It’s funny and sad knowing that Bethesda once were the company making weird and ambitious RPGs.
Morrowind is one of the weirdest and most ambitious games of that era.
Baldur's Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 show that the future of RPGs is in games way more ambitious, weird and unexpected than anything Bethesda and Bioware have to offer
Submitted 4 weeks ago by Ashtear@lemm.ee to games@lemmy.world
Comments
addicity@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Morrowind was thier hail mary to stay in buisness.
Then they have the series to Howard and his crew…
addicity@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Morrowind: An oral history on Polygon is a wonderful read.
All the little stories Kirkbride tells are great. My favourite is him designing progressively weird shit to dupe Howard with. He’d be like “Hey Todd, can we put this in the game?” and after he knowingly got knocked back he’d present him something more palatable.
Ashtear@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
It’s like the super bowl champs giving the next decade to the Bears.
nowhere is safe 😫
SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Indeed, as the article writes
Even Skyrim—certainly a weird, ambitious, and janky RPG in its own right—refined and streamlined the formula set by Morrowind and Oblivion, rather than expanding on their eccentricities, and that trend only continued in the studio’s following games.
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Skyrim wasn’t “weird” by any definition I’d use. More like bland.
Galle_@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I find it bizarre that people think Starfield isn’t “weird and ambitious”. Starfield is absolutely weird and ambitious, that’s why people didn’t like it, it tried to do something new and that something new turned out to not be fun.
SleepNotRequired@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I disagree, if anything I think Starfield was Bethesda not going far enough.
They created a new setting and added a couple of new mechanics, but they cradled it in the same tired formula that they have been doing for decades.
I had hoped that since it was a new IP, this would be the moment they would take a chance and try something new. Try a new approach to quest design and world building, don’t just make the game bigger but make the experience in it more varied with more interesting interactions. Instead it felt like new coat of paint on an old house and when they got called out on it, they became defensive.
I broke my heart when they said the lesson they learned was to stick to the same formula and when they tried to do it with Shattered Space, people hated it even more.
I hate to say it but it seems like Bethesda already peaked.
melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
I concur; we need more of this new breed of aggressively strange RPG’s, like earthbound/mother, planescape:torment, and morrowind.
ICastFist@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
The freedom that Morrowind gives you has never been matched by other Bethesda titles. I think the only path that’s blocked to the player is joining the Sixth House, but at least you can kill Vivec before confronting Dagoth Ur
I can’t speak for Daggerfall’s freedom as I haven’t really delved into it, but I know it has 6 different endings depending on which faction you ally with.
NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
None of what you listed is “new”. Also, Morrowind wasn’t actually “strange” in the slightest. Plenty of fantasy RPGs had elements of sci-fi and weird bug shit (see: Wizardry and even Might and Magic) and the “you can screw up the main quest” was similarly common at the time. Planescape I’ll give you.
Which is also true here. BG3 is not “strange”, It is literally the third Baldurs Gate game and continues most of the same themes and concepts. Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).
And KCD2 is one of the most bog standard power fantasy games out there.
melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
none of what you listed is new
yes that’s exactly the point. two of these are from the 90s, one is from like 2001. old enough to have good credit and cheap car insurance. im making fun of the title.
morrowind isn’t really that weird
no, but it blew a lot of people’s minds so i put it on the list.
continues lots of the same themes
citation needed. not that I dislike it, it just feels like the name is tacked on to an otherwise lovely CRPG.
Mendicant_Bias@feddit.uk 4 weeks ago
Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).
Haven’t played BG3 yet, but I’m interested to read this because I’ve noticed a lot of discussion seems to be about romancing characters, and I don’t remember that being a prominent feature in the first two. That said, I was a kid, so maybe that just went over my head at the time. Or is that something that Larian brought in from their other games?
AdamBomb@lemmy.sdf.org 4 weeks ago
The Thaumaturge and Clair Obscur both look pretty weird
BananaTrifleViolin@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The article totally misses the big intervening step between Skyrim/old Bioware and the failure of Starfield/Dragon Age: CDProjectRED.
While those studios largely just made “more of the same”, CDPR made Witcher 3 and then Cyberpunk 2077. Both games are way better narrative experiences and pushed RPG forward. Starfield looks very dated in comparison to both, and Dragon Age failed to capture to magic. Baldur’s Gate 3 and Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 are successes because they also bring strong narratives and emotional connections to the stories.
Starfield would have been huge if it had been released soon after Skyrim. But now it just looks old fashioned, and I think the “wide as an ocean, as deep as a puddle” analogy is good for Starfield. Meanwhile Witcher 3 - which is 10 years old! - has quests and storylines with choices and emotional impact. BG3 and KC:D2 are heirs to Witcher 3.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
People like to write off CP2077, which is such a shame.
