Are RPGs Dead?

[Tatsuki]

I know we do actually get a fair few RPGs released at a constant rate but anything new and interesting is getting few and far between. Maybe it's just having the mentality of a tired
old gamer lusting after the halcyon days of youth but I'm struggling to find anything unique.

My problem now is I'm reaching the point where I want to blame the gaming community as a whole, anything special or unique often gets relegated to a cult title or cast into the fiery pits of internet flame wars, and nothing escapes that bile. Taking FFXIII as an example, there was so much wrong with that game, and the sad part was that in my opinion it was the basics that were missing but I loved the game still because it tried something new and different.

Disclaimer, I am a fan boy of sorts, favourite game being tied between persona 3 and FFVII. I am a big fan of FFXIII for trying something new but even I cannot find it in myself to defend XIII-2+3.

Now that news is hitting of a potential FFVII remake, I'm just wondering if anyone else has found any hidden gems amongst the detrius.

tl:dr - I'm sad RPGs are becoming generic and the post was just a bit of a vent. But if you have found any nice niche titles I would love to hear.


(I would like to note that Wasteland 3 is proving to be a little bundle of heaven for any Fallout / Original wasteland fans)

 

[tippy2k2]

It wasn't the gamer communities fault...it was MINE! Wha ha haaaaaaaa!!!!!

...ahem, sorry.

Anyway, I think you're partially right in that it's gamers fault but I don't think in a bad way. The standard JRPG of "Revolutionary War" attacking (my side stands over here, your side stands over there, we hit each other until someone dies) just got too plain for most gamers. At this point, the "traditional RPG" has become niche BECAUSE people demand more from their games than ever before (for good or for ill).

If you're a fan of those games, it sucks because what was a big force in the market has now fallen from grace but that's the game industry for you; evolve or get left behind.

 

[masticina]

Is the Witcher 3 not an RPG? Is that Wasteland game not an RPG.

Dead? No it isn't dead but shooters just are easier to sell seemingly. Eh you can't have everything once in a while a brilliant non shooter RPG lands and one can scoop it up.

And even the shooter heavier RPG's like Fallout aren't bad. I mean it at least has a big RPG portion to its shooter area. And Shadowrun Returns is pretty kewl to.

Yes it is scraps compared to the many many shooters and true is even RPG's have changed. Very few are as in "The good old times" then again, not all have gone the modern path. Don't worry to much there are choices still.

 

[Tatsuki]

Is the Witcher 3 not an RPG? Is that Wasteland game not an RPG.

I don't deny good games can crop up, but I'm not actively naming games like the Witcher as a shining beacon of hope before it is out.

However some of the few remaining dregs of hope in my body are currently dangling on The Witcher and Dragon Age. Mainly Dragon Age because a) its closer to realisation and b) they have released a ton of material and gameplay which doesn't look like it sucks.

Sadly yes, money is in shooters and the competitive scene in general.

 

[The Madman]

I don't know about the console/jrpg genre since it's not really something I pay attention to, but the more traditional pc rpg genre has been more lively than ever. With the fairly recent releases of Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Wasteland 2, Divinity Original Sin and Banner Saga all released this year and Pillars of Eternity, Age of Decadence, and Torment: Tides of Numenera all on the horizon things are looking good. Compare that to just three years ago where the idea of more than one or two isometric ye olden style PC rpg released in a year was nearly inconceivable, nevermind ones of this quality, and things look positively brilliant.

Heck, and those are just the more traditional PC rpg, counting other sorts of rpg things look even more thrilling. Transistor was fantastic, Path of Exile is proving a damned solid hack & slash, Dragon Commander was a quirky fun rts/rpg hybrid, and we've got Witcher 3, Mount & Blade 2, Darkest Dungeons, and Kingdom Come: Deliverance looming nearby to boot. Heck, even Bioware are in on this with the upcoming Dragon Age: Inquisition for which I'll be paying close attention to the reviews once it's released. I'm still hoping Bioware can earn back some of my love they'd lost in recent years!

And those are only the rpg I can think of off the top of my head, I'm sure there's a number of titles I forgot or have overlooked. So yeah, all good here!

