WW2 RPG

[Catacly3m]

Have you heard of the new world war 2 RPG? Me neither.

We've had thousands of WW2 Games, and thousands of RPGs, and no one ever thought to put them together.

When I say RPG, I mean narrative focused, decision based sort of game. Not the "how many red potions can I fit in my pocket" kind.

It would work, too many WW2 games are mindless shooters. It'd be nice to delve into the human dimension a bit more. Especially if it were from the perspective of someone other than a flat, generic American marine/paratrooper/ranger/special forces character that we keep being given.

A few war games, like Brothers and Arms and Spec Ops: The Line, try to explore the human drama of war (one being far more effective than the other). But don't transition to a full-fledged RPG in that your control over your character is limited to how many bullets you can fill in that guy's head.

Think Telltale's The Walking Dead in terms of structure.

I'm willing to believe that some exist. If they do they're just not heavy hitting enough for the average gamer, such as myself, to know of them.

Then again, A game about roleplaying as any one other than an American Marine is bound to ruffle some feathers with people outside gaming.

"Children can play as Nazis! They'll get all sorts of ideas!"

 

[Cabisco]

It would be interesting to see I admit it's just how to incorporate those RPG elements into a WW2 setting, I might be mistaken but I think their is a WW2 JRPG which was quite frankly just kinda bad (not overly bad, just 'I have better things to do' bad).

I'd like to see a game set in WW2 where I can choose between all the tanks,planes and guns that were used during the war... think of the thousands of possibilities...

 

[Owyn_Merrilin]

The JRPG comment gave me a thought: I don't see the battles in the war lending themselves well to any sort of RPG aside from an SRPG. But what about just following a common person around in the war? Maybe like the plot of Grave of the Fireflies, where it's just a bunch of kids caught up in the middle of it. Or maybe something about a holocaust survivor trying to find their way to safety in allied territory. Or replace "holocaust survivor" with, say, allied pilot who crash landed behind enemy lines and is trying to find his way home. Basically a personal story where the main character would be expected to avoid, rather than engage in combat.

Do it right, and it could be both entertaining and educational. Do it wrong and it could be absurdly offensive.

 

[Catacly3m]

Basically a personal story where the main character would be expected to avoid, rather than engage in combat.

I was thinking something realistic. Battle is very much a part of the soldier's condition, but it doesn't happen as often as CoD would have you believe.

Battle sequences would be thematically necessary, but only a few, gut wrenching scenes should be added. Between these would be what most of the game would consist of. Character development and interaction, picking dialogue and moral stances, exploring what happens in war other than just shooting.

 

[IllumInaTIma]

decision based sort of game.

That might be a problem. We all know how it went and how it ended. The only way to incorporate decisions in that sort of game would be reducing scale of whole story, but in that case, all our decisions would seem meaningless. Or maybe not... Okay, I have an idea here! Imagine you're playing as German in one of German cities. You're not a soldier, maybe because of some sort of injury or because you're a woman. You have a family you have to take care of. One day, you stumble upon a Jewish family who looks for shelter. And here's decision part goes into place. Do you help them and this way put your family on a line? Or do you report them to authorities for reward that will help your family survive? What do you think? Although, I can not imagine any studio greenlighting this kind of a game.

 

[Eddie the head]

Could we just have more WW2 Games in the Pacific rim?

 

[daveman247]

snip

Yeah being able to play as a nazi soldier would be a social suicide XD They could just go the COD route and have choices of allied forces like russia, america, britain etc.

Deus ex in ww2 would be pretty sweet, with abilities being connect to combat proficiancy or something (multiple routes depending on playstyle).

Maybe add some squad bonding like in mass effect and you would be good to go! With long term effects being what happens to your squadmates.


- they did do ONE ww2 RPG called " ww2 paratroops" i think for the ps2. It was very much like a dungeon crawler- rpg though. Killing all the way and leveling up.

 

[sextus the crazy]

You mean like Valkyria Chronicles?

Ok, it's not strictly a WW2 RPG seeing as it takes place in a fantasy version of Europe, but come on... it's basically World War 2 with the serial numbers filed off.

"Gadolf Schmitler, chancellor of Bermany"

yeah, effectively. I saw a WWII squad-based tactics RPG on the PSP, but I can't rememeber the name.

 

[BrotherRool]

People really don't seem to break out too much with the genres as far as RPGs are concerned. We only have a handful of modernish RPGs too (Alpha Protocol really stands out for being a spy RPG). But I'm sure there are exceptions if you look around and it would be really cool if games branched out more than they do already

 

[BoogieManFL]

The game Hammer & Sickle is the closest thing to that I can think of. It's like Jagged Alliance and Silent Storm, from what I hear. Pretty hard, but highly configurable difficulty levels. Maybe a bit short but it's a good game with a story and your choices can change the course of the game and I know there are at least 2 endings.

I agree, it would make for an interesting RPG setting.

 

[teh_v]

Well there was Operation Darkness put out by Atlas back in 2008. It was a Tactical JRPG where there were werewolves and vampires and other ...stuff. It was really bad and I can not recommend that to anybody at all. Still it was a RPG about WW2.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Darkness