…And maybe this makes me a black sheep, but I bounced off Witcher 2/3? I dunno, I just didn’t like the combat and lore, and ended up watching some of the interesting quests on YouTube.
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
Kingdom Come Deliverance wasn’t even on my radar and now I’m obsessed. The NPCs are so fucking funny
Lennnny@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
If I were in your shoes…
sigmaklimgrindset@sopuli.xyz 4 weeks ago
The hours I spent on that FUCKING DICE GAME
owenfromcanada@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
This shouldn’t surprise anyone. When you look through the classics, they’re not “typical”. Hell, one of the most iconic games involves a plumber fighting a punk-rock turtle to save a princess, with a variety of mushrooms both helping and hindering.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
People understandably love to hate Oblivion and Fallout 3, but I feel the side quest writing had heart, like groups of devs got to go wild within their own little dungeons. Their exploitable mechanics were kinda endearing.
…And I didn’t get that from Starfield? I really tried to overlook the nostalgia factor, but all the writing felt… corporate. I abandoned it early and tried to see what I was missing on YouTube, but didn’t get it?
If you want a big walking sandbox in that vein, I feel like No Man’s Sky would scratch the itch far better, no?
cuteness@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
I got Cyberpunk in December and KCD2 in February. At this point I’m convinced I’ve spoiled the entire RPG genre for myself for the next decade. I can’t imagine playing 2 great games back to back like that again.
variouslegumes@reddthat.com 4 weeks ago
Oblivion is my favorite Elder Scrolls. I actually played it again recently and thought it held up pretty well. I’m a sucker for wandering lush bucolic landscapes though.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I’m a sucker for wandering lush bucolic landscapes though.
You should play KC Deliverance 2 if you haven’t. Its forests and rural villages are freaking gorgeous, especially for how “easy” it is to run.
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
With its nuanced characters, wonderfully layered world, and incredible depth of interactions, it was natural to feel the game had set a new bar for the whole genre—but it was pointed out that declaring it the new standard was unreasonable and unsustainable given how few other developers could possibly rise to meet it.
You could make a game a third of the size of BG3, and it would still be excellent value for BG3’s asking price. And no, you shouldn’t attempt to make a competitor with BG3 on your first try. Nor should you try to make a competitor to Elden Ring on your first try; FromSoft had been making those games for the better part of 15 years, building and iterating on what came before. I do think more RPG developers should strive to follow the systems-driven approach that Larian has and be cognizant of what it is that we all like about BG3, but it can be sustainable if you don’t try to hit a home run on the first pitch.
ICastFist@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
FromSoft had been making those games for the better part of 15 years, building and iterating on what came before.
Longer, if we really want to get pedantic. King’s Field, the game and series that is now the spiritual predecessor to the Souls genre, is from 1994, so we could probably say they have been refining their own flavor of action RPG for over 30 years now.
YungOnions@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
If you’re even remotely interested in Warhammer 40k, the Rogue Trader CRPG is excellent
Ketram@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Owlcat in general, despite their buggy releases, make absolutely ambitious and exciting games that are terrifically well written. Wrath of the Righteous is my favorite CRPG out there, and Rogue Trader is close to that as well.
drunkpostdisaster@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
That game was far better then it had any right to be.
Still waiting on an imperial guard focused game though.
criss_cross@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I love Rogue Trader so much.
I wish more of the game was like act 2. That’s where the game really shines
Galle_@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Rogue Trader is actually good, but people who eat up medieval fantasy slop like BG3 will probably hate it.
kerrigan778@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Less flash, more passionate people allowed to create. Shocker.
HalfSalesman@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I wish there were more new sci-fi RPGs of that quality.
I do hear CP2077 is good and I keep meaning to play it.
TBH I’ll probably end up enjoying Starfield once I get around to try it as well.
PraiseTheSoup@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I’ve had cyberpunk since launch and the only thing that has improved is stability. The game is still a hodgepodge of half baked RPG systems, most of which aren’t even necessary to interact with. No amount of polish can change the fact that it’s a turd underneath.
sexual_tomato@lemmy.dbzer0.com 4 weeks ago
I can tell you haven’t booted the game up recently because they completely redid the perk system and cyberware not too long ago.
CDPR has been atoning for the sin that was their failed launch for years. In my opinion, the game is a good game now.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
I found a combat mod completely changed the game for me. By making it brutally damaging instead of so bullet spongy and deleveling it, it simplifies all that crap away. Perks and guns are for play styles, and it lets one enjoy the game instead of worrying about them.