 

[MirenBainesUSMC]

The influence of impatience and action-heavy tastes have encouraged modern RPG's to water the classic RPG style down from less grinding, level caps, and in many ways, narrowing the game towards a script to follow. There are certainly things that are getting ditched such as worth while secondary missions beyond grabbing some random item or another and bringing it back to some NPC that will give you gold or a trinket to sell/share for some odd exp point.

In a way it is a bit of the industry's fault and the player's fault. The fast paced, great selling FPS's and their big names from the AAA group is bleeding into other genres. The best glowing representation is the two different tiles from Bio-Ware, Mass Effect 1 and Dragon Age: Origins. You compare those to their 2nd installments and you can see the stark comparison. Less grinding, more shooting, more speech --- less exploration OR exploration that is given to you to give an illusion that you are...but really its just filler in the end. The inventory is less in diversity and more stream lined. In some cases, like in Dragon Age 2... you don't even have to worry about the rest of the group but your own guy and the shops around Kirkwall magnifies that with everything to do with your Hawke character.

Is it better? Is it not so good? I suppose its a generational question. I remember the days of Sword of Vermillion, Diablo ( where I leveled my character to the point I killed Diablo himself with my bare hands), Phantasy Star II -- ect. You could either farm until you were a one hit king and moved on to a harder part of the map or blow through the game, hopefully XP'ing enough to finish. Now some say they are very glad those days are over because it was boring and tedious. So its up to taste and opinion once again.

The action and shooting however is def having its effect. Its almost going to Gears of Mass Effect and Golden Axe: The DA Years

I love hack n' slashing. I love combat rolling and shooting too... but there has to be certain things that can differentiate between those titles and an RPG. Hybrids are interesting -- I wonder how it would pan out if you infused say, a fighting game style of battles into an RPG instead of Shooting? That would be an interesting experiment.

 

[RoguelikeMike]

They have slowed down but I think its a bit like Science Fiction. SciFi has slowed down a lot in entertainment as well. When I was growing up everyone loved Outer Space and the idea of exploring it. Shows like Star Trek, Babylon 5 (Mass Effect was inspired by this http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Babylon_5), Star Gate (multiple series; SG-1, Atlantis, etc.), FarScape, and of course Star Wars were insanely popular. Now-a-days we have very little of this. Most SciFi shows are centered around relationship drama and shock and awe cliff hangers. They are tailored to getting ratings and advertisers not telling an interesting or exciting story. A good example... *braces* is... Battlestar Galactica. I've never seen a Scifi show less involved in its own setting. Admittedly I couldn't stand to watch much of it, but what I did see was people talking to people and getting upset. Needless to say, not very interesting to me.

If we want more RPGs we need to support them. That's really all we can do. What's popular sells, and right now.... well, imo, mostly crappy stuff is popular. Luckily, there are exceptions (mostly indie games, thank God for them).

 

[BathorysGraveland2]

Absolutely not. There's currently a resurgence in old school RPGs coming around these days, which is great. CD Projket is also heading the genre exceptionally well with not only Witcher but also future RPGs they have coming after. Sure, there are some pretty shallow games released by the likes of BioWare, Bethesda and the Two Worlds devs (forgot their name), but for every one of them there's at least a couple of quality titles and there's a few on the horizon. Kingdom Come: Deliverance is an especially promising one, and a unique idea.

So perhaps not in any kind of golden age, but the genre is far from dead. It'll never die completely due to how passionate the core fanbase for the genre is.

 

[Recusant]

I love hack n' slashing. I love combat rolling and shooting too... but there has to be certain things that can differentiate between those titles and an RPG. Hybrids are interesting -- I wonder how it would pan out if you infused say, a fighting game style of battles into an RPG instead of Shooting? That would be an interesting experiment.

Hybrids can be excellent if done right: combine RPG with FPS, you get Deus Ex. Combine shooter with strategy, you get Star Control. Combine shooter with adventure, you get Star Control 2. I imagine it's easy to screw up, too, though no examples spring immediately to mind.

Anyway, Tatsuki: as I type this, I have a devilish grin on my face, since I'm looking at an old PC Gamer from 1999 with an ad boasting "To all who say RPGs are dead... Witness the rebirth of a legend!" in an ad for Might and Magic 7 (fun fact: the issue also has an interview with Scott Miller that asks, quote 'Why are we STILL waiting for Duke Nukem Forever?'). Looking around me, though, with both what's currently out and what's on the horizon, I don't quite understand your complaint. What do you mean 'generic'? What exactly is it that you're objecting to?

