Kingdom Come Deliverance studio co-founder says a lot of RPGs are 'still games for teenagers,' and that he's 'tired of all the RPGs where you are this chosen one'

[u/Asianboiforwhitedad]

https://www.pcgamer.com/games/rpg/kingdom-come-deliverance-studio-co-founder-says-a-lot-of-rpgs-are-still-games-for-teenagers-and-that-hes-tired-of-all-the-rpgs-where-you-are-this-chosen-one/

[u/slip_and_fall_school]

In a way, he's not wrong.

However, even in games like KCD 1&2 where it is explicitly and repeatedly made clear that you're a nothing and nobody you still get to a point where Henry is a terminator.

Not really sure how to balance the "just a regular guy" ethos and the wish fulfillment and player agency that most gamers desire, or at least I haven't found a game that hits the sweet spot.

[u/EternalCanadian → u/slip_and_fall_school]

It’s about how you frame things in relation to other characters, really.

Gears of War E-Day (not an RPG, but it’s applicable here due to story) does a good job at this, because your squad is just one of dozens foghting in a single city, and as you go through the game you link up with multiple other squads doing the same thing.

Resistance Fall of Man does similar, even with your character explicitly being special, it basically always frames things around other people, not just you, even if gameplay makes you important, the stiry doesn’t.

For example, in Resistance, the games’s final mission is about getting inside an alien tower to destroy it. A game where you’re the chosen one would phrase things as “…it was now up to Nathan Hale (the player character) to get inside and destroy the tower.” But Resistance actually frames it as “…it was now up to the few soldiers who had gotten inside the tower to destroy it.”

It’s a small thing, but it helps convey you’re not actually all that impressive because just by proxy, other characters are doing similar things.