Techland, whose most well known work is not a fantasy game, has recently revealed that it's working on a fantasy game. You can swap out 'Techland' for 'IO Interactive' and that sentence still makes perfect sense. And, while it hasn't been announced yet, rumours are that you'll soon be able to say the same thing about Naughty Dog. Th🐭at’s three major studios who have never really explor༒ed fantasy before, suddenly jumping in to take on the genre with what will definitely be a huge project. Where has this trend come from, and what does it mean for the next few years of gaming?
Right off the bat, I'm in favour of any of these three games individually, at least on a conceptual level. All three studios have reliable franchises they could lean on, and yet instead they're each exploring fresh IP. It's an approach that should be celebrated, and as modern media as a whole (but especially gaming) becomes dependent on fewer and fewer behemoths with no room for anything else, doing something new is worthwhile. But if three teams are doing the same new thing at the same time, how new even is it?
I'm going to leave 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog out of it for now, because its game hasn't been revealed, so it might not even be fantasy (The Last of Us Part 3 has not been ruled out), and if it is, this next criticism might not apply to it. In revealing their respective games, IOI and Techland have both played their cards close to their chest - too close. All we've seen from both is generic fantasy concept art, the likes of which we've seen a million times before. This doesn't mean the games will have no personality, visual or otherwise, but it's hard to get too excited about two teams who have limited fantasy experience making a fantasy game that looks like any given piece of 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dungeons & Dragons art.
Generic doesn't necessarily mean bad. My favourite fantasy game is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age, and what makes that special is the depth the characters offer and the ways you can build out your character in diverse ways - most of its environments and designs are typical fantasy fare. In second place would be Fable, which looks very similar, albeit with a more cartoonish style and, in later games, a steampunk edge. The fantasy game I'm most looking forward to this year is 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur's Gate 3, and again, same issue.
But that's only proof of why this is such a problem. Those are three well-established series and we know what makes each of them stand out. Judging from recent stories of it copying The Witcher, the Fable team might not know why it stands out, but that's another story. Those three can bring in a reliable crowd, but IOI and Techland are starting from scratch, and it feels like a mistake to not try to offer something in the way of aesthetic appeal. I understand wanting to instantly appeal to your audience by looking recognisable, but when that means looking the same as everyone else, there's a limit.
Besides, you can still be instantly 'fantasy' while having a fresh take on your own visual identity. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Elden Ring, with its abandoned castles, open fields, and craggy mountains, sounds like any other fantasy setting, but it twists everything darkly into something new. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:FromSoftware had made fantasy games prior to Elden Ring of course, so perhaps that offers a sense of confidence that first time devs cannot ever capture. I'm happy that IOI, Techland, and Naughty Dog are all branching out. I'm just wary that they could all be doing the same thing, and not quite as good as the people who already do it.
Fantasy games also tend to be the biggest genre to create, and I'm not sure that's a good fit for any team. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Naughty Dog is a huge advocate 🔯for crunch, and there's a lot more that may require crunch in a 70 hour open world experience over a linear 25 adventure. Techland caught backlash for (fairly silly) brags that 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dying Light 2 could take 500 hours and ꦺhad more 📖words than Anna Karenina. And IOI specialises in small but immersive set-pieces through Hitman, and I don't know how you do that in a massive world.
As I already said, ultimately we should praise these studios for attempting to create something entirely fresh instead of trading on IP and sequels. But if that fresh thing is just 'our version of Dragon Age', how fresh is it? These games are a decent way off yet, and I would love to eat my hat inside a humble pie if these turn out to be visually spectacular, unique interpretations of the fantasy genre, but right now it feels like too much of a good thing.