 

[sanquin]

-Lichdom: Battlemage, a first person mage rpg. It looks very interesting and I'm thinking of getting it. Quite a difference from the usual top-down or third-person views most rpg's work with.
-Witcher 3, which once again tries to change up the formula from it's predecessor. (Even though it kinda looks like they're pandering to what seems popular with the switch to open world, and it probably won't be a bastion of hope or anything, I will still love it most likely.)
-Shadow of Mordor: While the overall gameplay isn't new, the nemesis system is something I haven't seen done before with such depth, and it seems to work wonders.
-Lords of the Fallen: It may look like a Dark Souls clone, but it is a clone in the same way that 7 days to die is a (improved) minecraft clone. Dark Souls can be seen as the first game in a new sub-genre of rpg's, and (or at least they say) their aim is for the game to be part of that sub-genre, not a direct clone. (Can't give any first hand experience though.)

 

[DoPo]

-Lichdom: Battlemage, a first person mage rpg. It looks very interesting and I'm thinking of getting it. Quite a difference from the usual top-down or third-person views most rpg's work with.

Calling it an RPG may be slightly misleading. Well, not by much, but it kind of suggests more than the game is. It's first person, sure, and you kill baddies and you gain loot and XP...in a way (you level your runes which are pretty much the magic schools, the "loot" is more magic components) but the game is rather linear - there is a single corridor with an occasional junction that leads to a bit of loot.

That's not to say the game is bad or anything. It's quite fun and really satisfying to blow stuff up in a variety of ways. The linearity isn't really a problem either, just not something that comes to mind when you think "RPG". A closer game for comparison would be Dark Messiah but if you have Diablo-like loot.

And yeah, the loot does merit mention as it's really everywhere. That's something I found can bog down the game a bit - you get A LOT of loot, pretty much any time you engage a group of enemies you'll get more, and each has a rarity (White < Green < Blue < Purple < Orange) each also has level (1 < 2 etc.) but the problem is that in most cases a higher level item is better, so you go around, get 50 or something level 1 items and at some point you start getting level 2s which are better in every way. You could use the level 1s for upgrades but it takes time to do it, so it's sort of a chore to sort out your inventory. And your inventory needs sorting out because 1. it gets easily cluttered and 2. you have a limited space which does fill up rather quickly.

But overall, I'd suggest getting the game. It's fun, it's fresh, it looks gorgeous, plays nice and I like the voice acting, too.

-Lords of the Fallen: It may look like a Dark Souls clone, but it is a clone in the same way that 7 days to die is a (improved) minecraft clone. Dark Souls can be seen as the first game in a new sub-genre of rpg's, and (or at least they say) their aim is for the game to be part of that sub-genre, not a direct clone. (Can't give any first hand experience though.)

My housemate who is a huge Souls fan had that game pre-ordered, pre-loaded and started playing it as it came out. Here's my impressions based on his: the game is easier than Dark Souls[footnote]for example, time stops if you go to inventory[/footnote] but also not as balanced[footnote]for example, some enemies can mince you even if you try to avoid it because they attack slightly too fast. There were some knights or something whose blows you can block and they get staggered, but by the time you get out of your own block animation, they are able to attack as well with no window of opportunity to do anything.[/footnote], the UI is sligltly annoying[footnote]You get more abilities as you go on but you need to cycle through all of them. Also, you have every piece of equipment you ever got in your inventory, which makes going through it a bit of a chore[/footnote], and the game is glitchy[footnote]my housemate managed to die during a cutscene (not a QTE, he was just killed by a baddie) and had to restart because now the cutscene would never trigger, so he couldn't progress. There were some people who got into some area (catacombs?) where they couldn't do anything as their characters got glitched bad. A patch fixed it but only if for characters who weren't glitched already, the others had to restart.[/footnote]. Overall, however, a good attempt, but marred by some imperfections. I guess I'd personally advise you to wait for at least more patches, if not a Complete edition of some sort down the line (assuming the game gets some DLC).

