Steam Wrapped got me thinking about games from 2023, so here are some thoughts/recommendations/anti-recommendations. The theme of this year for me was apparently RPGs made by studios whose RPGs I had played before:
Baldur’s Gate 3: Game of the Year for a reason; took me a bit over a hundred hours on the hardest difficulty setting. (They’ve since released a harder one.) Doesn’t require experience with Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition specifically, or the previous Baldur’s Gate games, tho those enhance the experience. Much more a continuation of Larian’s previous RPGs than of the old Baldur’s Gate series, which I think is a good thing? Extremely flexible and detailed; you can often be clever and get around things and the game rewards you for it. RPGs like these are often made or broken by the quality of the companion NPCs, and I think the crew they have you assemble is a memorable one worth getting to know. Something about playing it felt like it captured the D&D experience (both upsides and downsides) pretty well? Theater kids were involved in the creation of this game, in a good way.
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: a sequel to their previous open world Zelda game, and IMO the best ‘sequel’ I’ve seen? In the sense of, they know you played the first game, and so now it’s the same thing, but different. Set only a few years after the first game, the map is basically the same (with the new features being mostly vertical expansion—there’s now a skyworld and an underworld), your horses from the first game are available in the stables, many recognize you as the guy that saved the world recently. The new physics engine is nice, but the overall plot is… simple but neat? Continuing the theme of “the thing you expect (including novelty!), done competently”
Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader: a new game, and the first Warhammer 40k CRPG. I’m still going thru this one and so don’t have a fully realized take here. Made by the people who made Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, both of which have an overworld management map plus standard RPG character progression / combat. In Kingmaker, where you’re the baron of a new region carved out of the wilderness, I thought it didn’t quite fit together (your kingdom management doesn’t really matter compared to the RPG plot); in Wrath of the Righteous, where you’re appointed the head of a crusade against the Worldwound, I thought it did (mostly b/c of the crusade battle mechanic, a HoMM-style minigame, tho you could see seams where the two systems joined together imperfectly); in Rogue Trader you’re a, well, Rogue Trader, i.e. someone tasked by the God-Emperor of humanity to expand the borders of the Imperium by operating along the frontier, and given significant license in how you choose to do so. You own a flagship (with thousands of residents, most of whom live in clans of people doing the same job for generations!) and several planets, tho ofc this is using sci-fi logic where each planet is basically a single city. There’s also a space-battle minigame to add spice to the overworld exploration. I am finding the background politics / worldview / whatever of the game quite interesting; the tactical combat is fine but I’m playing on the “this is my first time playing this game” difficulty setting and thinking I probably should have picked a higher one. The Warhammer 40k universe takes infohazards seriously, including the part where telling people what not to think is itself breaking infosec. So you get an extremely dogmatic and siloed empire, where any sort of change is viewed with suspicion as being treason promoted by the Archenemy (because, to be fair, it sometimes is!). Of course, you’ve got much more flexibility because you inherited an executive order signed by God that says, basically, you can do what you want, the only sort of self-repair the system allows. (But, of course, the system is going about it in a dumb way—you inherit the executive order, rather than having been picked by God!) The three main ‘paths’ you can take are being Dogmatic yourself, being an Iconoclast (i.e. humanist), or being a Heretic (i.e. on the side of the Archenemy); I haven’t yet seen whether the game sycophantically tells you that you made the right choice whatever you pick / the consequences are immaterial or not.
Starfield: Bethesda’s first new RPG setting in a while. It was… fine? Not very good? I didn’t really get hooked by any of the companions (my favorite Starfield companion was less compelling than my least favorite BG3 companion), the whole universe was like 3 towns plus a bunch of procedurally generated ‘empty’ space, the outpost building was not well-integrated with the rest of the game’s systems (it was an upgrade over Fallout 4′s outpost-building in some ways but not others), and the central conceit of the plot was, IMO, self-defeating. Spoilers later, since they don’t fit well in bulleted lists.
