The Wayward Realms has hit the public...

 Or it's hit public funding at least

The Wayward Realms has always been something of a smallscale proposition even back when it was teasing through sleight teasers and inworld books- (most of which I've perused through at some point or other.) a true successor to the likes of Daggerfall that did not go the more popular action adventure route of The Elder Scrolls but rather remained dungeon crawling focused and doubled down on the sort of scale that Daggerfall purportedly offers. And yes, I say 'purportedly' because for some crazed reason Daggerfall is the only Elder Scrolls game I haven't played extensively. (Yes, I've played oodles of Arena. I don't know what's wrong with me- I promise to get around to it at some point.) Now hearing anyone who has played Daggerfall before go on and on about it- you'll have heard the whimsical dreams of the true freedom Elder Scrolls once offered, and within that find something of an anticipation towards this little project.

Of course back then it was just a promise of something being worked on by the original creators of the Elder Scrolls series- we'd maybe hear something more in a few years and then it would drop. That, by all accounts, was the original idea- and though that hasn't panned out I can't say I'm much surprised given that a title like this, banking on the goodwill towards a decades old cult classic- really was made for Crowd funding, you would think. Either way, The Wayward Realms is threatening to start getting serious, raising public funds for a year of development as well as to raise publisher interest in an audience that are willing to buy the thing- all good steps on the road to making something in a criminally underserved sub-genre which can be the key to becoming another cult hit if all the stars are in alignment. And as of the writing of this blog, that Crowd Funding campaign is currently live.

Now I have to get a little something of my back first- yes the team are still insisting that we call the game a 'Grand RPG' despite giving all the hallmarks of a Sandbox RPG and asking us to take them for their word- however I will relent that some of their phrasing when describing the world does low-key sort of imply a main questline- which isn't a typical hallmark of the Sandbox RPG genre type. Is that enough to create an entirely new subgenre tag? Meh, why not. We've made distinctions for fewer. (I still stubbornly refuse to internalise the apparent differences between Rogue-Likes and Roguelites and intentionally use the two interchangeably whenever talking about one or the other.) That is my biggest gripe with the game because everything else sounds really interesting!

A vast archipelago littered with rich factions vying over control of the various territories, a unique distinct focus on sealife gameplay as you sail from island to island in search of fortune and fame, a Morrowind reminiscent (for me- I'm sure it's a Daggerfall callback) topic-based conversation system which always felt supremely slept on by the RPG world after everyone shifted to direct dialogue text boxes; There's a spark of something interesting here. Last time I spoke quite a bit about the trailer and the ambitions of what the game wants to be, but it really is the little things and the core fundamentals that make all the difference- and I've always had belief in The Wayward Realms for being one of the little games that get's the smallstuff right.

One aspect I've always wished Bethesda would focus more on when it comes to their games is robust and grounded traversal methods- the jetpacks of Fallout and Starfield exist- sure, but what about climbing? How much more clever design opportunities would be opened up by the functional ability to climb a wall? Well that is something we'll be able to find out in person during the Wayward Realms given the climbing vines we saw teased during gameplay. A hint, in my mind, back to the untethered times of level design such as I recall from the days gone of Morrowind- where entire giant secret temples of treasure would be hidden at the very tips of forgotten caves, truly selling the myth of the undiscovered dormant cavern chambers that all these games rely on.

Wayward Realms is also supposed to feature something in the way of early Alpha testing in the way of the tutorial island which will be released to backers- which should serve as a pulse check to see if this really is the kind of product that has the breadth to go the distance or if... well, let's hope for the positive, yeah? We've certainly see early access periods wibble and wobble here and there under the weight of actual players- and right now the game is looking pretty rough in some of it's preliminary departments. Not least of all combat which... well I've seen worse but it's nowhere near ship worthy. I can say that much.

I'm always on the look out for the next fully engrossing fantasy game world I can hide myself within and whether this is a Sandbox RPG or simply a game that carries nearly all the hallmarks of one- I believe I've identified my next target. Choice and consequence teased to some degree across tailored made faction questlines and a mysterious 'Game Master' system which promises to provide mysterious dynamism to 'the player story'. There's so many interesting ideas I want to hear more about- The religion system, the 'major world events' that are supposed to 'shape our characters', their own attempt at Bethesda's patently boring 'radiant quest giving' system that gives me Rimworld feelings.

