r/gaming • u/Asianboiforwhitedad • 10h ago

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'

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/
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u/slip_and_fall_school 9h ago

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.

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u/damhow 9h ago

Who wants to play an adventure RPG where you don’t become an impactful person? You can’t be regular and highly impactful, it’s a bit of an oxymoron.

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u/Desertcow 9h ago

Tbf one of the most praised RPGs of the last decade is about an alcoholic cop in a backwater city solving one minor murder case

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u/Zenspy-Real 8h ago

Not exactly minor since that one murder was about to trigger the death of the whole town, if Harry wasn't there then it would have been a massacre.

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u/Taliesin_ 4h ago

Big spoiler from Sacred & Terrible Air, the novel that takes place ~20 years after the events of Disco Elysium, you have been warned: Revachol has a nuclear bomb dropped on it, and the rest of the world is rapidly consumed by an accelerating Pale amidst a bloody global war.

So yeah, ultimately, Harry's case is a blip on the radar. And it doesn't need to be more than that to be incredibly interesting all the same.

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u/OkkRespect 9h ago

that’s a pretty good counterexample. Disco Elysium shows you can be a complete mess of a person and still have a meaningful impact without becoming some unstoppable hero.

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u/EarthRester 8h ago

I'm a Hobo-Cop, and I'm here to start Communism! Now give me a bite of that sandwich!

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u/Pipe_Memes 8h ago

Now watch me shoot a ten year old dead for mouthing off to me and end the game in the first 30 minutes.

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u/delahunt 7h ago

"Watch me die because I'm an unfit fuck and I tried too hard to get my tie in the first 5 minutes."

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u/PsychedelicPill 7h ago

Happened to my first try

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u/TallBoy24 4h ago

Fuck Cuno that foul mouthed cunt lmfao , although it was cathartic to get him to right his ways and make him realize his dad is an alcoholic drug addicted chud

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u/TheVog 5h ago

I want to say she had a weapon in my playthrough, but maybe I was blinded by rage

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u/MonaganX 7h ago

A complete mess of a person that's strongly implied to have genuinely paranormal abilities though.

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u/DrTornado 5h ago

Strongly implied by the voices in his head*

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u/TheVog 5h ago

And while being an incredible fuck-up! There are so so many scenes where this plays out. We're not talking fuck-ups like Cloud saying something awkward in FF7 here, we're talking about shooting a child in a vacant lot.

DE is one of the wildest and greatest games of all time.

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u/raznov1 6h ago

Sure, but how many disco elysiums do we need?

Its a game, and narrative style, thats certainly not for wveryone. At least, it wasnt for me.

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u/ShinyGrezz 8h ago

I haven’t played it, I’ll say that upfront, but I’m sure that the MC of Disco Elysium is still important within the boundaries of the plot’s scope.

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u/chipmunksocute 8h ago

Yeah in the sense he's trying to stop a gang war massacre but his actions have no larger world ramifications like solving a major conflict, saving the day, whatever.  You're just a fucked up washed out cop who used to be good trying to solve a murder in the slums.  You're still just a cop when all's said and done

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u/Ktulusanders 8h ago

This isn't necessarily true depending on how you choose to resolve the dispute between the union and the board

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u/Desertcow 3h ago

He stiffles a minor gang war between a mob and 3 mercenaries but a lot of the game is focused on the city's political future, and ultimately the MC just minorly dampens tensions in the city

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u/NibblyPig 4h ago

Interestingly I played about 30 mins of this game and thought, christ my character should just kill himself, why would I want to play a game where I'm an absolute chronic fucked up miserable loser. Then I uninstalled it.

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u/Teantis 3h ago

Because there are wider stories that are interesting than power fantasies. And cRPGs can be a story telling platform beyond with a wider set of stories than just a stats go up and I kill stuff better type of story

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u/Desertcow 3h ago

Completely fair, the first hour of the game is cringing at how far of a hole Raphael dug for himself. It's one of the best games about climbing back out of rock bottom and finding meaning though

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u/Aggressive-Map-2204 7h ago

Never heard of it.

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u/Jerm0510 5h ago

It's one of the greatest narrative experiences I've had in gaming, with only the original Mass Effect trilogy rivalling my personal top spot. If non-combat, dialog tree-driven storytelling RPGs appeal to you, I absolutely recommend it.

https://store.steampowered.com/app/632470/Disco_Elysium__The_Final_Cut/

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u/Few_Confusion_1871 3h ago

I'd rather just watch it as a film or tv show, can we keep games as games?

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u/XiahouMao 3h ago

You can't really watch it as a film/TV show when there's so much agency as the player to make choices and alter how things resolve.

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u/MountScottRumpot 3h ago

It would not work at all as a show. Gaming is inherent to its storytelling.

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u/Sethicles2 4h ago

I think this example is a bit disingenuous. Disco Elysium is a visual novel, not a playable RPG. And solving that one murder is pretty damn important.

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u/Teantis 3h ago

What makes you think it's not an rpg.

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u/No_Helicopter1378 3h ago

I would personally define it along the lines of "an interactable visual novel with RPG elements."

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u/Sethicles2 2h ago

It's a different kind of RPG; it's one you read, not really one you play.

There's a big difference between this game and RPG's that you directly control your character, level up, improve skills and abilities, acquire weapons and armor, etc. In those types of RPG's, it's a lot harder for the narrative to disregard you as unimportant or "just some guy".