Bioware Will Continue to Stray From the "Core" RPG

Fans of menus, pausing combat, turn-based action, and crunching numbers beware! Bioware has descended from on high to inform gamers that they will continue to “dumb down” their games with more exciting elements from other genres instead of reverting back to forcing players to control a character that is nothing more than a mathematical equation! The death of the core RPG is imminent! The end is nigh!

All joking aside, Ray Muzyka and Greg Zeschuk of Bioware stated in a recent interview with Eurogamer that their focus on implementing more action into their games is a real and likely possibility.

“We see a lot of other genres incorporating features of RPGs and in turn RPGs are incorporating features of other genres.  There are more action elements, there’s different ways to tell a story, there’s different ways to have characters interact for adventure games, action games, shooters, and that’s exciting to us.”

Don’t go grab your flamethrowers and opinion-enforcing Wikipedia articles just yet, kids, let’s think about this. Yes, in it’s early days Bioware gave us some of the best RPGs of all time with all the number crunching we could eat. Although not a fan of that type of game myself, it’s a great system. Anyone interested has loads of fun figuring out the best possible gear and skill configurations for maximum monster killing efficiency. With that in mind, one thing we can all agree on is that Bioware has always been about telling a story. Does anyone honestly believe we would have gotten the incredible story out of Mass Effect 2 if hundreds of development hours had been spent attempting to update the disorganized mess of RPG elements the first game had? Of course not.

I think it’s about time we all faced the fact that role playing games being synonymous with spreadsheet battles is becoming less and less true. There’s a bit of a divide at play here. Number crunching gameplay has moved in into the MMO realm. There’s considerably less of an emphasis on story, leaving players free to create mathematically perfect powerhouses to dominate other players or band together into an unstoppable algorithm of death. Story driven gameplay is becoming easier, but more emotionally engaging and satisfying in its own right. Players are free to experience the story at their own pace and make continuity changing decisions without having to worry about grinding or making sure that they have enough of a critical hit percentage to be effective against their enemies.

Bioware is moving into the latter territory and I for one support them, even if it means we might see another Dragon Age II here and there. Besides, it’s not like games that let the constant stress of character configuration and grinding get in the way of a good story are going anywhere. Final Fantasy games are still coming out.

Source: Sarcastic Gamer