Larian are pretty PC-based. Can't imagine them getting bought by Sony.
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(GameSpot): "Xbox Is Primed To Reclaim Its Identity As A Console For RPGs"
- Thread starter FarSight XR-20
- Start date
Larian are pretty PC-based. Can't imagine them getting bought by Sony.
My favorite western rpgs of the last few years were from Larian and Warhorse studios. I consider myself a big fan and not feel like I'm missing a thing 🤷
This is far from the truth. If anything, it's almost the exact opposite as Obsidian has gained back some of its OG Fallout devs like Cain and Boyarsky. Only significant people Obsidian lost were Avellone and Fenstermaker, and they both turned out to be shitty people so who needs them. All of Obsidian's RPGs in the last decade have been well-received, even the weakest of the bunch, Tyranny. So between the people being relatively the same for years besides gaining some old faces they once had, along with the good reception their games have always had, I don't know why you're making shit up here.
As for Bethesda, if anything, they need new people because it's been the same 100 devs over there for decades. New faces are absolutely needed at BGS and they have grown immensely since Fallout 4, which was also well-received among the masses, regardless of what a vocal minority think. That not many significant names over there outside of Todd Howard and like a writer or two who aren't particularly liked by the fanbase.
Nintendo does 'tons' of JRPGs? Only first party JRPGs I can think of are Xenoblade and Fire Emblem. Pokemon counts, I guess, even though it's not strictly Nintendo-developed. Certainly more than Sony, but the overwhelming majority of JRPG output on the Switch has been third party.
I wish what you're saying was accurate though. Golden Sun needs to come back.
MS has a history of trying to milk franchises to death instead of building out new IP. I'd be so much more excited if that kind of money was spent on creating new studios and foster new IP. This? It's just going to be a whole lot more of the same.
Western RPGS yeah but after TGSs xbox showcase showed... no attempt on Japan market.
JPRGS are Sonys bred and butter, hell if i was sony I would try and get Atlas.
Also Larian in my opinion has kinda made all other western rpgs flush in embarrassment.. the divinity series and now the baldurs gate series just puts all other RPGS to shame...
Hate to say it Bioware are on thin 8ce after the disasters of andromeda and anthem..DA is a big game. No way that Sony dosent get some Western RPGS.
JPRGS are Sonys bred and butter, hell if i was sony I would try and get Atlas.
Also Larian in my opinion has kinda made all other western rpgs flush in embarrassment.. the divinity series and now the baldurs gate series just puts all other RPGS to shame...
Hate to say it Bioware are on thin 8ce after the disasters of andromeda and anthem..DA is a big game. No way that Sony dosent get some Western RPGS.
A cRPG PS exclusive wont be as successful as Sony would hope either.
Pretty much. All we need is a good Mass Effect reboot and this gen will be awesome
too bad it's artificial exclusivity for these RPGs. It's not like they didn't have these games before. The only difference is that they paid beaucoup bucks to take them away from other platforms, so honestly not sure how this makes any change for Xbox as a RPG brand
Whats wrong with saying that? Gamepass is very attractive. Personally however, this particular purchase arguably makes them less attractive to me. I mean literally they will have a larger catalog so there should be more that I can play. But the types of games that this publisher and recent acquisitions tend to be feels a bit tilted towards that western rpg/US 90s PC gaming type. Now I'm sure that makes no sense to you but its just not really a type of game I'm that interested in - I guess I've grown up more with C64/Amiga and then console games from SNES/N64/PS etc.
lol. what a take and the article is still not wrong you know. Xbox stands to be a WRPG powerhouse next gen.
Sega owns Atlus. Tho Sony buying Sega? Who knows what'll happen in the future.
For Bethesda maybe. For Playground, Obsidian, and inXile? Definitely not.
Microsoft helped build the Playground RPG team from the ground up. They have the same name, but its a brand new studio, getting close to 200 employees working on Fable.
Brian Fargo was going to retire after Wasteland 3. The Microsoft acquisition allowed him to hire more staff for the project, added more time for quality & polish. Their next game will probably be a bigger jump now that they are switching to Unreal Engine. They've also made some notable hires like the Senior God of War Combat Designer. Microsoft also put them in a brand new office. Because of the acquisition he decided to stay on and now gets to build his dream game. He did several interviews post-Wasteland 3 launch and you can hear him talk about how the Microsoft acquisition allowed them to improve Wasteland 3.
And as for Obsidian, while I enjoyed Outer Worlds, you can tell it was made on a budget. I'm hoping with Microsoft banking them they can finally make a AAA non-isometric WRPG. Those aren't cheap to make, and we've had a drought the past several years.
