Searching for the best WordPress gaming theme for your website?
Your WordPress theme will play an important role in the success of your gaming site, so you’ll want to choose a theme with the features and design aesthetic that are right for you.
Below, you’ll find 21 of the best WordPress gaming themes, including both free and paid options. These themes also cover all different gaming niches, including video game blogs, gaming review sites, gaming tutorials, esports, game studios, gaming portfolios, and more.
Here’s everything that you’ll find in this post:
- The best WordPress gaming themes compared in detail.
- What to consider when choosing a WordPress gaming theme.
The Best WordPress Gaming Themes
1. Cloux
Cloux is a multipurpose gaming theme that can work for any type of gaming website, whether it’s a video game blog, esports group, or game company.
It comes with special features to help with all those different use cases including review boxes for gaming review blogs, bbPress integration for gaming forums, WooCommerce support for ecommerce stores, and lots more.
To get started with the design of your site, you get 8+ pre-built homepage layouts, a detailed theme options panel, and WPBakery Page Builder integration for visual, drag-and-drop design.
What we like:
- 8+ pre-built homepage layouts to choose from
- Free access to the WPBakery Page Builder for visual design
- Built-in review box feature to review video games
- Advanced game search system helps visitors find the games that you’ve talked about
- Built-in integrations with plugins such as WooCommerce and bbPress
Price: $69 with lifetime updates for a single site
2. PlayerX
PlayerX is one of the most popular WordPress gaming themes at Envato’s ThemeForest marketplace. It can work for gaming blogs, esports teams, game studios, and anything related to the gaming niche.
To help you get started, PlayerX includes pre-built starter sites for a ton of different gaming niches. Unlike a lot of other themes, PlayerX lets you choose your preferred builder for these layouts — Elementor or WPBakery Page Builder (which is bundled at no extra cost).
What we like:
- 5+ pre-built importable starter sites
- Offers a special “Matches” post type for esports matches
- Special features for live streaming
Price: $79 with lifetime updates for a single site
3. Armadon
Armadon is a gaming community WordPress theme that's designed to help you create a forum and member community built around esports, game reviews, and anything else related to the video game niche.
To create that social community feel, Armadon comes with built-in support for the BuddyPress plugin, which is the most popular way to create a WordPress community (and is also free).
Armadon also includes a built-in feature to help you organize your own gaming tournaments or to aggregate tournaments from other businesses.
Overall, if you want to build a real community around video games, Armadon is a great option.
What we like:
- Light and dark importable demo sites
- Tons of pre-built designs for the homepage and inner pages
- Integrates with The Events Manager to host or aggregate tournaments/gaming events
- Detailed Paid Memberships Pro integration to create a paid gaming community
Price: $48 with lifetime updates for a single site
4. Avada (eSports)
Avada is a multipurpose WordPress theme that you can use for literally any type of website, thanks in large part to its built-in visual, drag-and-drop builder (called the Avada Builder).
Beyond that design flexibility, Avada also comes with 91 pre-built importable demo sites, including the Esports Website design that you see pictured above. You can import this starter site with just a few clicks and instantly have a video game website.
Beyond that, it also offers full support for bbPress to create your own gaming forum, as well as WooCommerce to sell esports merchandise via your site.
What we like:
- Built-in visual, drag-and-drop builder that offers 100% design control
- Pre-built Esports Website design that helps you quickly get started
- Built-in performance wizard to speed up your site
Price: $69 with lifetime updates for a single site.
5. Looper
Looper is a free WordPress blogging theme that makes a great option for video game blogs or review sites. It doesn’t include as many features as some of these other WordPress gaming themes, but it offers a clean design and does all the basics well. It’s also 100% free!
That makes it a great option if you’re on a tight budget and looking for a free WordPress gaming theme.
What we like:
- Clean, modern blogging design
- Lets you list blog posts in a masonry layout
- Uses the native WordPress Customizer for real-time, code-free theme customizations
Price: Free
6. Gamezone
Gamezone is a video game WordPress theme that can work well for video game blogs, esports websites, gaming news, social communities, and more.
