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The future of the Western role-playing game
This is a weekly column from freelancer Rowan Kaiser, which focuses on "Western" role-playing games: their stories, their histories, their mechanics, their insanity, and their inanity. Here in November, we're nearing the end of the current console generation, as the Wii U kicks off the next gen by replacing the Wii. That particular change may not affect western RPG fans – then again, with Mass Effect heading to the Wii U, it may – but it does mean that it may be worth thinking about what the future holds for role-playing games. Even for those of us who are PC gamers, console generations still work well as historical markers. The era of Diablo and Baldur's Gate evolved into The Elder Scrolls III: Morrowind and Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, for example.I am not anticipating immense changes, for two reasons. First, RPGs are more resistant to change than most other genres. Second, as a general historical rule, I tend to bet on "things staying roughly the same" over "things changing dramatically" unless there's reason to believe otherwise. And right now, I don't think there is. Video game tech seems to be getting shinier, faster, and smaller, but I don't see anything potentially disruptive in the way that CD storage was on the horizon. Moreover, I'd say that in general, the pace of change has slowed. Today's games are closer in looks and play than to KOTOR and Morrowind than those were to Ultima VII and Arena roughly a decade before.This doesn't mean that there won't be changes – I'm much happier with RPGs today than I was during the early 2000s – but rather, that they won't necessarily be technological changes. Still, there are some trends that I expect to see continue, or falter.
