General News - Will The CRPG Genre Die Again?

IMHO the CRPG genre never died in the past. The late 90s and early 2000s delivered some of the finest CRPGs ever - Gothic 1, Wizardry 8, JA 2 - just to name a few...
 
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Not sure it really died either, but then it depends on the loose definition of CRPG. From the games he covers I think it's less general and more like NeverKnowsBest's definition (which I tend to use too). Classical, isometric, party-based like BG, NWN, Fallout 1&2, IWD, … and more recently PoE, D:OS which revived the interest in that genre. So it would rather be mid-2000's to mid 2010's for this dead period, rather than end of 90's / early 2000's (but perhaps he meant that it slowly started at that time).

I think that it was eclipsed by the awe of 3D, back then many would buy any crap game just because of its graphics prowess. Then some games became really good while offering beautiful graphics (for the time), so it took a while before CRPGs regained an interest.

Maybe the setting is too shy to vary. It's mostly fantasy, post-apocalyptic, with the addition of a very few Star-Wars titles. I'm glad we see some space-themed games like Colony Ship, and some more optimistic variations on the post-apoc theme like Encased. I'd really love to see some Starfinder or maybe completely different themes - PoE 2 was very refreshing, for example. Just look at how Assassin's Creed is exploiting the appealing themes in history. I think that would help maintaining the motivation in the genre.
 
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For Chris Davis, the CRPG genre died in 2001 (that's very precise). The list of CRPGs he covered gives a good indication of what he means by "CRPG", it's also more restricted that what the CRPG Analyzer here would allow.
I'll probably suggest a future poll on people's definition of this term, that should make for some amount of debating :D
 
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Chris Davis talks only about isometric CRPGs here.

Isometric gfx are just some form of gfx engine for me and not a very important criterium if a game is a CRPG or not.
 
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You summed it up perfectly, HiddenX. This is pure nonsense from whingers that just don't know how bloody good they have it. Lots of noise and brimstone yet, in the end, signifying nothing. I'll be too busy either playing something new or classic, I leave the crying to those better able to do it.
 
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Chris Davis talks only about isometric CRPGs here.

Isometric gfx are just some form of gfx engine for me and not a very important criterium if a game is a CRPG or not.
Did you drop the time reference? (EDIT: oh, those are the very first words :D Yeah, he uses "isometric CRPG", in the title too) But you must be right, he's probably considering more than isometric games in his definition, he talks a little bit about that when presenting The CRPG Book at 18:04 (maybe that's what you meant).

I agree it's only a graphic criterion, however I would argue that it has a deeper impact than just cosmetic. It allows to consider a party, rather than an individual in either 1st or 3rd-person view. It's much harder to play several characters unless it's an isometric view, although some games do it very well. It also gives a more strategic feeling to the game and the actions, including TB mode and drawing the cells on the ground.

I'm not fixated on the isometric characteristic, it's just the easiest one that matches most of the games I consider as CRPG (with "C" for Classic and not Computer).
 
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Won't watch the video, sorry.

When new titles of a genre become boring, of course it will go less popular.
There were motions from publishers to dumb RPGs down for sakes of so-called accessibility, but there were always challengers who opposed to it.
Some of these publishers (Ubisoft and their false advertising of Division for example) are still trying to brainwash people, thankfully rarely anyone is that stupid to not see lack of interesting content behind the shiny style.

In case of RPG, I don't see it dying soon.
Most of other genres reached their peak and today we're experiencing only clones or just a bit different rework of an old formula. Not all of course, timeloop was not even tried till a few years back.
RPG as genre still has so many not yet tried possibilities to produce a variety of games, each different than the other one. Most other genres are trapped in "seen one, seen them all".
 
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IMHO the CRPG genre never died in the past. The late 90s and early 2000s delivered some of the finest CRPGs ever - Gothic 1, Wizardry 8, JA 2 - just to name a few

I usually like the videos from this channel, but I have to disagree with him here as well. Don't forget Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. And later on in the years 2000s Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3.

Furthermore, I don't think that cRPGs died for a while as a result of their repetitive formulae. People who really like cRPGs do never get enough of it. What happened was that the technological innovations in the game scene (namely the ascension of the 3D graphics) were seen as incompatible with the genre. And other video game genres were considered more profitable (worthwhile the investment) with these new technologies.