To help you get up and running, it offers three pre-built homepage designs, all of which you can import with just a few clicks. You also get a bunch of designs for inner pages, such as events, about, contact, and more.
The theme’s drag-and-drop header and footer builder makes it easy to customize key areas of your site. The bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin allows for drag-and-drop design in other areas. There’s also a flexible theme framework with 750+ options to customize your theme.
What we like:
- 3+ pre-built homepage layouts
- Multiple blog styles and post layout options
- Built-in “like” system for blog posts (readers can “like” a post in addition to commenting)
- Built-in events calendar integration to list gaming tournaments or other events
Price: $69 with lifetime updates for a single site
7. Eldritch
Eldritch calls itself an “epic” theme for gaming and esports, and epic is indeed a pretty good descriptor for its pre-built designs. It has very eye-catching layouts with bold, full-width imagery to showcase shots from the game.
In total, you get access to six pre-built starter sites that you can use as the base of your gaming site. Each starter site includes a unique homepage layout, along with unique inner page designs to match. To customize the content, you can use the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin.
Beyond that, you also get access to a detailed theme options area, along with dedicated integrations for bbPress and WooCommerce.
What we like:
- Lots of space to showcase gaming imagery, with full-screen image slots.
- bbPress support to create a gaming forum (including a forum-focused importable starter site)
- WooCommerce support to create a gaming store (including an ecommerce-focused importable starter site)
Price: $89 with lifetime updates for a single site
8. Editorial Gaming
Editorial Gaming is a free gaming child theme for the Editorial WordPress magazine theme. Essentially, you install Editorial Gaming alongside the Editorial parent theme to instantly create a gaming magazine layout.
Because it uses the magazine layout, Editorial Gaming makes an especially great option for gaming blogs or news sites. You can easily showcase your latest content, along with featuring content that you want to drive visitors towards.
To control the design of your site, you get a detailed theme options area built with the native WordPress theme customizer.
What we like:
- Easily customize your site using the native WordPress Customizer
- Built-in related articles tool keeps users engaging with your site's content
- The Pro version includes a special review feature, which is great for publishing video game reviews
- Free to use
Price: Free or $60
9. Divi
Like the Avada theme above, Divi is a multipurpose WordPress theme that bundles in its own visual, drag-and-drop design tool — the Divi Builder.
Also like Avada, Divi includes its own pre-built starter site for video games so that you don't need to create your design from scratch (though you certainly can do that, if you prefer). The Divi Video Game Layout Pack comes with seven designs for all the core pages that your video game site needs, including the homepage, about, blog, and community.
Once you have the base of your site, you can easily customize everything using the Divi Builder. Divi also offers tight integrations with other plugins such as bbPress and WooCommerce.
What we like:
- Divi Builder is one of the most powerful design tools, which gives you full control over your site
- The pre-built video game layout pack makes it easy to get started
- Divi has built-in integrations with pretty much any popular plugin
- There’s a huge community of Divi users, which makes it easy to find help
Price: $89 for use on unlimited sites (and access to all of the developer's themes and plugins)
10. Blackfyre
Blackfyre is another WordPress gaming theme designed to help you create your own gaming community site, complete with stylish front-end user profiles, forums, and more. This theme relies on its tight integrations with the BuddyPress and bbPress plugins.
Blackfyre also includes its own clan war system that lets you create and manage matches between different teams of players. In addition to user profiles, you can also give clans their own custom profile pages.
What we like:
- Multiple homepage layouts to choose from
- Stylish page designs for frontend user profiles, clan pages, and registration forms
- Detailed theme options area to customize sitewide styles
Price: $64 with lifetime updates for a single site
11. Newspaper
Newspaper is a popular WordPress magazine theme with over 150 importable demo sites, including a dedicated gaming starter site as well as lots of other designs that you could easily adapt to the gaming niche.
