Cliff Bleszinski recently posed the question “The future of shooters is RPG’s, what is the future of RPG’s?” via twitter. It got me thinking, as do most things he says. My quick response was that RPG’s will coexist with shooters, that there won’t be an RPG as we know it now ten years down the road. I think I’d like to rescind that statement as I may not have thought it completely through.
RPG’s as we know them now will exist ten years down the road. I can’t say there won’t be a day when they cease to exist, but for the foreseeable future they’re here to stay. Having said that I think they’ll go through some changes. I think a lot of them will start to incorporate more co-op options as the online space continues to grow and increase in popularity. Gamers have spoken and we want co-op, even in our 50+ hour RPG’s. Hopefully the upcoming Hunted: Demons Forge can fuse the two in such a way that gamers rejoice and developers learn a valuable lesson.
The question as it was asked was "The future of shooters is RPG's" but shooters with RPG elements have been around for a while. More and more games incorporate elements more commonly found in RPG’s. Off the top of my head, Bioshock stands out as a great example. Even games like Madden are becoming increasingly more like RPG’s and less like football sims with the ability to level up and manage teams in far greater detail than they were 10 years ago. The best example may be Call of Duty with the inclusion of perks and weapon loadouts. The multiplayer is, in the strictest sense of the word, an RPG. You grind to gain levels and unlocks. It’s genius and as sales figures can attest, extremely popular.
So my final answer? We’ll see the marriage of RPG’s and shooters come to a head. I think games like Mass Effect and its sequel go a long way in showing how well the two can exist as one. It isn’t perfect, but it’s definitely a stepping stone in the right direction. At the same time RPG purists won’t be left by the wayside. They’ll have their fill, but maybe not as often as they’d like.
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