Jumi@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
CP2077’s story is nice but short (for an RPG these days) but the meat is in the world and side missions.
chiliedogg@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
As I’ve grown older and busier, I now prefer shorter games. Even when I intentionally try to play games, I may get 2-3 hours a week most weeks. A 100-hour campaign takes me a year to play through.
HalfSalesman@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Is it one of those “play the whole main story and then focus on the side content” situations or “Save the final mission for later because its a proper ending” situations?
JackbyDev@programming.dev 4 weeks ago
Doesn’t “nice but short but the meat is in the world and side missions” describe most RPGs nowadays?
ArtemisimetrA@lemmy.duck.cafe 4 weeks ago
I’ve heard people take that approach with Starfield and still be very disappointed. If it’s space you want and are ok with creating your own story, Elite Dangerous is getting a pretty big revival
pyre@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
the difference is cyberpunk has good direction and writing. starfield’s got neither. the problem with cyberpunk wasn’t the core of the game, it was bugs. once they fixed most of those the actual direction and story of the game had a chance to shine through.
starfield’s problem is the exact opposite. it was praised for being less buggy than the average BGS game, which is faint praise, but the problem is that it’s badly designed from the very core. it has bad writing, terrible characters, no direction at all, and no vision. bland, boring and basic. there’s no amount of updates that can fix that. the problems aren’t technical. there’s just no talent there.
HalfSalesman@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Its mostly just that I want a Morrowind/Oblivion/Skyrim with a sci-fi setting. A solid story, lots of side-quests, and a dynamic world that reacts to the player. I’d probably enjoy a modern metropolitan criminal setting as well for an RPG like GTA’s settings but Elder-Scrolls/3D-Fallout gameplay but you never see that at all.
Space is cool though.
SomethingBurger@jlai.lu 4 weeks ago
Yes! BG3 and KC2 devs made amazing games but for some reason decided to have them take place in the most generic, boring medieval/fantasy setting.
I want a pirate RPG, or sci-fi, heck even a hardcore Mario CRPG.
Galle_@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s BECAUSE of the generic, boring medieval fantasy settings that they were successful.
Galle_@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The problem is that gamers hate anytging that isn’t generic medieval fantasy.
Chemo@discuss.tchncs.de 4 weeks ago
Take a look at Exodus.
Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
But BioWare games used to be the top tier gaming company standard for excellence. Bethesda used to release amazingly ambitious titles that were unmatched (albeit buggy!).
Greed outweighs the love of games.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
When do you think that stopped though?
There’s a lot of love for Skyrim, but I feel like there was already deterioration in the side quest writing, even strictly looking at Oblivion/FO3, not Morrowind.
As for BioWare, even ME3 was starting to show some cracks, even if you set the ending aside. And I loved Mass Effect to death. Heck, I’m even a bigger Andromeda fan than most.
…Point being I think we clung to BioWare/Bethesda even when the signs of deoxygenation were there.
Adulated_Aspersion@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Completely agree. BioWare started it’s downward trend when it thought it could cash in on MMORPG billions by creating Star Wars: The Old Republic. Don’t get me wrong, Bioware made awesome games until ~2010. They were bought out by EA in 2007, and that is where we can clearly see that passion was lost. Good games still came out, but they weren’t great.
I will always hold a special spot in my heart for the Elder Scrolls. I’ve played since Daggerfall in the late 90s. I got into Fallout later, but went back and played the originals (except for tactics). A lot of people hate on Skyrim as being janky, but I was there for the original release. Did it have issues? Of course, and it still does. But this was 11 / 11 / 2011 we are talking about. Skyrim was doing things that no one in gaming was doing well, and they told a good story to boot.
The issue that I have with most studios is that they step away from the ideas of furthering or completing a story just because they can’t think of a new gimmic or mechanic to make it hugely profitable. They need those profits to justify the staggering wages paid to the CEO’s. Not to the writers, programmers, or artists.
So Bethesda lost a lot of love when they (like BioWare) attempted to cash in on MMORPGs with Fallout 76.
KingThrillgore@lemmy.ml 4 weeks ago
Interestingly, Avowed is completely missing from this discussion.
TheLowestStone@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
A very fair point, but alas… for better or worse, the bar has indeed been raised, and last month only proved that. February 2025 saw the release of a new RPG from one of the most beloved studios in the genre, Obsidian Entertainment. Avowed is modest by design, but nonetheless it’s polished, accessible, and visually impressive, with a rich story from some of the best writers in the business—and the backing of Microsoft, one of the most influential and well-resourced videogame publishers of all time.
stardreamer@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Personally I just want another RtwP CRPG.
I loved PoE1, didn’t care much about PoE2, and will probably care less about Avowed. There’s something magical about a map full of tiles that aren’t revealed immediately compared to a world map that you can immediately tell how much has been explored.