Because of its magazine layout, it makes a great option for sites that publish a lot of content, such as video game news, tutorials, and reviews. You can easily showcase your latest content, along with tools to drive extra attention to certain featured content.
Newspaper is also packed with lots of features, such as a frontend content submission tool that lets your site’s readers submit their own content. This can be especially helpful for gaming sites, as lots of video game fans love to contribute their own content.
What we like:
- 150+ importable starter sites, including a dedicated gaming design
- Tons of built-in monetization features, including ad slots, paywalls, subscriptions, and more
Price: $59 with lifetime updates for a single site
12. Gaming Lite
Gaming Lite is a free WordPress video game theme that’s available at the WordPress.org theme marketplace. If you want more features, there’s also an affordable premium version that you can upgrade to.
You can use it for a video game blog, ecommerce store, or even to promote your own video game. The premium version even adds a video game listing tool for built-in search and filter.
If you want to promote events, it also supports event listing for tournaments, live streams, or other gaming events.
What we like:
- Has a functional free version
- Pro version adds video game listing feature
- Full WooCommerce support if you want to sell products
- Detailed options in the native WordPress theme customizer
Price: Free or $49
13. Godlike
Godlike is a WordPress gaming theme built to help you create a social community based around video games. To power that community functionality, Godlike offers built-in integration with the popular BuddyPress social community plugin.
Godlike offers two pre-built homepage layouts to help you get up and running, along with pre-built designs for inner pages. The demo designs are built with WPBakery Page Builder, which allows for easy visual customization.
You also get over 290 options in the native WordPress theme customizer to tweak sitewide settings on your site.
What we like:
- Built-in age check verifier tool (useful for video games with the Mature rating or above).
- Uses the native WordPress Customizer for theme customization, which lets you see a real-time preview as you work
Price: $69 with lifetime updates for a single site
14. Necromancers
Necromancers is a WordPress gaming theme designed for esports teams to create their own sites. You can list team members, showcase upcoming events, share your full match statistics, and lots more.
It has a nice modern design, with lots of space to showcase your team logo, colors, and so on.
Overall, if you're involved in esports competitions, this is a great option. However, if you want to create a gaming blog, you’ll probably want a different theme.
What we like:
- Publish full match statistics (powered by the SportsPress plugin)
- Dedicated team member listing pages
- Create an archive of your team’s live streams and highlights
- Eye-catching blog page to publish news and opinion pieces
Price: $69 with lifetime updates for a single site
15. Game Addict
Game Addict is a WordPress gaming theme that's specifically designed to focus on the Clan Wars feature in Clash of Clans. However, you can easily adapt it to any team-based game competition.
You get dedicated pages to list team members, along with upcoming matches between clans. It also has BuddyPress and bbPress integrations to help you create a social community.
You can get started by importing the demo content and then easily customize everything using the included WPBakery Page Builder plugin.
What we like:
- Team match listing pages
- Bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin for visual, drag-and-drop design
- Bootstrap-based design allows for easy customization
Price: $64 with lifetime updates for a single site
16. Youplay
Youplay is a WordPress gaming theme that comes with four pre-built starter sites that you can easily import with just a few clicks. You can use it for a gaming blog, review blog, gaming community, or gaming store.
Once you import one of the starter sites, the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin makes it easy to customize everything. You also get a custom theme options area with 230 settings to make additional design choices.
What we like:
- Integration with BuddyPress to create a social gaming community
- WooCommerce integration if you want to create an online store
Price: $69 with lifetime updates for a single site
17. Entropia
Entropia is a WordPress gaming theme with an esports focus, though you can easily use it for other video game niches as well, thanks to pre-built designs for gaming studios and fantasy games.
In total, you get seven pre-built starter sites to choose from. These starter sites are built with the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin, which offers visual, drag-and-drop design customization.
You also get a detailed theme options area to customize colors, fonts, and other style options.