However, in the early 2010s companies started to realize that this was a niche group of gamers that were left abandoned and this was a market worth exploring. At first not with AAA games, but with lower to mid-budget games. Now we are even seeing a AAA game in the works once again (BG3)! Actually, you could argue that Bethesda's games are AAA cRPGs, but for some reason, I consider Betheda's games more of an aRPG hybrid that tries to please a larger audience than truly cRPGs. The same goes for the Witcher 3.
 
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First computer rpg’s will die. Then all PC games will die. Then PC’s will die. Soon after cats and dogs will get along. It will be chaos. It will be anarchy.
 
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When a genre dies it almost always means the AAA studios decided to do something else.
Fear not, there will always be great indie RPGs. And if you have the money you should support them.
 
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He doesn't know what he's talking about in this video.
 
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Sheesh.. I'm not very familiar with this guy, but are all his videos garbage clckbait like this one is?

So RPGs died with the advent of 3D graphics and were then resurrected in the 2010's? :rolleyes:
 
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GAAAAH!!!

It never died! Just like turn-based never died! This shit doesn't die!
 
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Again, I think most of you should consider what he means by CRPG.

Don't forget Neverwinter Nights 1 and 2, and Knights of the Old Republic 1 and 2. And later on in the years 2000s Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect, and Fallout 3.
[…]
Actually, you could argue that Bethesda's games are AAA cRPGs, but for some reason, I consider Betheda's games more of an aRPG hybrid that tries to please a larger audience than truly cRPGs. The same goes for the Witcher 3.
Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, or any other Bethesda games are not CPRGs by his definition, which is the same as most other Youtubers like NeverKnowsBest, CohhCarnage, Fextralife, Chris Davis (who calls them isometric CRPGs to avoid the confusion), Noah Caldwell-Gervais, WolfheartFPS, … So not the old and outdated Computer RPG meaning, but the Classic RPG meaning: old-style, top-down view often called "isometric", party-based, using a somewhat complex ruleset, with RPG elements (char progression, exploration, and so on).

(actually I'm surprised to see so many people who understand CRPG as RPG these days, but I'm not in the PnP circles, so maybe it's coming from there)

So with that meaning, there was indeed a gap, but later than what he said IMO (as said earlier, maybe he meant that late 90s/early 2000s saw the latest of the peak?).
 
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Just for clarification:
Here at the Watch (and at the Codex) CRPG stands for Computer RPG in contrast to a normal tabletop RPG. Felipe Pepe and many volunteers wrote a standard book called The CRPG Book which uses the same abbreviation.

Classical RPG is a very misleading subjective term, because it means different things for different people. My first Computer RPGs for example were dungeon crawlers like Wizardry I, Might & Magic 1-5, Bard's Tale and Dungeon Master. For me these are the "classics" - not the isometric ones.
 
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So RPGs died with the advent of 3D graphics and were then resurrected in the 2010's? :rolleyes:

I wouldn't say that cRPG died. But they definitely got rarer and with more action elements and fewer RPG elements. For a while at least.

Actually, there is the Diablo effect that I forgot to mention as well. For a while, every RPG-ish game that was released was a Diablo clone.

Again, I think most of you should consider what he means by CRPG.


Dragon Age Origins, Mass Effect, Fallout 3, or any other Bethesda games are not CPRGs by his definition, which is the same as most other Youtubers … So not the old and outdated Computer RPG meaning, but the Classic RPG meaning: old-style, top-down view often called "isometric", party-based, using a somewhat complex ruleset, with RPG elements (char progression, exploration, and so on).

ME and FO3 are cRPG, particularly ME 1. But ok, you could consider them a shooter hybrid. But DA:O not a cRPG? That's new . . .
 
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RPG, CRPG, open-world, ... those names are vague because there isn't a single, precise definition. We've seen those differences and confusions here and elsewhere again and again.

That's why it's important to know what someone means before criticizing. I thought that from the examples he gave in his video that would be obvious, if not the first posts clarified that.
 
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Ah yes I remember this.:biggrin:

He caused a small riot last time with his CRPG meaning.

I'm sure Redglyph remembers as the discussion went the same way on another video he shared earlier this year. I brought up how names and genres evolve over time.
 
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