Darkest Dungeon II: ok this isn’t really an RPG and so doesn’t belong on this list, but mentioning it anyway. IMO disappointing compared to Darkest Dungeon. I’m not quite sure what I liked less well, but after 16 hours I decided I would rather play Darkest Dungeon (which I put 160 hours into) and so set it down.
The promised Starfield spoilers:
First, just like in Skyrim you get magic powers and you can get more magic powers by exploring places. But whereas Skyrim tries very hard to get you to interact with dragons / being dragonborn early on, Starfield puts your first power later and doesn’t at all advertise “you should actually do this mission”. Like, the world map opens up before you unlock that element of gameplay. Which… is sort of fine, because your magic powers are not especially good? I didn’t feel the need to hop thru enough universes to chase them all down.
That is, the broader premise is that you can collect some artifacts (which give you the powers), go thru the eye of the universe, and then appear in another universe where you keep your skills and magic powers but lose your items and quest progression. So you can replay the game inside of the game! Some NPCs also have this ability and you’re generally fighting them for the artifacts (but not racing, since they never go faster than you). Two characters are the same guy, one who’s been thru hundreds of universes and the other thousands; the latter argues you should pick a universe and stick with it. But the net effect is basically the game asking you to not play it, and generally when games do that I take them seriously and stop.
And furthermore, the thing you would most want to do with a new run—try out a new build and new traits or w/e—is the one thing you can’t change in their New Game+. If you picked that you were born in the UC, then you’ll always be born in the UC, no matter how many times you go thru the Eye. Which, sure, makes sense, but—if I replay Rogue Trader, I’m going to do it with a different origin and class, not just go down a different path. (Like, do I even want to see the plot with a Heretic protagonist?) If I replay Baldur’s Gate III, same deal. But Starfield? If I pick it up again, maybe I’ll play my previous character and maybe I’ll start afresh, but it feels like they should really want me to pick up my old character again. I think they thought I would be enticed to see “what if I played out this quest aligned with a different faction?” but they are mostly about, like, identification instead of consequences. “Do you want the pirates to win or the cops to win?” is not a question I expect people to want to see both sides of.
Steam Wrapped got me thinking about games from 2023, so here are some thoughts/recommendations/anti-recommendations. The theme of this year for me was apparently RPGs made by studios whose RPGs I had played before:
Baldur’s Gate 3: Game of the Year for a reason; took me a bit over a hundred hours on the hardest difficulty setting. (They’ve since released a harder one.) Doesn’t require experience with Dungeons & Dragons, 5th edition specifically, or the previous Baldur’s Gate games, tho those enhance the experience. Much more a continuation of Larian’s previous RPGs than of the old Baldur’s Gate series, which I think is a good thing? Extremely flexible and detailed; you can often be clever and get around things and the game rewards you for it.
RPGs like these are often made or broken by the quality of the companion NPCs, and I think the crew they have you assemble is a memorable one worth getting to know. Something about playing it felt like it captured the D&D experience (both upsides and downsides) pretty well? Theater kids were involved in the creation of this game, in a good way.
Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom: a sequel to their previous open world Zelda game, and IMO the best ‘sequel’ I’ve seen? In the sense of, they know you played the first game, and so now it’s the same thing, but different. Set only a few years after the first game, the map is basically the same (with the new features being mostly vertical expansion—there’s now a skyworld and an underworld), your horses from the first game are available in the stables, many recognize you as the guy that saved the world recently. The new physics engine is nice, but the overall plot is… simple but neat? Continuing the theme of “the thing you expect (including novelty!), done competently”
Warhammer 40k: Rogue Trader: a new game, and the first Warhammer 40k CRPG. I’m still going thru this one and so don’t have a fully realized take here. Made by the people who made Pathfinder: Kingmaker and Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, both of which have an overworld management map plus standard RPG character progression / combat. In Kingmaker, where you’re the baron of a new region carved out of the wilderness, I thought it didn’t quite fit together (your kingdom management doesn’t really matter compared to the RPG plot); in Wrath of the Righteous, where you’re appointed the head of a crusade against the Worldwound, I thought it did (mostly b/c of the crusade battle mechanic, a HoMM-style minigame, tho you could see seams where the two systems joined together imperfectly); in Rogue Trader you’re a, well, Rogue Trader, i.e. someone tasked by the God-Emperor of humanity to expand the borders of the Imperium by operating along the frontier, and given significant license in how you choose to do so. You own a flagship (with thousands of residents, most of whom live in clans of people doing the same job for generations!) and several planets, tho ofc this is using sci-fi logic where each planet is basically a single city. There’s also a space-battle minigame to add spice to the overworld exploration.
