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/Shiriru00 9h ago

The problem with the "chosen one" trope is not really the power creep, it's that the whole world revolves around you.

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u/localpauper 8h ago

I always found that refreshing in The Wticher series. Witcher is a total badass, but he's just a drop in the stream of reality. The world does not require his existence to continue.

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u/Bryligg 7h ago

Right, Geralt is a professional. This implies a profession. The world does not revolve around him because he is but one of many badasses a cut above the common people. He has protagonist/player character agency, but that's rare rather than unique. If he doesn't solve the problem, the quest giver can always just hire somebody else.

Honestly The Witcher is a great setting for an MMO.

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u/localpauper 5h ago

Speaking of MMOs, that's been my biggest disappointment with more recent installment of WoW, and most other major MMOs. In Vanilla WoW, the PC was a total shmuck, one of a myriad. If the PC dies, the dragons will be fought by other people, the orcs will still come, and be defeated by other heroes and faction leaders. The PC was a warrior among many.

Nowadays, the PC is on first-name basis with every faction leader, is treated like they are part of a tiny select elite force. Heck, in Shadowlands it was even implied that you were The One for certain classes, as by lore There Can Be Only One.

MMOs fundamentally are incongruous with chosen heroes. That's always been the biggest pet peeve of mine: you made a huge world populated by all manner of setting and story, yet somehow you made me - the PC - pivotal to its progress, in a world full of other people, who are The Chosen One in their own canon.

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u/Cheet4h 4h ago

This is part of why I usually prefer sandbox MMOs (EVE Online, Ultima Online) over theme park MMOs. Especially Ultima Online has quite a number of roleplay freeshards, and the engine actually supports that properly (unlike trying to shoehorn RP gameplay in a theme park MMO).

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u/Lazy_Sorbet_3925 1h ago

One of the reasons I'm excited for Forever. I don't need to be the golden god. 

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u/Ink_Smudger 0m ago

This is one reason I appreciated the approach City of Heroes took. Yes, you were a superhero, but you were one among many and by no means considered to be anywhere near top tier. Even when you faced the harder villains, it was often treated as something that was accomplished with others and not that you were specially chosen for any particular reason. You gained more recognition as you leveled up in the world, but it never made off where the world revolved around your character or that you were singular in its events.

It felt more like how an MMO should feel where you're part of the story, not the entire thing. It fully acknowledged that there were others out there doing the same things.

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u/SnooCats3468 6h ago

I liked that about Cyberpunk as well. CDPR has some folks who know what's up

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u/MobiusF117 6h ago

Cyberpunk takes it to a whole new level, honestly.
Whatever ending you get, the world keeps spinning and Night City remains the same.

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u/Chowder110 3h ago

Well
Aside from the great frost