When it comes to the most notable video game genres, I think many will view role-playing games (RPG) as being one of the most important within the entire industry. They were among the earliest video games developed with dnd, a video game adaptation of Dungeons & Dragons, being released in 1975 and many of the best-selling video game franchises continue to be RPGs! However, the current state of RPG video games isn’t exactly what I’d hoped for and, so, I believe it important that I share my thoughts and opinions on the matter.
The first thing I want to start with is a question that I think many of you will be confused by, what do we look for in an RPG? This may seem like a strange thing to ask but it’s something that I think varies greatly from person to person. I myself know some people who consider the most important part of an RPG to be its story while others prioritise the gameplay. Even within these camps, I see a lot of variety in what they want. Some are satisfied with a well-written story and predetermined characters and choices, often associated with JRPGs, while others want one where you’re able to create your character and shape the story as you want. Some want an in-depth RPG system where skills and mechanics cover a vast array of things such as conversations, perception, wisdom, spells, weapons, trinkets etc. which allows for a wide variety of character builds while others want a more simple and straightforward system which focuses more on combat. The variety within this genre is staggering but this can result in a dearth of content for fans of particular subgenres.
When it comes to my own personal thoughts on RPGs, I find it somewhat awkward due to the fact that I enjoy a wide variety of subgenres whether they be action or turn-based combat systems or have simple or complex RPG mechanics. However, I do have some thoughts on RPGs that I don’t care for. I was pretty excited when Sony announced that they were porting games to PC and I eventually picked up my first, and so far only, Sony game on PC, Horizon Zero Dawn. I’d heard good things about it and it has been a big financial success with an estimate from this year placing sales of Horizon Zero Dawn on PS4 and PC at about 24.3 million copies. However, as I played through the game, I noted how it was a less than satisfactory experience for me. Some of this comes down to the story and open world but I want to focus on the RPG mechanics or lack thereof. The player character can level up but it merely affects her health and gives a skill point that can be used in a skill tree, quite a simple one at that. Additionally, equipment was rarely different enough to switch to and I think I only ended up switching gear about 4 or 5 times over the course of 30 hours. It’s certainly not the worst game in the world and I’ve heard numerous people heap praise on it but it disappointed me both as a game and particularly as an RPG. At the other end of the spectrum, I tried to play through the enhanced edition of Baldur’s Gate and I found the mechanics of the game to be too dense and indecipherable to understand and enjoy. Baldur’s Gate is often considered to be one of the best RPGs ever made but I just couldn’t get into it. Maybe someday but not in the near future at least.
Now that we’ve established all of that, let’s take a look at the modern RPG landscape and my thoughts on it. The past decade or so has seen many commercially successful RPGs such as The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt, Pokémon Sword and Shield and, of course, Elden Ring. However, it has also seen certain subgenres of RPGs suffer such as the first-person dungeon crawler, the poorly defined CRPG and, most surprisingly, the cinematic RPG. It very much has become the case that it’s indie developers who are continuing to push the RPG genre forward with great examples being Disco Elysium, Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2, ASTLIBRA Revision and, of course, the recent megahit that was Baldur’s Gate III. This has created a shortage of RPGs dedicated to certain niches, something which some point to when trying to explain the explosive success of Baldur’s Gate III.
My only other major concern about the current state of RPG video games comes back to my thoughts on Horizon Zero Dawn. Many RPG franchises have chosen to simplify their RPG components over time in an effort to achieve greater mainstream success. Now, before anyone brings it up, I’m not saying that every RPG has to be complex. After all, I just said that I couldn’t play the first Baldur’s Gate because I found its RPG systems impenetrable. However, I do grow concerned that RPG series are becoming overly simplified. To give a few examples, I really enjoyed the first Dragon Age game but found that the RPG mechanics of the series became progressively more and more watered down as the games progressed. Now there’s an argument to be made that the first Dragon Age game is a simplified Baldur’s Gate but when I began playing Dragon Age: Inquisition and saw that I had less control of my party members and that my stats were automatically allocated when I leveled up, I did feel deflated. A similar issue crops up when we discuss Final Fantasy. While older Final Fantasy games were certainly not anywhere near as complex or intricate as the Western RPGs of their time, there was a mechanical depth to them that I think is sorely lacking from more recent entries. I’d be tempted to point to Final Fantasy XV when it comes to a game that feels like it’s trying to simplify the RPG mechanics of the series but I do confess that certain games that I personally enjoyed within the franchise could be seen as progressing the series towards a simpler RPG experience. Final Fantasy VII, as much as I and many others enjoy that title, took a step to simplifying the experience when equipment was reduced to only weapons, armour and accessories as well as less characters to control in battle. Even Final Fantasy XIII, a game that I actually like in contrast to many others, started the game out far too simply with the mechanical depth of its combat system only really seeing fruition in the latter stages of the game.
To quickly sum up my thoughts on the current state of RPG video games, while there are many excellent titles that are being released each year, subgenres are suffering with many RPGs, particularly coming from AAA developers, starting to feel homogeneous and many games seemingly scared to lean into the meatier RPG mechanics. While I’m overjoyed to see indie developers continuing to develop diverse, mechanically rich RPGs and I think the RPG market is in a somewhat healthy state, I also think it could be better. Let me know your thoughts on the current state of RPG video games, what issues, if any, you have with modern RPGs, which games you think benefited from being simplified and which ones you think suffered from it, what you think about the many indie developers who are creating RPGs and any additional information you might have on the topic.
Thanks for reading and if you wish to seek any of the titles I mentioned, don’t hesitate to use amazon.co.uk or amazon.com for all of your needs! Also feel free to follow my curator page on Steam “JRPG Reviews” for thoughts and opinions on any JRPGs that I play and my YouTube channel “Victory Achieved Gaming” where I guide my friend through challenging games.