I am finding the background politics / worldview / whatever of the game quite interesting; the tactical combat is fine but I’m playing on the “this is my first time playing this game” difficulty setting and thinking I probably should have picked a higher one. The Warhammer 40k universe takes infohazards seriously, including the part where telling people what not to think is itself breaking infosec. So you get an extremely dogmatic and siloed empire, where any sort of change is viewed with suspicion as being treason promoted by the Archenemy (because, to be fair, it sometimes is!). Of course, you’ve got much more flexibility because you inherited an executive order signed by God that says, basically, you can do what you want, the only sort of self-repair the system allows. (But, of course, the system is going about it in a dumb way—you inherit the executive order, rather than having been picked by God!) The three main ‘paths’ you can take are being Dogmatic yourself, being an Iconoclast (i.e. humanist), or being a Heretic (i.e. on the side of the Archenemy); I haven’t yet seen whether the game sycophantically tells you that you made the right choice whatever you pick / the consequences are immaterial or not.
Starfield: Bethesda’s first new RPG setting in a while. It was… fine? Not very good? I didn’t really get hooked by any of the companions (my favorite Starfield companion was less compelling than my least favorite BG3 companion), the whole universe was like 3 towns plus a bunch of procedurally generated ‘empty’ space, the outpost building was not well-integrated with the rest of the game’s systems (it was an upgrade over Fallout 4′s outpost-building in some ways but not others), and the central conceit of the plot was, IMO, self-defeating. Spoilers later, since they don’t fit well in bulleted lists.
Darkest Dungeon II: ok this isn’t really an RPG and so doesn’t belong on this list, but mentioning it anyway. IMO disappointing compared to Darkest Dungeon. I’m not quite sure what I liked less well, but after 16 hours I decided I would rather play Darkest Dungeon (which I put 160 hours into) and so set it down.
The promised Starfield spoilers:
First, just like in Skyrim you get magic powers and you can get more magic powers by exploring places. But whereas Skyrim tries very hard to get you to interact with dragons / being dragonborn early on, Starfield puts your first power later and doesn’t at all advertise “you should actually do this mission”. Like, the world map opens up before you unlock that element of gameplay. Which… is sort of fine, because your magic powers are not especially good? I didn’t feel the need to hop thru enough universes to chase them all down.
That is, the broader premise is that you can collect some artifacts (which give you the powers), go thru the eye of the universe, and then appear in another universe where you keep your skills and magic powers but lose your items and quest progression. So you can replay the game inside of the game! Some NPCs also have this ability and you’re generally fighting them for the artifacts (but not racing, since they never go faster than you). Two characters are the same guy, one who’s been thru hundreds of universes and the other thousands; the latter argues you should pick a universe and stick with it. But the net effect is basically the game asking you to not play it, and generally when games do that I take them seriously and stop.
And furthermore, the thing you would most want to do with a new run—try out a new build and new traits or w/e—is the one thing you can’t change in their New Game+. If you picked that you were born in the UC, then you’ll always be born in the UC, no matter how many times you go thru the Eye. Which, sure, makes sense, but—if I replay Rogue Trader, I’m going to do it with a different origin and class, not just go down a different path. (Like, do I even want to see the plot with a Heretic protagonist?) If I replay Baldur’s Gate III, same deal. But Starfield? If I pick it up again, maybe I’ll play my previous character and maybe I’ll start afresh, but it feels like they should really want me to pick up my old character again. I think they thought I would be enticed to see “what if I played out this quest aligned with a different faction?” but they are mostly about, like, identification instead of consequences. “Do you want the pirates to win or the cops to win?” is not a question I expect people to want to see both sides of.