General News - CRPGs are back

Clear 100 hours in your calendar, ‘cos CRPGs are here to stay

In the mid-to-late 2000s, publishers abandoned the CRPG genre – an acronym describing the very specific genre of video games adapted from tabletop RPGs to be played on computers – which a decade earlier had been a cornerstone of PC gaming. They were more interested in accessible, console-friendly series like Mass Effect and The Elder Scrolls, and PC-centric RPGs all but died out.

Then, around 2012, RPGs made a comeback, largely thanks to the rise of crowdfunding and an endless well of nostalgia. Since then we’ve been treated to heaps of good ones – Divinity: Original Sin, Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, Torment: Tides of Numenera – and there are plenty more in the works. But there’s no guarantee that CRPGs are back for good. Some, such as Torment, haven’t sold well. The future of crowdfunding remains uncertain. And asking fans to commit 50 hours to a single story is more difficult than ever, given the volume of great games that release every month. So how can developers ensure that the genre stays relevant?

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One of the reasons that Tides of Numenera didn’t sell as well as expected was because it was too text-heavy, says Brian Fargo, head of developer inXile Entertainment. Wasteland 2, which came out before Torment, hit a better balance between story and action, and Wasteland 3 will focus on the “strategic aspect of combat in an XCOM kind of way”, he says.

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Silver said:

Now I'm wondering what strategic elements will be present. I like that he is deriving inspiration from XCOM but hope he also keeps his ear to the ground for Phoenix Point and the innovations there with vehicles on the battlefield.

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Fargo believes that CRPGs will increasingly feature multiplayer – something the Original Sin games again pioneered – and Wasteland 3 will be the first in the series with a co-op campaign. “Every metric [suggests it will get] more and more difficult to do a single player game. You’ll see more multiplayer [in CRPGs], but the trick is for us to not give up the depth.”

His desire for multiplayer action and more emergent gameplay will culminate in a “secret project” to be unveiled later this year, he tells me, which will combine inXile’s love for storytelling with the freedom of a multiplayer sandbox game such as DayZ or Rust. Those games often simulate the breakdown of a post-apocalyptic society perfectly, but have stories that are often just: “Here’s a rock, go,” he says.

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I really don’t understand why it’s so hard to mention other CRPGs like Age of Decadence, Shadowrun: Dragonfall, Underrail, Tale of Wuxia, Expeditions: Conquistador, Sunless Sea, Tales of Maj’Eyal, Blackguards, Lords of Xulima, Avernum, Avadon, etc…

A “comeback” is not made of just three games, and there’s no law saying that every single article on CRPGs requires Fargo doing self-promotion. Some of the games I mentioned sold way more than Torment: Tides of Numenera despite being from much smaller studios, they deserve their spot in the sun.

It’s really annoying how the media acts as if only Obisidian, Larian and inXile matters.

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Lucky Day said:

And I wouldn't call Elder Scrolls primarily meant for console - they play well on PC

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Zloth said:

CRPG - Computer Role Playing Game. Does this mean isometric RPG now??

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Ephiron said:

I can't help it. For CRPGs to really make a comeback WotC need to finally commission one with Dungeons and Dragons rules. It's been 12 years since NwN2…

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Stingray said:

We do have 3 games coming in the near future with D&D 3.5 (more or less) rules:
Pathfinder: Kingmaker, Realms Beyond, Knights of the Chalice 2

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Fargo believes that CRPGs will increasingly feature multiplayer – something the Original Sin games again pioneered – and Wasteland 3 will be the first in the series with a co-op campaign. “Every metric [suggests it will get] more and more difficult to do a single player game. You’ll see more multiplayer [in CRPGs], but the trick is for us to not give up the depth.”

His desire for multiplayer action and more emergent gameplay will culminate in a “secret project” to be unveiled later this year, he tells me, which will combine inXile’s love for storytelling with the freedom of a multiplayer sandbox game such as DayZ or Rust. Those games often simulate the breakdown of a post-apocalyptic society perfectly, but have stories that are often just: “Here’s a rock, go,” he says.

“I’ve been completely fascinated by the emergent gameplay that comes from open-world systems, but yet we love storytelling, and so we want to explore how we might be able to merge those worlds,” he explains.

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Stingray said:

Ugh. Just what we needed, Wasteland 76.

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Couchpotato said:

Just read that and already know I won t be buying /baking his next game.

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Stingray said:

Can only hope it doesn't turn out to be as bad as he made it sound here. But I think I'm more pro-inXile than most around here (I even thought the new Torment was great) and it still sounds really, really bad.

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Silver said:

There is no mistaking that I am looking forward to all of these with that in mind. Hint, hint Wizards of the Coast.

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Silver said:

I wouldn't worry overly much. InXile has made their name as a story company and it sounds like Brian wants to spruce up that genre with story rather than clone it. If it is successful maybe we will see better games coming out of that space. ie choice and consequence in survival RPG like Dying Light 2.

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daveyd said:

Wasn't Sword Coast Legends the last official D&D game?* It was received horribly because they tried to make it appeal to casual gamers…

And I don't even think WotC realized the problem; I think they concluded that there isn't a big enough market for singleplayer D&D video games anymore… Ugh, if someone would make a proper D&D CRPG it could be a success.

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Couchpotato said:

al but was ruined in development.

As for someone making a proper D&D CRPG I would pin my hopes on Pathfinder: Kingmaker. Yes I know it's not a true D&D CRPG but it's as close as we will ever get.

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daveyd said:

Yeah, but personally I HATE RTwP combat.

So for me Realms Beyond is more what like what I want. Kind of ToEE but hopefully w/ a better story.

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One thing I did take away from this, apart from the positives, is an indication that single player games are becoming a thing of the past, or could be. I really hope that isn’t the case. I’ve loved my RPGs and for me the immersion and sense of soul would be lost if Bi77yW1Zz274 kept nudging me off a cliff or ninja looting all my gear, or talking over NPC dialogue.

Still, that the humble RPG is here to stay, I’m more happy than sad.

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Yep the challenge will be introducing that extra stuff without losing what people love about the single player element. Going to be interesting to watch.

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