Why RPGs may be the most important genre in videogames.

When you break it down, all games can be described as Role Playing Games of a sort. Even when you're playing a racing game you assume the role of driver. In a beat 'em up, you adopt the role of combatant, eventually settling with a personal favourite. Every game casts you in a role and in becoming involved with a game's plot or structure of progression we essentially become the central figure in the game, we take on the role of protagonist.

<~ Oblivion's expansive vistas stop you dead in your tracks. In short, they're never anything less than breathtaking.

There's no purer expression of this level of involvement as that demonstrated in the RPG. Normally, your first action is to name your character, an immediate statement of ownership, stamping your identity on the game's central player. Recent RPGs like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion (Christ…not bloody Elder Scrolls again) and World Of Warcraft take this a step further, allowing you to create and personalise your own hero from scratch, down to the most miniscule of details. Increasingly more games are going down this avenue, enabling you to create your own character or edit and modify the existing protagonist. Sports games have allowed you to create your own players since the 16-bit days with early iterations of EA’s FIFA and NBA Live games. As games have evolved, so too have the wealth of options available for obsessive tweaking and customising. More recently, games like Grand Theft Auto have gradually introduced customisation options to each new version of the game. In Vice City, it began with being able to change Tommy Vercetti’s outfits subsequently leading to being able to customise CJ’s hair, clothes, body art and even physical appearance in San Andreas. However, in an unexpected decision, Rockstar have decided to reduce the number of customisation options available to the player for GTA IV. You’ll be able to change Niko Bellic’s outfits as in Vice City, but you won’t be given the option of transforming him into a slow, obese man mountain by devouring obscene amounts of Cluckin’ Bell chicken, Burger Shot burgers and cans of Sprunk. This appears to be a conscious choice on Rockstar’s part in keeping with the more realistic feel and aesthetic the team are adopting for their hotly anticipated sequel. It’s a decision that has confounded gamer’s expectations by flying in the face of what is currently a la mode in gaming, that is adding increased depth in the form of elements borrowed from the RPG. Conventions such as levelling up to reinforce the impression of character progression or evolution, unlocking new abilities or improving skills you already have, making your character stronger, faster, better. Games like Forza Motorsport, NBA 2K7, Virtua Tennis 3, Need For Speed and Tekken 5 have all added in-depth customisation options to their exhaustive list of features. These types of features are fast becoming a staple in the majority of games, whether it’s simply changing the colour of your car, dressing up a fighter in a panda suit or creating a custom player from scratch, the influence of the RPG becomes increasingly apparent. Granting the player the ability to evolve and grow as the game progresses, to ultimately personalise their own game experience are key elements that have been adapted from RPGs and continue to become more commonplace. With the advent of sand box gaming, games are taking the notion of freedom to a higher level. Though not necessarily an RPG staple, freedom is now the watchword for the lion’s share of today’s games and titles like Elder Scrolls IV: Oblivion, Grand Theft Auto, Mercenaries and more like them have embraced this by offering players expansive, immersive environments where the game world is your playground to do whatever you wish. Forthcoming games like Mass Effect, Assassin’s Creed, Crysis and GTA IV pride themselves on their seamless, sprawling worlds, spoiling gamers for other titles with their fully realised, intricately detailed environments.

RPGs may prove to be the most important genre in videogaming as games continue heading down this route in order to satisfy players who demand a certain level of depth and longevity for their money. By incorporating components borrowed from RPGs, games have found an invaluable source of durability. Having characters that steadily grow through out the game and aspects that can be fully customised can multiply a game’s shelf life tenfold. Factor in the added possibility of downloadable episodic content and add-on packs available through online micro-transactions and a game’s life may cease to be finite. But this is all by the by as it’s these aforementioned RPG fundamentals that will prove to imbue games with a longevity that is only dictated by a player’s level of tolerance or attention span. The Shed’s prediction is that as games evolve and grow they will come to rely on using the idea of character advancement through levelling up or learning and increased personalisation within larger game worlds. It is with the current generation and the advent of high capacity formats like Blu-Ray that we are beginning to see a shift towards more ambitious fare that simply wasn’t possible on last-gen hardware. And this, friends, is a very good thing. To the future! And to the RPG!