Same thing for BG3. I love Larian (been a Kickstarter backer since the original D:OS days, been playing almost every one of their games on release day since Dragon Commander) and BG3’s a great RPG, but it doesn’t feel like a good BG game. BG2 gave an immediate sense of “I have no idea where to go so I can do whatever I want”. BG3 is always nudging you to uncover the map and clear all the quests.
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Personally I just want another RtwP CRPG.
How do you feel about Torment: Tides of Numenera?
Venicon@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Avowed is fantastic IMO. It’s been handcrafted and feels like a living place as opposed to Starfield which was expansive, siloed and impersonal. As a massive Skyrim and Mass Effect fan it is easily my fave game since BG3, probably even more than it in fact.
AbsoluteChicagoDog@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
I want to play it but it seems like a $40 game
ampersandrew@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s been worth every penny at $70 to me.
sundrei@lemmy.sdf.org 4 weeks ago
the future of RPGs
Or, hear me out, the future might be 2D pixel-art games made by one or two people in a bedroom – not by critical acclaim or player sentiment, but just by sheer volume, filling up digital storefronts.
50_centavos@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
This might be a unpopular view but I think games like Elden Ring or Lies of P are a better RPGs. More action packed, less busy/boring missions. I beat BG3 and had fun for the first half of the game, the last half was a bit of a drag. I tried KCD 1 and couldn’t get into it, going from one end of the map to another doing mindless tasks. It was more of a middle-age simulator. I put ~250 hours into Elden Ring + DLC and I wanted more by the end of it.
Either way, I have some hope for the future of games.
TachyonTele@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
BG3 isnt even a deep RPG. Im really glad it’s popular, but as an rpg it doesn’t even have half the options final fantasy 7 had.
Kingdom Come is a much richer experience, imo. Even though the options are even fewer on paper.
I’ll just sit over here rocking in place and muttering Owlcat Games over and over
Galle_@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Could somebody please explain fo me how either of these two aggressively cliche and generic games are in any way “ambitious, weird, and unexpected”?
turnip@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Should I buy Baldurs Gate 3, its extremely expensive still.
rollmagma@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
How dare you!
ehxDeez@lemmy.zip 4 weeks ago
I have no comprehension what this is attempting to imply as I’m not sure who makes what games…
However, I do have some valid input. Kingdom Come Deliverance is the only single player game I’ve played since literally Metal Gear Solid 2…
Zero interest in single player games, yet I got Kingdom Come Deliverance for free so screw it I was bored hopped on got stoned.
By like hour 14 I realized I was playing a movie. With endless paths true freedom. I almost actually played it… I think I made it 40 some hours in and 20 of those hours were unlocking combos and learning them. Killing randoms on the roads etc.
I enjoyed it thoroughly yet, in the end it was still a single player game. All I could consider the entire time playing it was … Imagine if this map had 100 players on it. How epic of an mmoprg this game could make.
UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
The joke of these games is that they aren’t notably more weird than titles Bethesda and Bioware were famous for turning out. Hard to get more weird than Fallout’s more esoteric vaults or Morrowind’s bizarre cults and exotic cultures.
BG3/KC:D have been, if anything, a direct successors to the old classics. They’re faithfully propagating the ideas these old titles represented in a way the new studios are unable to reproduce.
dinckelman@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
What had happened to the people in ZAUM (or what was once that studio), is a tragedy, and a huge shame. I’m not even a cRPG/dnd person, but that game has singlehandedly opened my eyes to a whole new world. It’s easily in my top10 games of all time, and I wish we could get another one eventually
QuantumSparkles@sh.itjust.works 4 weeks ago
Someone should Luigi the guy(s) that fucked them over honestly
pennomi@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
There are lots of things to physically fight back over, but video games ain’t one of them.
FarceOfWill@infosec.pub 4 weeks ago
Aside from the unacceptable violence, the story here is far more complicated than that.
They were just impossible to work with.
I think PeopleMakeGames did a good YouTube video on it if you’ve not seen it.
daddy32@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
It’s also ironic that BG3 is continuation of Bioware’s own franchise.
ultrafastsloth@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
Just finished Disco Elysium few days ago, watched the credits roll from start to finish to see all the great people working on it, such a great game…now I am sad for what happened to them, I didnt know that
prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone 4 weeks ago
Morrowind is over 20 years old, and there hasn’t been a FO game with compelling plot lines since New Vegas.
iheartneopets@lemm.ee 4 weeks ago
Kinda the point of the comment
brucethemoose@lemmy.world 4 weeks ago
They have some good main quest writing, sure, but I feel like the nostalgia glasses factor is big, especially with NV.