There's always room for a bit more innovation in how the Western World handles their RPGs, because we're no longer at the point of leapfrogging the bottom of the barrel of 'approachable' titles. Baldur's Gate, Cyberpunk 2077, Pillars of Eternity- experimentation is a heady spice I will never get tired of seeing it's disparate, even messy, strains. Unless every RPG starts making purely zombie slaying titles. Then I'll start getting bored. But we're not there yet and The Wayward Realms seems every bit the envoy of that. Provided they make that $500,000 goal of there's by the end of next month! (I'll do my part, to be sure!)

Return of The Wayward Realms

 

A very long time ago on a blog far far away I remember bringing up the reveal of a promising little sandbox RPG developed by one of the key staff members who helped birth The Elder Scrolls franchise before it was roundly redesigned for Morrowind. Unlike many franchises that survive to the modern day, early Elder Scrolls is actually quite unique and special in it's own right, thus having that credit to your name still carries significant weight even amidst the modern scene of RPGs. The game was The Wayward Realms, and I've actually kept up with their happenings quite staunchly over the years. Peering into their lore books they released over the years, keeping up with their developer post videos that touch on the development process. Never has there really been anything substantive enough to warrant a follow-up blog, until recently with the surprising reveal that after all this time the game will be coming to public funding in the hopes of drumming up interest to sell to a publisher.

It is an update regarding the state of the game, albeit not the one I wanted to hear after all these years- however I'd be lying if I wasn't probably going to end up supporting it anyway because my nose tells me this is going to be worth my time. My nose has only guided me slightly astray once before on a title, and that was a Steam Early Access game so I wasn't investing all that much in anyway. The last game my nose guided my towards dropping a heavy price tag behind was the brilliant 'Warhammer Rogue Trader', so I'm thinking I have a sense for promising RPGs in development and this one is giving the right signals. I've also been literally keeping up with it for years, so I guess I can vouch for the legitimacy of the project in that esoteric manner too.

But what even is The Wayward Realms? Well, after all these years you'd think I had a grasp of that, but if you asked the team they'd probably say I'm way off! Why? Well because from everything that has been described of the game, from the vast open world teaming with interwoven factions propping up a breathing world that the player is placed into as an entrepreneur adventurer- I'd call this a Sandbox RPG. In the same sort of vein as Kenshi, albeit hopefully a bit more forgiven to the hands of a newcomer than that title which demands a straight essay to pick up! But the team seem much more taken with the label of 'Grand RPG', a first-of-its-kind title that, to be honest, they've failed to really describe to me. I just think they don't want to associate with other Sandbox RPGs because they have a bit of a reputation for being aimless. But who's to say, right?

What I can say is this- there seems to be oodles of creativity going in to making this more than your standard Fantasy game affair. Even races as universal as the Orcs stand out as unique in this title, sporting long gorilla like arms and stout bodies in a slight subversion on the trope that reminds me of the lanky cannibal wierdoes of Larian's Elves from the Divinity franchise. Some of the monster designs that we've caught glimpse of, usually as assets still being worked on or concept art- not yet actually placed within the game, are actually eye-popping for how abnormal they are. There's a vague sense of the Lovecraftian cosmic abomination to a few, and I wonder if those sensibilities are indicative of the tone this world is trying to set. Cosmic fantasy? I dig it!

A curious little nugget of the presentation that Once Lost Games have put up to try and sell the idea of The Wayward Realms is a 'restoration of RPG'- which again hooks into that bizarrely 'pick-me' twinge that this team has put off from the outset. Like calling your very Sandbox-RPG looking game a 'Grand RPG' because it's so "Not like all the other RPGs, dad! It's not a phase!". They claim to want to restore 'scope', 'choice', 'consequence' and 'roleplaying' to RPGs- which, again, reeks of being out of touch with the modern scene. Come to me in the mid 2010's with that pitch and I'd look around and agree with you. Since then? Pillars of Eternity, the Pathfinder games, Original Sin 2- hell, Baldur's Gate 3! All exemplars of those apparent virtues that they, by virtue of phrasing, imply is wanting from the RPG market. I really want this game to succeed by man, the marketing veers into the antagonistic in a manner that reminds me of the inexplicable failure of the incredible 'Tyranny'. I don't want to see injustice like that again.

However my gripes do wither in the face that the launching Kickstarter campaign aims to bring our way an early access release of The Wayward Realms, presumably to bring us into the development process of the RPG in a way that helped polish Baldur's Gate to it's mirror sheen quality last year. I am fascinated at the prospect of getting my hands on this title and perhaps learning what it is the team even means by the otherwise vapid phrase 'Grand RPG'- and it's always a very solid addition to a kickstarter campaign to provide solid playable demo content. (Provided that content is indeed, solid and playable.) Of course this is a very tricky part of any game's development process, and Early Access can either be a huge step forward in development or a giant pitfall depending on how and when a team approaches it, so I sympathise with the cautious manner in which the idea is introduced. They're not promising an early access build with the Kickstarter campaign, they are aiming to build one. That's the goal. And if that goal is reached- I, personally, would absolutely launch myself at the thing.