I can kinda see where you're coming from here. I.. sort of feel the same way? Idk. Maybe its that I'm older now, so I have less time to invest in games, or maybe its the past several years we've had so few WRPGs that I forgot how I much I loved them.
With that said, Zenimax does have several other studios under them who's production I'm really interested in going forward. Mainly Arkane and Roundhouse Games. I'll also give Doom Eternal a chance and see how I like it.
A new Enemy Territories Quake Wars would be dope tho.
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Thanks. Yeah I was wary posting as it sounded a bit crazy. But is is really more of a feeling than a carefully measured thing. And you're absolutely right its not a one-note publisher and there are other games like you mention. That was just my overarching feeling from this
You think established IPs can't innovate when Microsoft buys them? And isn't Starfield a new IP?
I am not surprised that western rpgs have always been at home on western owned platforms (windows PCs and xboxes). I'm surprised that some people are surprised about this. Sony is still a japanese company, remember? I mean, no one is surprised if JRPGs have always been more at home with them or nintendo, right?
Of their potential roster, I am probably most interested in Fable, since the originals at least had quite a lot of character (being inspired by Discworld) and where they go with this is a bit of a mystery. From Bethesda, I enjoyed Skyrim but Fallout 4 was probably my least favourite game I played this gen - still will keep an eye with what they have next. Obsidian...I haven't played many of their games. Only tried Pillars of Eternity, which I found archaic. It hasn't grabbed me at all. Inexile, I have no clue...I will try Wasteland 3 on gamepass probably. Anyway, I am excited about what these studios deliver, just not particularly based on their history, but more with regards to where they might go with the new hardware.
I think there is definitely potential there, but CD Project and Larian are the wrpg makers who currently excite me the most. Cyberpunk looks insane and Baldurs Gate 3 is also looking great, and they have recently really improved the graphics on that front.
Aside from those two though, I am looking forward to FFXVI, FFVII R 2 and Project Athia more than anything on the MS side. They will also all likely hit a year or so before on PS5. Plus, I personally consider Horizon an action rpg, and that is in the top 5 games I am anticipating.
PC, PS5 and Switch seems the best option for RPGs overall. Then PC. Between PS5 and Xbox. Xbox is obviously stronger for WRPGs, while PS5 still leads with JRPGs. Lots of rpgs to look forward to.
I think there is definitely potential there, but CD Project and Larian are the wrpg makers who currently excite me the most. Cyberpunk looks insane and Baldurs Gate 3 is also looking great, and they have recently really improved the graphics on that front.
Aside from those two though, I am looking forward to FFXVI, FFVII R 2 and Project Athia more than anything on the MS side. They will also all likely hit a year or so before on PS5. Plus, I personally consider Horizon an action rpg, and that is in the top 5 games I am anticipating.
PC, PS5 and Switch seems the best option for RPGs overall. Then PC. Between PS5 and Xbox. Xbox is obviously stronger for WRPGs, while PS5 still leads with JRPGs. Lots of rpgs to look forward to.
I meant by MS but I wouldn't want anyone to buy them. They are the only WRPG developer I care about really.
"reclaim"?
wouldn't that imply it ever had that reputation to begin with?
everyone knew of the original xbox as the fps console, both as a point of pride and an insult.
xbox 360 had a much, better more varied library than its older brother to be sure, but even then? i don't know if the 360 had a particular identity, but i never saw is the rpg console.
i missed pretty much all of the xbone years so i can't speak on this but didn't it have a much smaller library than the 360's?
wouldn't that imply it ever had that reputation to begin with?
everyone knew of the original xbox as the fps console, both as a point of pride and an insult.
xbox 360 had a much, better more varied library than its older brother to be sure, but even then? i don't know if the 360 had a particular identity, but i never saw is the rpg console.
i missed pretty much all of the xbone years so i can't speak on this but didn't it have a much smaller library than the 360's?
In the past several years we've had Fire Emblem, Xenoblade, Pokémon, Mario subserires (sometimes), Zelda (sometimes), Tokyo Mirage Sessions, Ring Fit, Astral Chain, Miitopia, Ever Oasis, etc. Plus tons of 3rd party stuff Nintendo picks up like Dragon Quest, TWEWY, Octopath, Bravely, Yokai Watch, Monster Hunter (Stories), and so on.
I'd agree on liking to see some historical Nintendo titles return though (Golden Sun, Earthbound, etc).
Once WRPG's became a thing I pretty much dropped JRPG's. The WRPG just skews more to what I want from a RPG game so yeah I'm excited for the future.
Zelda and Astral Chain are JRPGs? I feel you're using the term very loosely there lol
They certainly put more support behind the genre than PlayStation though and support third party titles well. That said, PlayStation gets far more JRPGs than Xbox and far more WRPGs than Switch so fans of the genre who own the systems aren't hurting for titles.
