Will The CRPG Genre Die Again?

Sharing my thoughts on the continued survival of CRPG's as a genre.

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#CRPG #Isometric

[devastatheseeker]

With indie devs being more prominent in this day and age I don't think any genre will die out entirely

[indiroe]

I recently discovered this genre with DOS2. What really allowed me to enjoy the game was the optional story mode. Speaking as a somewhat casual gamer, I don't need a challenge to enjoy a game. But at the same time, I don't want to take that away from people who enjoy a challenge either. I think DOS2 did a great job by providing a multitude of options.

[dominikbehrendt]

It's still a niche genre with the games generally being pretty long and a lot of reading involved. this limits the financial viability for big publishers. But the increased accessibility and affordability of many game development tools (even beyond unity), even small teams can bring interesting and quality games to their audience. So while the current "peak" (or rather the peak that will come with the large audience outreach of BG3) might not last, the genre as a whole might be more sustainable than quite a few others.

[KahPahHala]

I feel like we don't get a ton of new CRGS but I will admit the ones we have gotten lately have all been amazing. Wasteland 3, Disco Elysium were both Wonderful, and then you have Pillars of Eternity 2 ( my personal favorite crpg ) and Divinity Original sin 2 that are some of the greatest games of all time. Also small shoutouts to Pathfinder Kingmaker, I know some people were not huge fans but it gives me my classic pen and paper feeling I enjoy, and with the new pathfinder coming out soon and Divinity original sin 3 ( aka baldurs gate 3 ) I think we have things to look forward to.

[disturbancecontrol]

Some more things that also hurt the sales of CRPGs and boxed PC games as a whole, was the development of the MMO/Pay for Play and it seemed like almost every company wanting to develop there own take on that genre, I hated this time in gaming since I’ve played RPGs since ASCII and my first graphics based one was the original Eye of the Beholder and Dragon Lace, then seeing Baldurs Gate 1/2, Icewindale 1/2, Neverwinter Nights, Diablo 1/2 (more ARPG), but after Dragon Age things turned to crap with success of WOW, and the boxed PC genre distribution in general, I remember this happening and the games I loved being sold in “second hand” stores like Big Lots as fodder, I actually remember picking up the last expansion for NWN at a Big Lots and I’m glad I found it there because major retail places stopped carrying pc games thanks to server based gaming had killed the sales, I pretty much kept playing the same games I had with fan mods and ended up stopping all together because I’m not a fan of pay for play, I’m kind glad that business model has died for the most part, and the self contained CRPG made a comeback and I get to enjoy them once again.

[Christian_Bagger]

I was hoping back in the Baldur’s Gate days, “well the game is the most popular game ever, surely we’re gonna have more games set in the Forgotten Realms using the Infinity Engine”… nope..

[Hrafnskald]

Agree with your core points. That said: Baldur's Gate 1, 1998. Temple of Elemental Evil, 2003. Dragon Age: Origins, 2009. The genre didn't die, but it did go into mod-based hibernation, where new great games were relatively rare. That hibernation period, when players lived for the mods and total conversions, helped train future developers and uncover new ways of gaming. That was what eventually gave rise to the rebirth in the 2010s and beyond.

You have a great point on making game mechanics understandable-this came up in a huge way with Civilization 6, which is largely unplayable without going on youtube to figure out core mechanics and strategy. Making the game understandable is vitally important.

[felipeopazomusic]

There's a very very important point that everyone's forgetting to talk about, the massive success of Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition. Since it was launched in 2014, tabletop rpg sales have gone up, the whole industry is experiencing their best years ever, thanks in great part to shows like Critical Role. If you think about it, tabletop RPGs and even to some extent cRPGs, always carried the "nerd" stigma, nowadays, that's gone, D&D is cool, cooler than ever, therefore, cRPGs are also hot. Also, the Kickstarter revolution helped a lot, and I think we'll increasingly get more and more AAA cRPGs, like Baldurs Gate 3, along with awesome, creative indie titles like Disco Elysium. Moreover, people and companies aren't dismissive of 2D or 2 1/2D games anymore, so I think the future is bright for the genre.

[anoh]

I ma currently playing pathfinder kingmaker and I love its deep and complex system but I hate how the game does not help with explaining everything in it, so most of the time I have to search in reddit and steam's forum to learn about it.