A lot of what drives the interest around this game is hope. The very typical hope from the developers that their project can come together and hit the sort of audience that appreciates it, but also the more fantastic hope from an audience that want the same somewhat unfocused mania of Daggerfall brought into a modern, more playable, age. Hope that this will satisfy the crowd like me who long for a solid fantasy sandbox to lose themselves in. Hope for the CRPG crowd that want a robust RPG backbone that can inspire builds and repeat playthroughs as different classes that feel and play with distinction. (As opposed to how Morrowind, Skyrim and Oblivion took it's roleplaying.) It's a lot of hope for an indie project to juggle, even one built off the backs of people who ostensibly boast game development seniority. I hope they don't buckle.

Coming this May The Wayward Realms will become a lot more realm in the mind of the market, and given how RPGs are coming back into vogue- one might even call this a renewed golden age for high quality RPGs- I suspect the title might pick up a bit of traction if it indeed is worth the build up. If all goes to play I wonder if we'll be treated to the same sort of back-and-forth relationship Larian maintained throughout their development stages, where changes and improvements are dished out here and there and fans like myself compile essays back with feedback. As far as unpaid QA work goes, I do like that sort back and forth, particularly the way it brings a community into the same step. (Actually, I like it a lot more than paid QA work at this point. Too stuffy.) Here's praying for The Wayward Realms.

It's been a while from the Wayward Realms

Wayward coverage

What is currently up with The Wayward Realms?

 The waiting game

I consider myself deathly allergic to the disease known as hype, and for very good reason too. Hype has bought me nothing but pain and disappointment my entire life, usually in scaling measure; the more hype, the more disappointment, the more pain. Any time I've been optimistic or hopeful or expected anything more than the worst outcome, it's been for naught and I've been more the idiot for not expecting it. Hype stinks and I hate it. Which is why I find it so damn unconscionable that I'd currently be tickled by the damn bug and on a game that we know so very little about. I'm talking stupidly little. We haven't even got any real substantive gameplay and reading some of the development teams rhetoric on the game makes me think they've actually never heard of a sandbox RPG; which is pretty freakin' worrying to hear when you're looking at a team that's proposing to make one! But beyond my utmost better judgement; I want to believe in The Wayward Realms.

If you've forgotten what that even is then I do not blame you, afterall the developers have announced the thing, released two trailers and gone radio silent across the board. That's because they're busy making a game that in their own words is going to break new grounds across the RPG genre, although by every other perceivable metric appears to just be a largely ambitious sandbox RPG. These developers are said to be key figures on the original Elder Scrolls games, which gives them quite the soapbox to launch this new project upon. Although 'project' might be putting the thing a little above its station for the moment, for as far as I can tell these folks are just a small team for the moment working on developing a working proof of concept, presumably to try and lure in some sort of publisher. Yet, even in this early stage the team went the route of gauging interest with an announcement, and you can consider myself an interested party. Potentially.

Of course as we're so early in the days of what The Wayward Realm even is, rhetoric has been quite general and geared more towards sparking the imagination than tempering a defined edge for the mind's eye. Such is a dangerous time to start dreaming, because the perception you create in your head is forever going to surpass what reality can conceive. And additionally, depending on the scruples of the developers in question, entering such a state can make you a prime target for manipulation into believing the coming game is everything you want it to be, just so long as you kick back some support to papa developer. It's something of a growing concern across the indie development space recently given the rise of Crypto concepts leaning on the already delusion-ridden crowd funding scene. I can already count two legendary developers who have cashed in on their reputation to try and grift their audience with obvious schemes; although to be fair, anyone following and trusting literally any word that comes out of Peter Molyneux's mouth at this point probably deserves to be scammed. Natural selection has clearly marked them inadequate.

All that being said, there's some tangible concept being worked on here which actually seems to lean into the wheelhouse of the development talent working on the game, so I want desperately to be optimistic this is a real idea that's just starting to spin it's wheels. The Wayward Realms is a wide open RPG that is focused more on the creation of a functioning setting and world than the journey of some nebulous fantasy hero character. Similar to games like Kenshi, the appeal of The Wayward Realms appears to come in making your character and then setting them loose in a wild world where they attempt to survive through whatever means they can. Not by scrounging for food and water, unless that's how you want to play it, but by becoming a mercenary or a pirate, or any of those other 'make ends meet' kind of professions in an exciting and opportunity writhe fantasy setting. And those are the sorts of games that I like.

