T w e n t y S i d e d

(Apologies for being late with this one, I didn’t get in until very late Friday night)

Twenty-four entries is a lot to write about one game, even if it’s a very long one with two big expansions. So I’ve struggled to come up with something to say that can tie it all up. It’s not enough just to say “yeah, it was good,” because everyone already knows that.

So the thing I want to focus on is what this game means for the genre, because the AAA RPG space is shrinking. If we look at the major developers operating in it, we have:

• Bioware: They are apparently releasing another Dragon Age game, but very little has been shown to the public and it’s probably a long way off. I get the overall sense that Dragon Age is a franchise they want to wrap up so they can focus on Anthem. For me (a guy who’s not big on looter shooters), this is disappointing, but I’m not sure Bioware will really be considered an RPG developer at all a few years from now.
• Bethesda: They’re very much set in their ways at this point. I expect Starfield to be the Elder Scrolls in space, more or less, and whatever the next Elder Scrolls game is will probably be Starfield with swords. Some are speculating whether the crashing and burning of Fallout 76 will jolt Bethesda out of their rut. I personally doubt it. I expect Bethesda will be making Bethesda games for the forseeable future.
• Obsidian: The second Pillars of Eternity game, Deadfire, did not sell well. Which was curious for me, because I thought it was very good, though I have a weakness for pirate stuff. In any case, it appears that the market niche Obsidian targets is smaller than they thought. Their upcoming release, The Outer Worlds, looks promising (something like Firefly meets Fallout 2, maybe), but is reportedly scaled-down in terms of ambition. I’ve heard the scale of the game described as double-A rather than triple-A.
• Larian: I sort of feel left out of the whole Larian thing. They have an art and storytelling style that I’ve just never been a fan of – like they’re trying to split the difference been dark fantasy and a Disney movie. However, I’m an outlier in this case. The second Original Sin game got rave reviews, and they’re one of the few developers pushing the envelope in gameplay. However, like Obsidian, they’re something of a niche player.

So if you leave off the people that don’t do real AAA numbers (Obsidian and Larian), the ones trying to get that Destiny money (Bioware), and the ones that are Bethesda (Bethesda), that leaves CD Projekt alone carrying the AAA RPG torch. For the time being, at least, this is the template – and there’s a few things about it worth noticing.

Continue reading ⟩⟩ “The Witcher 3: Wrapping Up”

Bob Case MrBtongue is the Pele of complaining about videogames and will soon be the Garrincha of complaining about TV shows. You can find his Youtube channel at youtube.com/user/MrBtongue.