The RPG Files

Here on the Internet, we love a good debacle. This weekend, the most beloved gaming retailer in the world teamed up with the world’s most beloved RPG publisher to collectively “piss off the internet”. Valve and Bethesda trying to monetize Skyrim mods? It’s on hold for now but paid modding is far from dead.

Sometimes, you just want a new game. You’ve made your way through your backlog or scrolled through and found nothing that strikes your fancy. So, you turn to Steam, hit that RPG button and hope to find the next undiscovered gem. Except, it almost never happens like that. You’re hit with a wall of DLC; a torrent of 16-bit nightmares; and then you notice that even the featured games are mostly hybrids or completely misplaced in the genre. With an ecosystem so big, why is Steam so bad?

Hot on the heels of this month’s confirmation that The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt would take 200 hours to complete, we have confirmation that a playtester made his way through the game in only 25 hours. Is this The Order: 1886 all over again?

CD Projekt Red astounded fans this week by announcing two expansion packs for The Witcher 3 this week. Totaling more than 30 hours of game time, and on the back of sixteen free pieces of DLC already coming, The Witcher 3 is out to set a new standard for fan service. The studio also took to Twitter to answer questions from its fans and revealed new information in the process. All that and more in this week’s RPG Files!

The Year of the RPG continues to steam along with more and more quality titles releasing as the months march along. This week is no exception, with new titles coming out and old favorites being updated. Add in a dash of general news about some and it works out to another great week for RPG fans.

Pillars of Eternity can be a daunting game. If you’ve never played an Infinity Engine title before, there can be a lot to learn! We’ve compiled a list of tips to get you started so you can bypass the learning curve and get straight into the game. Read on to hit the ground running!

Final Fantasy Type-0. Bloodborne. Borderlands: The Handsome Collection. Pillars of Eternity. Over a short two weeks, we RPG fans are treated to an onslaught of quality games unlike any other month in recent memory. It’s a month to be excited for and you’d better believe we are! Here’s why.

At GDC this week, Valve rocked the gaming world with the unveiling of the virtual reality headset, the Vive. Not to be outdone, Sony revealed their updated Project Morpheus VR headset which leads the industry in hardware, but remains exclusive to PlayStation devices. With release dates of less than a year, virtual reality is coming, but will it succeed?

Week after week, we hear the same things: That’s not an RPG! That’s not an MMO! Why are you covering that? In this week’s RPG Files, we’re going to look at what makes an RPG in 2015 and why it’s time for our definitions to evolve.

The games media has been on fire this week. The topic, not for the first time, has been Steam Early Access – or more precisely, Peter Molyneux, but we’ll get to that later. Amidst all the chaos of broken promises and players rightfully feeling taken for a ride, we’ve had the chance to play a game that does Early Access right: Red Hook Studios’ Darkest Dungeon. It’s a game with fresh ideas and a sense of style.

Bioware made it official this week: Shadow Realms has been cancelled. The promising idea -- a never-ending 4-versus-1 RPG -- wasn’t enough to keep the tide from turning at Bioware Austin and now a wide swath of hopeful fans are disappointed. But should we be? Read on as we look at what might have happened and the gilding on this otherwise sorrowful lily.

you’re forgiven if your response was, “wait, that zombie game?” Even though the marketing did an terrible job of explaining the RPG side of Dying Light, I’ve spent a few hours with the game and have no reservations: Dying Light has the reanimated heart of a roleplaying game. Purists may not be happy, but if can wrap your head around first-person, zombie smashing, breakneck parkour with a dash of survival, and deep character progression, you have a first-of-its-kind RPG.

Star Citizen is one of the most highly anticipated games being developed in years. The game has defied expectation, time and again, and built up one of the most dedicated fanbases on the internet. This week, fans were lucky enough to receive an official path to release, a timetable for what to expect this year and the starry-eyed “commercial launch” of 2016.

My name is Chris, and I have a problem. In 2009, I realized that I don’t like Fallout. I have tried, over and over, to connect with what gamers love in these titles and just can’t. Games have been bought and rebought chasing the elusive dragon that is the post-apocalypse. I’ve made excuses, rolled multiple characters, and forced myself to play. I like Elder Scrolls, so why not this? This is my story.

January is the perfect time for reflection. It’s the start of a new year, a breath of fresh air after the last; a time to look back on the prior twelve months and learn the lessons that need to be learned before moving forward. I have a lesson for the games industry in case it missed it: stop trying to copy MMORPGs. Your games are worse because of it.