Where Have All The (Great) CRPG’s Gone? – A Revolution Falls Flat
Chris 'limesix' Rediske, 2003-06-16

I know… you look at that headline and say to yourself 'What is he talking about?' The last five years have produced a glut of quality CRPG's, and in the last twelve months alone, we have Neverwinter Nights, Morrowind and its expansion Tribunal, Divine Divinity, Arx Fatalis, and Icewind Dale 2. And there's more on the horizon, all currently with release dates this year - Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Lionheart, Dues Ex 2, and further expansions to Neverwinter and Morrowind.

So what's the problem, right? Well, most people would point to one of two games as responsible for the current rebirth of the genre - Bethesda Softworks' Daggerfall, or Interplay/Black Isle's Fallout. RPG's had effectively stagnated by 1997, after being a driving force for the first fifteen years of computer gaming - originally because the genre lent itself to text based, rule heavy adventures prior to the advent of graphics, but also because developers poured themselves into making engrossing, creative, and long games that took full advantage of the power of home computers. The Gold Box games, The Ultima series, Wasteland, Wizardry, the list goes on and on… until the early to mid 90's. This part has been well documented, so I'll leave it at that, but suffice it to say that the genre was in need of rejuvenation, and 1996 - 1997 brought just that.

So 1997 brought Fallout, 1998 Fallout 2, and 1999 Planescape: Torment. These three games - along with, to a lesser extent, Baldurs Gate - form the basis of my love of role-playing games, and with them came the rebirth of the genre. But they innovated and excelled in a way I feel has not since been surpassed… or even really equaled.

So what do I mean? Removing Baldurs Gate from the equation for a moment, look at the games I mentioned, starting with Fallout and its sequel, Fallout 2. Incredibly enjoyable tactical turn-based combat, a huge gameworld to be explored at your leisure, mature but realistic themes, and endless and often surprising design creativity. You could get married in a shotgun wedding (and it made no difference what sex you were - my first time through, I played a woman and married one as well…ah, male fantasies), and sell your spouse into slavery, or just leave them for dead in a poisonous cave (oops…). You could truly role-play, finishing quests however you felt best - and all roads led to a viable solution. And it did two things that no game I've played since has featured: first, once you had finished the game (which, it is also worth mentioning, had two main goals), you could continue playing, finding random encounters, or just enjoying the fruits of your labor, as everyone recognized you as the hero you just spent 100+ hours becoming. I've been disappointed by nearly every game I've finished since, after the credits roll and I find myself on the main menu screen, instead of back in the game world. And second, it gave you a detailed rundown of the consequences of your actions for nearly every quest you undertook during the game. To me, it was a revelation to hear that the small city I rid of slavery went on to enjoy a thriving democracy, or that since I hadn't assassinated a certain mob boss, he took over the city in an orgy of organized crime. Both of these features combined to make the game more satisfying - to make it seem that there were real consequences of your actions, and that the world actually changed as a result of what you chose.

And then there was Planescape: Torment. It starts out slow and is quite gruesome, and you think… what the hell is this? That's until you play the game, and you realize that it's a role-players dream. It's hard to explain what makes this game so special if you haven't played it, but suffice it to say that I've never played a more tightly integrated, brilliantly designed, and just all around satisfying game - getting to the end of Torment is like finishing your favorite book. The gameplay and leveling are the most satisfying I've ever experienced, and as much as I've enjoyed other games like Baldurs Gate, Arcanum, and (especially) Deus Ex, I've never played a game that made me think (repeatedly) to myself "this is just so damn much FUN!" I was addicted to Torment for the duration of the campaign, and every play session drew me in more. Finally, it has the best ending (whichever one you end up at) of any game I've ever finished - and I've finished every RPG I've ever played.

Which brings us to everything else. And here's where I come to my thesis - the promise of the games I love from the late 90's, and the rebirth of the RPG based on those games, has resulted in an ultimately disappointing revolution very short on innovation, and sorely lacking where it counts, namely gameplay, story, and freedom. While all of the games I've played since Torment are well designed and entertaining, and stand tall in their own right, I'm mystified by the fact that no developer - including Black Isle, makers of Fallout and Torment - has managed to surpass, or even equal, the quality and innovation of those original games.

A roundup: the Infinity engine games are, without exception, outstanding games. But they tread familiar ground (Torment excepted), and basically amount to exploiting a winning formula. Arcanum made some interesting advances (and was developed by people who created Fallout), and then effectively cancelled them out with a few fatal flaws - most notably the combat. Wizardry 8 is a fine game, but I've never played a RPG that forced you to follow a plot so closely. The combat is turn-based (my preference), but sluggish, and by several levels in, I dreaded a low level fight that would take me a half-hour. Neverwinter Nights is brilliantly executed from an interface standpoint, and it's very well designed, but it's the most linear RPG I've ever played, there's very little freedom or space to explore in, and I'm still slogging through it four months after I started. And Morrowind… I wanted to love it, and I almost do. I spent days just walking around and looking at the world, the sky, the water. The gameplay freedom, character creation and development, and graphics are unparalleled. But the conversation interface is so static, the combat simplistic, the NPC's stand around in the same places through rain, sandstorms, and the dead of night, and... well really, how many nearly identical caves can you wander into and still feel like exploring them all? All of that combines to work against the sense of immersion and reality created by the graphics and large gameworld.

I know there are RPG's I haven't mentioned, and that's because I haven't played them. However, I love RPG's, I don't like to waste my time, and I've been very careful and deliberate about the games I've played - to be blunt, I think I've played the best. And it frustrates me to no end that the revolution begun and inspired by the best games I've ever played has not managed to inspire any games of that quality since. I have high hopes for the future - Lionheart looks promising, as does Knights of the Old Republic, but will they live up to their heritage? I hope so, because I long for a game to capture my imagination as none have since I reunited with my mortality for the first time nearly five years ago, in a plane of existence far away.