Role-Playing Shooter (Concept)

Role-Playing Shooter

CONCEPT

A Role-Playing Shooter (RPS) is a game that rolls both Shooting and Role-Playing elements together.

Overview

Role-Playing Shooter (RPS) refers to action RPG (action role-playing game) titles that utilize shooter mechanics (using guns or other long-range weaponry) for the real-time combat. The term RPS was first coined by Borderlands (Game) in 2009, but games combining RPG elements with combat can be traced as far back as the 8-bit and 16-bit eras, with early examples including Wibarm (Game) (1986), War of the Dead (Franchise) (1987), and Star Cruiser (Game) (1988), for example.

Role-playing shooters gained mainstream popularity in the 21st century, with titles such as Parasite Eve II (Game), Deus Ex (Franchise), Dirge of Cerberus: Final Fantasy VII, Mass Effect (Franchise), Valkyria Chronicles (Franchise), and Fallout 3 (Game). This has led to even traditional (FPS) titles such as the Call of Duty (Franchise) series incorporating RPG elements; though this somewhat blurs the line, Role-Playing Shooters can be distinguished from such games with their greater emphasis on RPG elements.