Maybe that's why they don't bother, even though they damn well should be when it's one of the genre's their brand is built on.
I don't know if all of Bethesda's games will be exclusive to PC/Xbox, but I'll assume they are, which sort of means any WRPG super fan sort of has to invest in one of these platforms.
Hell, even if they do come to PS5, it's still worth it to get an Xbox Series S/X as the savings you'd make playing these games via Game Pass and not having to buy them, could be put towards paying for the console itself (thus having more games to play on the system too).
Hell, even if they do come to PS5, it's still worth it to get an Xbox Series S/X as the savings you'd make playing these games via Game Pass and not having to buy them, could be put towards paying for the console itself (thus having more games to play on the system too).
WRPGs were the thing that inspired JRPGs though...
Bethesda is making Starfield currently, Obsidian is making Avowed.
By the time Bethesda wraps on Starfield and has TES6 close to release Obsidian could be doing the same with The Outer Worlds 2/Fallout.
Having overlap in these IPs is only a big thing if they inexplicably line up the medieval fantasy games or sci-fi games on the same release window, which they're actually already not on, so it would take active effort to fuck that up.
Prior to Outer Worlds what was the last major new WRPG release on consoles?
Outer Worlds did ok by all accounts but it wasn't a Skyrim/Fallout 3 level success and was also of narrower scope.
We're almost a decade away from when WRPGs were major market drivers and the company that was at the forefront of monetizing that, the company MS just bought, was directly involved in that as they moved Elder Scrolls into the MMO space and Fallout into the GaaS/MMO space.
There is a lot of potential there, sure, but the industry as basically synthesized the exploration/loot/leveling mechanics of WRPGs into the gameplay/narrative of Action/Adventure games this generation, with Sony leading the charge there alongside the Assassins Creed games. Discrete WRPGs haven't been sales relevant outside of Skyrim re-releases in half a decade.
FFXV and FF7R have probably moved more units combined on consoles (especially Sony consoles) than the field for WRPGs, unless you include The Witcher 3, which is really an action RPG more in line with FFXV and what we've seen of FFXVI than ES or Fallout.
Oh, I'm not talking about platforms overall, just the first parties. I'm not saying PlayStation is hurting for RPGs, only that Sony themselves could/should be doing a lot more. And they used to really (Wild Arms, Popolocrois, Arc the Lad, Alundra, Dark Cloud, etc)
I'd say Astral Chain and Zelda (sometimes!) are action RPGs but yes, the genre definition can be pretty wide in it's application. Ghost, Horizon and Bloodborne/Demon's Souls could all also qualify imo. Same with Minecraft actually.
Now you have jinxed it. I sure hope they stay independent as they seem to be doing really well now. Same with CDPR.
Atlus still publishes their games themselves. So if they were gonna support the Xbox, they would have been mentioned on their own.
Yeah, I get what you're saying. I'm just wondering why they don't bother supporting the genre as directly as Nintendo and now Microsoft, despite how well it does on their platform. Feels like it's negligence because the genre is so well supported on their systems, although that's just a theory.
I'd much rather they invested their money in funding RPGs than doing stuff like the FFXVI deal, even though I know it's markedly cheaper than putting a studio on a big AAA JRPG project for 4-5 years. The game would have come out on PS5 anyway and likely done better than it will on PC and Xbox anyway :/
Witcher 3 is WRPG unless you classify WRPGs having char creation be mandatory. Fallout 4 is another one and for all its faults it sold quite a lot. DAI also sold decently well, again, despite its faults.
WRPGs have all had action combat since Morrowind basically so that doesn't really count. Witcher's story and quest design solidly place it in WRPG template.
I think Cyberpunk is going to firmly put WRPGs back in the limelight though.
All that said, the real place for WRPGs is PC :P. Mind you, PoE series, Divinity series and Wasteland are all WRPGs even if they are isometric. BG3 is coming, new VtM Bloodlines as well. Going to be interesting few years.
It is changing. Xbox never had a DQ ever, now the latest mainline one is coming and to gamepass nonetheless. Same for Yakuza.
It's a long road ahead, but it seems Ms is finally making some strides in getting consistent support from Japanese companies.
It's because of XGP. XGP allows for them to get paid from MS and free marketing. I wouldn't be shocked if FF7R and FF16 are on XGP from day one or shortly after release.
They wanna make the Xbox the (W)RPG console? I dunno. Not exactly where the money is right now. Not exactly the kind of game for the largest community of gamers, I think. Sport games, shooters, BR's,... rather. Even Sony's 3rd person story shooters seem more appealing to a larger base.
Though Cyberpunk will do great & Skyrim/Witcher/… have done great (well that's been a while), I don't think the average FIFA/CoD/Fortnite/GTA-gamer is waiting for (W)RPGs.