 

[Gustavos]

I just have so many RPGs from the past that I haven't touched to really focus on what's new. Parasite Eve, Wild Arms, Chrono Cross, Legend of Dragoon, all exceptionally good from what I hear. SMT is a series I couldn't really get into until I played Persona 3. They're all so uncannily similar in battle mechanics, and all their plotlines and characters fall apart halfway in. Final Fantasy games are so absurdly different, entry to entry, that you can't compare them very well. Just examine them as they are. I've played through all main titles except 2, 7, 8, and the mmos. Among those that I played, I have favorites and not-so-favorites that I can clearly identify without comparing.

I don't have an answer of whether RPGs are dead. Honestly, I think western RPGs have made exceptional milestones in the last decade, while JRPGs are much more safely designed these days. But that's just my observation.

 

[sanquin]

Overall, however, a good attempt, but marred by some imperfections. I guess I'd personally advise you to wait for at least more patches, if not a Complete edition of some sort down the line (assuming the game gets some DLC).

My money will be going to Witcher 3, and I have shadow of mordor already. I love DS1, never played demon souls, and DS2 was bad compared to DS1 in my opinion. So I don't plan to buy Lords of the Fallen any time soon. ^^;;

 

[crazygameguy4ever]

There are plenty of RPGs around and good ones on the way like Dragon Age Inquisition, Kingdom Hearts 2.5 remix, Witcher 3 and Persona 5.. maybe there are lees titles then there used to be but I don't think RPGs are dead,.. I think it's just that so many people have gotten into the macho FPS games that have flooded the market. Companies want to make money so they keep making more of those instead of RPGs.. well,. except Japanese game developers, they at least still make RPGs since FPS games aren't that big of a thing in Japan(don' quote me on that though cause i could be wrong about FPS popularity in Japan)

 

[Kathinka]

step one: play planescape torment
step two: be busy for a seriously long ass time
step three: return to the forums and the world and wonder why your children have starved.

ahh the glory days when skyrim couldn't have called itselfs an "rpg" with a straight face..

 

[Zannah]

Rpgs have a central problem. The core audience is so blinded by their own nostalgia that they cry havoc whenever a game introduces game-play or story elements from this decade. But "let's make a game that looks and plays like it's 1995" is hard to pitch, outside of kickstarter.

 

[f1r2a3n4k5]

RPGs will never die! They are just too innate to human nature. Our first experiences with "play" as a child are always "role-play," "imitation," and "mimicry."

On a less philosophical note, they're still out there! They've just kind of moved away from the traditional BIG RPG producers (e.g. Bioware, SquareEnix) to other places. Virtually anything Atlus makes is wonderful in a different way. Obsidian and inXile both harbor a lot of RPG-design-titans that are finally have some creative freedom thanks to crowd-funding. Beamdog is re-releasing the Black Isle classics.

And I'm SURE someone on the indie front has got to be developing something good. I can't tell cause I don't have the time to trudge through it all. But maybe someone else can share.

And if none of that appeals, do what I do. Slap another round of mods onto anything from the Black Isle area and dive into another play-through!

 

[loa]

I'm not entirely sure why RPGs would be dead just because people criticized final fantasy 13 for being a terrible game.

 

[Cryselle]

The problem, I think, is that RPG is only even a genre in a very very fast and loose sense of the word, so when two different people use the term they can mean wildly different games. If you're narrowing it down to SNES-PS2 era JRPGs and saying that RPGs are dead because those aren't as big nowadays, then you're missing out on a lot of things. (Also, before you say that, you should try playing Bravely Default which is pretty much a callback to SNES Final Fantasy games)

RPGs are going strong as ever, perhaps stronger than ever, it's just that the currently popular ones tend to be of a different style than you saw 10 or 20 years ago. They've moved away from "How do we create DnD on a computer" and have now split into a wide and rich selection of sub-genres. You may not like many of these sub-genres, but that doesn't make them less of an RPG.

 

[joest01]

No, there is plenty of rpg coming out all the time.
I think what your question boils down to is that the lighthouse brand of RPG's, namely Final Fantasy, has run out of steam, and, so far, nobody has been able to pick up the torch.

It's like if CoD were going down (which I understand it is) with no new IP was filling the void. Which of course won't happen because between Destiny, Titanfall and the new Halo I am sure a new king will emerge.

The RPG market has split into too many different sub-categories with no real lighthouse franchise anymore. Xenoblade has the potential but it being a Wii-U exclusive won't help..

Then again, does it matter, as long as there are games coming out all the time. Who cares if they're "niche"?