What we like:
- Built-in portfolio post type to showcase you or your studio's work
- Full WooCommerce support
Price: $85 with lifetime updates for a single site
18. Plaxer
Plaxer is a gaming and esports WordPress theme that offers six pre-built start sites for gaming, streaming, esports, game developers, merch shops, and portfolios. You can use it to showcase your esports team, create a portfolio of your work, promote your live streams, and more.
To give you access to visual, drag-and-drop design, it offers tight integration with the bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin. It also offers features like tournament lists, ecommerce support, and more.
What we like:
- The bundled WPBakery Page Builder plugin allows for easy visual customization
- 50+ custom WPBakery shortcodes and pre-made UI elements to give you even more control
- Full WooCommerce Compatibility
Price: $59 with lifetime updates for a single site
19. Gameleon
Gameleon is a WordPress gaming and magazine theme that comes with four pre-built starter sites, including designs for arcade games and fantasy games, as well as a general magazine layout.
It's also fully compatible with the MyArcadePlugin Pro plugin, which lets you import thousands of free games from publishers. Or, you can just write about other games, which is made easy thanks to its support for ratings and reviews.
There's also a custom ads management tool that helps you monetize your site with display ads.
What we like:
- Built-in ad slots to monetize with display ads
- Works with the MyArcadePlugin Pro plugin
- Support for rating and review widgets
Price: $49 with lifetime updates for a single site
20. Esport X Gaming (EcoCoded Child Theme)
Esport X Gaming is a free WordPress gaming theme that’s a child theme for the free EcoCoded theme. If you’re not familiar with WordPress child themes, the basic idea is that you install Esport X Gaming alongside the EcoCoded theme.
The main functionality comes from the EcoCoded theme, but Esport X Gaming adds a nice gaming look to the theme.
What we like:
- Functional free plan
- Clean design
- Support for tournament lists
- bbPress integration to create a gaming discussion forum
Price: There’s a free version of both the parent theme and child theme. Pro versions start at $39 for use on a single site.
21. Xion
Xion is a WordPress gaming theme for indie game developers looking to showcase their work. It could also work well for gaming studios or a gaming portfolio site.
The demo content is built with Elementor and includes all the core pages an indie game dev would need, including game information, about, blog, contact, and more.
You also get a detailed theme options area to customize the parts of your site that aren’t built with Elementor.
What we like:
- Includes the Boosted Elements Elementor add-on at no extra cost
- Built-in mega menu support
- Full WooCommerce compatibility if you want to sell products via your site
Price: $59 with lifetime updates for a single site
What to Consider When Choosing a WordPress Gaming Theme
So — how can you choose between the 21 gaming themes above?
Here are some tips to help you choose the best WordPress gaming theme for your specific website.
Demo Site Options
Most of these gaming themes offer multiple demo designs that you can import to your site. So even if you don't like the demo site that we chose to feature in the screenshot, it's worth exploring all of the different designs. You might find one that you love.
Responsive Design
In 2023 and beyond, all WordPress themes are responsive by default, which means they will automatically adapt their design depending on the device a visitor is browsing from.
However, not all responsive designs are created equal, so you’ll still want to view the theme’s demo on different devices to make sure you like how it looks.
Nowadays, over half of your site’s traffic could come from mobile devices, so the mobile design might be even more important than the desktop design.
Price, License, and Support Options
Finally, it’s also important to not just consider the price of a theme, but also the more nitty-gritty details such as how many sites you can use the theme on, how long you receive updates for, and how long you receive support for.
If a theme is sold via ThemeForest, you get six months of support and lifetime updates for a single site (with the option to upgrade to one year of support for an extra fee).
However, if you’re buying a theme directly from the developer, the license might be a little different. It’s important to check these details to make sure there aren’t any surprises.
Get Started Today
That wraps up our collection of the 21 best WordPress gaming themes. All of these themes can help you create an excellent website for your gaming blog, review site, studio, agency, and more.
Choose the gaming theme that best meets your needs and you can be up and running with a great-looking gaming website in no time.