What we've seen of little snippets that we can perceive to at least be early composites of gameplay features 'paper doll' style sprites walking the world space, not unlike Arena and Daggerfall had all those years ago. Again, a sensible measure given the purposed scale of a giant archipelago's worth of interconnected factions and kingdoms and traders all interacting with each other independent of the player. One of those overly ambitious titles would throw their weight around with garish claims of 'top of the line graphics' and deep engaging combat with procedural aging and death and children and- so many features that sound utterly pointless. Wayward Realms is keeping it simple and classic, playing to nostalgia no doubt, but presenting a believable vision. And I really want to believe. A more modern take on Daggerfall's style of gameplay sounds charming even to consider, and if those original directors can truly summon up that presentation in a wider and more open world space than I think excitement only makes sense.

Of course the most important question we should really be asking following a genre style of game like this one is about the world and what type of universe we're going to immerse ourselves within. I mean the fact that it's going to be fantasy is a given, it has orcs in it. But is this going to be simple high fantasy, maybe a bit edgier dark fantasy, maybe a peppier colourful fantastical fable world? I think the general sentiment seems to be shifting towards more darker fantasy universes in the vein of some of the most popular fantasy properties such as Game of Thrones, The Witcher and even popular fantasy anime like Berserk or AOT. There's an appeal to diving into some of the most grim and dark worlds that specialise in serving up everyone as supper for the cruelties of that unfair world, and a game where there are no heroes but only survivors seems like an ideal fit for a world like that. Then again, these developers have their experience in TES, which is more high fantasy without that edge; so I guess it depends on the way the winds blow for the team, if they want to try something new or iterate on the classics. (Although knowing the modding community for games like this, I imagine it'll eventually be modded into whatever style of fantasy you want it to be. Providing the game takes off, of course.) 

None of which is to say that The Wayward Realms is a sure hit flying our way. Sandbox RPGs aren't exactly plentiful because of how difficult they are to make work, and The Wayward Realms is shooting for a pretty ambitious goal even within that troubling subgenre. Crafting a working and breathing world for the player to interactive within takes a ludicrous amount of independently functioning parts, the likes of which would make a AAA studio blush, and ensuring that they shake hands in a manner that allows for dynamic and meaningful evolution can be the difference between any old Sandbox RPG and the really special ones. Kenshi has a system of factions pinned together by leader characters. Should such characters be taken out of action, their faction loses prevalence in that neighbourhood and another faction might take over. Through that system it's quite possible to upset the balance of a very violent nation of zombie-like Hiveless and have them spread over the entire map like a plague. That is the kind of reactivity Wayward Realms should be trying to replicate, the kind where we can play world breaker with the right careless actions. Like Hitman 2016- a clock of working gears waiting from the player to jam their foot and break it all.

Currently the Wayward Realms devs are spending their days slowly updating an online library of in universe lore books which seem to mostly serve as short story experiments as well as hiring a team to get together that working proof of concept of theirs. A very humble position to sit in for the moment and hopeful a portent for great things in the future. As you can likely tell I have some significant expectations rolled up into the Wayward Realms, both for what I think the game is capable of and what I want that final game to be. Whether they wanted to or not, the team have sparked a real fire of curiosity over here and I would simply love to find our more about the process they're working. Heck, I'd sign up to the team if I had any UX experience or character design work, for that's what they're looking for right now. (Actually it says they're looking for 'volunteers' but I'm assuming that's a error and they're looking for contract work at the least. Right?) Fingers crossed there's a future for this one, I want to see it.

RPG Class systems: Old Versus New

 Gemini Classes 

The world of Role Playing Games is so very simple when you first approach them; it's all about just jumping into a game where you pretend to be someone else. Heck, with a view on the genre that simple one might call any game an RPG. But then you realise that it more has to do with 'making' the person you're playing as, whether that be from the ground-up as a character or merely through selecting the way they evolve as the story progresses. Then you start to learn that RPG-fans really care about levelling trees, and having unlockable skills and abilities. Oh, they also like the game to have some heft to them, and not be your prototypical 5 hours and done fest. You'll also see that they really care about story choices, multiple endings and replayability. Then there's the various different types of RPGs, from modern, to classic, to Sandbox, to action adventure, to squad based. And then somewhere along the line it stops being fun and becomes intimidating again when you realise that there are decidedly too many types of RPGs out there in the world. That's why I like to sanitize everything down into small digestible nuggets for myself, and thus why today I want to talk about RPG classes.