And MS clearly aims to be n.1, so would they really want to associate their console with a genre that's not n°1?
I think they see it larger than that.
Though Cyberpunk will do great & Skyrim/Witcher/… have done great (well that's been a while), I don't think the average FIFA/CoD/Fortnite/GTA-gamer is waiting for (W)RPGs.
And MS clearly aims to be n.1, so would they really want to associate their console with a genre that's not n°1?
I think they see it larger than that.
Yup. They're taking the easiest road possible and in turn aren't giving their fans anything they wouldn't already have. It's really, really disappointing behavior, and it speaks to how little they care about the genre and its fans. It's effectively Sony going "meh, this'll shut 'em up".
Sometimes I feel like people saying you need a Playstation for the JRPGs are a gen out of touch. I think now that the gen is mostly over, looking back it's basically only Persona 5 Royal that will end up on PS4 that you can't get elsewhere? Bloodborne too, for RPGs in general. I'd also say PC is preferable to Xbox for WRPGs, if you have PC gaming accessible to you. I'd personally say for RPG fans you don't really need Xbox or Playstation. Switch/PC feels like the best combination. That said, the number of first party WRPGs that Xbox has built up is pretty impressive.
I played The Outer Worlds through to completion was kind of baffled at the great reviews, I feel like time will not be kind to that game.
It's hard not to feel that way. No one knows how much money they threw at Square Enix but it couldn't have been cheap, and I question the return of investment when the games sell overwhelmingly more units on PlayStation already. Almost feels like a "we did this because we could" move, rather than one that's actually going to do anything major for the brand.
We'll see though. I just don't understand why in a world where Microsoft and Nintendo have multiple first party RPGs in development, Sony doesn't.
It hasn't been true for a long time. In terms of consoles it has the best support from both ends of the spectrum but PC is still king, especially when you consider how much older stuff you can also pick up on the system.
No offense but the WRPG surge is largely because of Xbox
If Morrowind released on PC only as was Bethesda's original plan, Bethesda likely would not exist. It sold incredibly poorly on PC. (300k vs 4 million)
KOTOR did huge numbers, too. (500k vs 3+ million) Mass Effect as well. Fallout, too. We're talking numbers that are well beyond the best PC RPG sales numbers at the time.
This era was basically when PCs future as a platform was massively in doubt due to rampant piracy and lagging sales figures compared to consoles... this issue wasn't fixed until PC finally became a digital only platform.
These days are finally a bit different but if it wasn't for Xbox, WRPGs would have likely been in a really bad spot. It really was the platform the industry needed at just the right time to bridge the gap until PC platform as a whole fixed it's problems.
Bioware was the only company that could consistently sell games at the time. Even then the combined might of Bioware and Black Isle couldn't save Interplay.
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Like it wouldn't be so bad if they at least had ONE, but this "they have Horizon, they have Demon's Souls, so shut up!" mentality from the fans isn't helping. Horizon is not what any actual RPG fan is looking for when they ask for an RPG, and Soulsborne games are such a specific niche they barely even count.
You'd think fans of a platform would WANT it to have more games in a major genre but they seem dedicated to sidestepping the problem just like Sony is. I don't understand it at all.
Average Fifa/COD/Madden/NBA crowd did buy Skyrim, Witcher 3, Fallout 4, Assassin's Creed Origins/Odyssey, Horizons, etc... ARPGs and WRPGs can do great. As mentioned, Cyberpunk will do very well as well and then you got Starfield coming. Assassin's creed is going even deeper into ARPG/WRPG route now.
I loved Horizon and hyped to fuck for Demon's Souls but, and I think I may have said this the other day, the former is closer to Far Cry than it is something like Elder Scrolls or Witcher. A RPG, Japanese or otherwise, from the right team from PS Studios and marketed like their own flagship games would do really well. Maybe we'll be surprised this generation but I won't keep my hopes up.
Agreed. I regularly call Horizon a Far Cry game - it feels 100% like a Ubisoft Game(tm) game rather than the kind of RPG Sony fans try to claim it is.
Oh well. The splintering of the RPG genre has basically broken me on next-gen at this point. I don't have any reason to buy a PS5 moving forward if they aren't supporting the genre, and I'm not buying an Xbox as my only console because I can't lose access to all of my PS4 games. So unless something markedly changes on Sony's part I'm PROBABLY bowing out entirely.
I love JRPGs and the Xbox lineup does nothing for me. I miss the 360 era where they actually tried on this front and were getting solid exclusives (Blue Dragon, Lost Odyssey, Tales of Vesperia, plus miscellaneous smaller games like Operation Darkness & Magna Carta 2).