[tobiasL]

I feel like there should've also be a mention of how CRPG are pretty different from the older ones or more nostalgic driven ones, like Pillars.
I mean most these days have full 3D environments and 360° camera. Which makes the world feel much much more alive.
This grander style so to speak gives the genre more longevity.

[giorgoskatselis]

While this channel advertises the "100% completion" approach (which is great btw), I like it mostly because of its obvious focus on the CRPGs (Pathfinder WOR FTW!). There are not many channels out there that do that. They cover them yes, but they do not focus on them as much as this one.

[williamwallace]

This something I've worried about a lot. I love the prevalence of RPGs now as a player. But I'm also a hobbist game dev hoping to go full time, and in depth rpg is the genre that I wanna do the most. But realistically it might be 5~10 years before I get to the point of making them on the level I really want to. And I worry that the genre will be oversaturated by then, or that it will have evolved into something unrecognizable.

I don't see it dying all together, but rather evolving and branching into subgenres until there's little left of what came before.
It's a paradox; if it stays the same then fans will get bored, and changing markets will kill it. But if it changes then by definition the original dies in the process.
But isn't that kinda what happened in the 2000's? They used to be "Computer Role Playing Games" and now their just "Classic". Because they branched out into all the other genres of RPG in the 2000's, and also influenced the mechanics of other genres. So get ready to see crpg mechanics in places you wouldn't expect...

[RomRPG]

My biggest concern is that the fan base of the genre is incredibly hard to grow. I know that I personally can't seem to convince anyone to play one of these things, no matter how hard I try. Obsidian and inXile are already trying FPS RPGs it would seem, I assume to attract more eyes. I don't think this will kill the genre in the long run, but I think a growing audience would help tremendously to its staying power as these companies try to stay afloat.

[Hekk.]

Well, as long as our world isn't as exciting as the worlds we get to enjoy in games; we will keep looking for worlds to escape into - CRPGs will always provide that for us.

[shoutingstone]

I miss when CRPGs came with big thick manuals that explained everything. I'd spend hours poring over every page even before installing the game. The lack of manuels and the assumption that people will just turn to wikis or YouTube might be partially responsible for why mechanics are so poorly explained by the game nowadays

[N_Kobold]

I have a dream to someday make a sci fi crpg. I love the genre and it’s stories especially wasteland 3.

[KarlWinterling]

Eh, we *eventually* got very high-quality English localizations of Trails in the Sky Second Chapter and Trails of Cold Steel IV, even though most publishers view turn-based as too niche, the games expect you to do a large amount of reading if you want to understand what's going on, and good translations from Japanese are very expensive (even without voice acting). The CRPG genre might slow down a bit but we'll eventually get new and better games. My guess is that enough people will get into CRPGs if new releases work on issues like improving the combat, better UI that lets you change the text size, and putting more effort into graphics and music.

Josh Sawyer said he thinks turn-based combat is an essential part of making your character and experimenting with his or her build. The problem that usually comes with both turn-based and RTwP up is a game has a large number of "filler" combat encounters. Sawyer wanted Pillars of Eternity 1 & 2 to be turn-based games, but the crowdfunding backers for both games wanted them to be "spiritual successors" to Baldur's Gate 1 with RTwP combat. I think people who complain about turn-based have in mind something like 90s turn-based CRPGs or the 1987 NES Final Fantasy. Turn-based games like Divinity: Original Sin II and Valkyria Chronicles sold very well on Steam.

[Max-zsur]

It is not a coincidence that the most commercially successful modern crpg is Divinity 2 which has 3d cool graphics.
Lot of non rpg players played it

[Exarch_Of_Justice]

It probably helped that pen and paper rpgs got way more awarness and those games are very close to those games.

[Arcling]

As you've mentioned, complicated rules are the issue here, but it's a good thing these days we have difficulty levels. I'm a person who's playing some RPGs mainly for their story, so this is a huge plus, if I don't want to get into complicated (and sometimes very weird) mechanics. CRPGs aren't going anywhere in my opinion, unlike RTS games, which are heavily skill based and where one mistake can cost you a whole match (one of reasons that genre went into decline). Story-driven cRPGs are in a good state, but it all comes in waves, so they might lose some mainstream popularity. Another thing, those that are heavy on text, without much voice acting, aren't very friendly for youtube playthroughs, thus making it way harder to promote them.