Ekim's Gamer View: Spaceman Adventures

Michel "Ekim" Veilleux
2003-03-28

In recent years, not to say since the early days of gaming, most RPGs have been set in medieval worlds. The influence of books like Lord of the Rings have been undeniable, and for some strange reason the science-fiction genre always had great difficulties in making its way in the RPG genre. Science-fiction is very much part of action and strategy games, but otherwise greatly lacking in a genre that involves the player on a deeper level. Recently I found myself looking at what's coming this year and I was surprised to realize that at least four of the most anticipated RPG titles will have a science-fiction setting in one form or another (Eve Online, SWG, KotOR,. and Deus Ex 2).

A few games in a galaxy far, far away...

Considering that there may be little more than 10 to 15 major RPGs that will eventually see the light of day this year, four titles is a lot. The science-fiction setting has not been overused in recent history. I remember having an interesting discussion in our very own RPGDot message boards last year about the reasons why there are not more science-fiction RPGs. At the time it was my belief (and it still is today, to a lesser extent) that the Star Wars cult is too overwhelming for developers to hope to break the setting open. Too many people want to be like Luke Skywalker or Han Solo.

But now I'm not absolutely sure anymore. The recent mixed impressions of the last two Star Wars movies, coupled with the highly successful releases of the LotR movies have forced me to rethink my views. Star Wars remains a recognizable icon in modern culture. Whether it's in book form, or games, or television shows, anything related to science-fiction invariably gets compared to Star Wars. But isn't it the same with anything medieval? Don't we immediately gauge everything we are fed against the Tolkien lore?

I'm starting to wonder if we won't see a small shift. No, I don't think we'll see less games set in medieval worlds, but maybe we'll start seeing more games being produced that are set in outer space. Granted, two of the four science-fiction themed games I mentioned at the start of this article are based on the Star Wars universe…. And those two games are bound to be successful. If not on a critical level, they will sell more than enough copies to be considered successful games. If they are though, I'm afraid we'll just get back to square one.

Star Wars being an icon of the science-fiction genre, I think developers are a little afraid to tackle anything that is not related to it. The fear of being told that what they create is just like Star Wars, or that it's not as original as it should be, is probably very hard to cope with. Heck, it's hard to create something that wouldn't be compared to Star Wars in this genre. Even the likes of Frank Herbert's Dune series, or Asimov's Robot series, masterpieces in their own right, are often overshadowed by Star Wars. So that means that if one was to create a successful game set in a completely original science-fiction setting, there's a good chance that it will still not catch on.

Medieval space adventures

Now two major games set in the Star Wars universe arrive, and all of a sudden this already highly popular series will once again overshadow all else. Strange that I don't even believe the same will happen with the current LotR phenomenon and other games with medieval settings. It's very hard to pinpoint the reason why this could be the case. What's even more disturbing is that Star Wars is just as medieval a setting as the next one. Only instead of traveling in boats to cross the oceans and reach far away lands they use spaceships to reach far away planets and meet strange cultures. They even use swords for crying out loud! Why don't we see more science-fiction RPGs?

Is the genre so intimidating? I like my medieval games as much as the next guy, but it's nice to be treated to something different once in a while. I'm sure that there are many people out there that would like a good RPG set in space once in a while just as much as I do. The demand is there, so why the apprehension? Sometimes I want to dream about romantic knights riding to fight the evil dragons. But other times I also want to be given a vision of what the future might hold. And I would even go so far as saying that games are the perfect tool to render such visions, even more than books!

For now I guess we'll just wait and see what happens with the few science-fiction RPGs that will be offered to us this year. I just hope and pray that the most successful of them won't just pull us back to where we started off. I just hope that originality is still a part of the science-fiction genre in games. Or maybe this year's dosage will be enough to calm our craving for at least a while.