
A throne, a few minutes at a time
Reigns
Nerial, 2016. PC and mobile.
You're a king who rules by swiping cards left or right, keeping the church, the people, the army and the treasury in balance. Let any of them get too high or too low and you die, often in a ridiculous way, and the next ruler takes the throne. A reign can last a few minutes. The dynasty lasts a good deal longer.
What passes down: the throne, and a story your dynasty slowly uncovers.
Two classics, if you have the old hardware
Phantasy Star III: Generations of Doom (Sega, 1990 in Japan and 1991 elsewhere, Mega Drive/Genesis) follows three generations. At the end of each one, the hero chooses between two brides, and the choice decides who you play next and which of the endings you're heading for.
Fire Emblem: Genealogy of the Holy War (Nintendo, 1996, Super Famicom, never officially released outside Japan) splits its story into two halves. The couples you pair up in the first decide the children who fight the second: their stats, their skills, even their weapons.
Frequently asked questions
What games let you play as your child after you die?
Among games you can play today, The Sims 4, BitLife, Medieval Dynasty, Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord, Crusader Kings III, Old World and Dynasty all hand you the next generation when your character dies. In Rogue Legacy 2 you pick one of three heirs after every death.
Can you play multiple generations in BitLife?
Yes. When your character dies, BitLife lets you carry on as one of your children, and your will decides who inherits your money and property. You can keep going for as long as the family lasts.
Is there a multiplayer game where you play multiple generations?
Crusader Kings III and Old World have multiplayer modes in which each player leads a realm through its successions. In Dynasty every player shares one persistent world, so your heir can marry into another player's family and the two family trees are linked.
Which generational games are free?
The Sims 4 base game has been free since October 2022, BitLife is free on iPhone and Android, and Dynasty is free in any browser. The other games on this list are paid.
What happens if you die without an heir?
It depends on the game. In Crusader Kings III and Mount & Blade II: Bannerlord your game ends. In Dynasty the family line ends, its property goes to the state and you start a new dynasty from scratch. In BitLife you simply start a new life.
The other games named on this page are mentioned for comparison only. Crusader Kings, Old World, The Guild, Mount & Blade, Medieval Dynasty, The Sims, BitLife, Massive Chalice, Rogue Legacy, Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey, Reigns, Phantasy Star and Fire Emblem are trademarks of their respective owners, and Dynasty is not affiliated with, endorsed by or sponsored by any of them. We checked every detail in October 2026; games get updated, so see each game's own store page for the latest.