The Bard's Tale

The Bard's Tale is a fantasy role-playing video game franchise created by Michael Cranford and developed by Brian Fargo's Interplay Productions (1985–1992) and inXile Entertainment (2004–present). The initial title of the series was Tales of the Unknown. The Bard's Tale II: The Destiny Knight dropped the Tales of the Unknown series title, as did all ports of the original game after 1988. From then on, the series was known as The Bard's Tale series. Both Cranford and Fargo have refuted the assertion that the original projected titles for the second and third installments were The Archmage's Tale and The Thief's Tale.

After the first three games, work on a fourth installment began but it became an unrelated game, Dragon Wars, at a very late point in development due to rights issues when Interplay parted ways with their publisher. The series was not continued for many years and is thus still often referred to as the "Bard's Tale trilogy". In 2018, Alex Santa Maria stated that The Bard's Tale was "One of the most classic franchises in PC gaming".