Or rather, I want to talk about the contrast between typical RPG classes and these adaptive-type classes that once were ubiquitous, but are slightly waning in popularity as Classic RPGs slowly become the rage again. This conversation is one sparked by the recently unveiled The Wayward Realms, which I was quite hopeful for whilst simultaneously being decidedly critical against, and one of the points of contention that I merely touched on back there was the class system. It goes a little like this, The Wayward Realms hails from the creators of TES 1 and 2, and therefore they played into their own lineage by touting how 'Classic RPGs' were at the heart of this project. So they say out of the shadows, it would seem, because when push comes to shove it's clear that their game is leaning towards having no class systems, at least not in the traditional sense. Now classes are some of the most fundamental building blocks of Classic role playing games, thus I gawked a little when I saw this, and it got me thinking about the drawback and drawtos of classes in general.

But first, let me explain the difference between the class systems that I mentioned. Traditional RPGs have a 'fixed' class system whereupon when you start the game you get to choose the 'class' of the character you play as, typically variations upon the core three of: Mage, Warrior and Rogue. Choosing this class informs the way you play the game, what weapons you wield what armour you don, and how you approach each and every encounter. A Warrior might consider martial ways to lock down a room full of enemies, whilst a rogue might see which shadows they can exploit to sneak around. A mage might try to use wide-range spells to slowdown a room of enemies at once, whilst a warrior might try to find a way to funnel them so he doesn't have to deal with too many at once. It's a system typically hand-in-hand with hard rules, (I.E. certain gear and tools you simply can't use if you're not the correct class) but the benefit comes in the fact that it feeds beautifully into replayability as when these classes are handled well it can feel like you're playing a completely different game.

What I've chosen to coin as 'adaptive' class systems are something of a modern invention and a direct rejection of the 'ruleset' of old. These are systems where you aren't asked to pick a class, because your character will fall into the role best suited for them as the game goes on. It's more natural, encourages the character to experiment more and tells the player 'no' as little as possible. You could be a warrior who decides they need to pick up a wand and cast some spells for a specific mission, there are no barriers to hold you back. The big draw is that skills and abilities might be made with a certain class in mind, but they're available to be learnt by anyone, theoretically making it possible for a player to 'make their own class', as these games are fond of marketing.

Obviously, for casual players and early game in general this sort of class system is perfect as it's nowhere near as punishing to mistakes. However, the big problem is that by the endgame most every single character is playing roughly the same, because by the very nature of making all abilities available to every class, you're usually not making these abilities transformative enough to change the way the game plays. So a full powered hero rogue is pretty much on the same playing field as a wizard would be. (Usually wearing the heavy armour and wielding the most powerful sword, because nothing is telling you to wear those robes or pick up that shortsword) There are exceptions of course, games that handle the balance exceptionally well, as well as players who just buy into the roleplay enough to hardlimit themselves. But such games just don't usually lend themselves as naturally into that desire for replayability, which in some people's eyes is the most important draw to RPGs as a genre.

So then why was it ever decided that the old Class system needed to be replaced anyway? (Aside from just to change things up for varieties sake, I mean.) Well the key reason would seem to be because the perception that specific classes limit roleplaying, due to the way that they give you confines within which you must operate rather than allow you to be as wacky as you want to. Defenders will say that levelling systems live off of their min maxing anyway, thus there's no need for restrictions that only muddy the waters. And isn't there a sort of purity in a world where the ultimate hero always ends up with the same capabilities?  These sorts of systems have worked fine in the Elder Scrolls, Deus Ex , The Witcher and the countless other 'freeform' RPGs out there, so what's the problem?

A response which I understand, yet will push back on anyway. Because as with many aspects of art, I don't see 'limitations', I see 'guidelines' in the traditional class systems. Of course there are many ways to screw it up so that classes are boring and uninteresting to level up, at the end of the day it all comes down to the skills of the designers afterall; but for the vast majority of the RPGs I've played, I find the experience of mastering a class a lot more interesting than just maxing out all the skill trees for my Fallout character. That's because within a class is inbuilt a role, and mastering that role in gameplay means coming to terms with, and understanding, the tools at your disposal and working with them. Being a top rogue doesn't have to mean you can hide really well, it can mean you're a master of locking down a battlefield with traps, or isolating enemies and hitting them with punishing sneak attacks, or perhaps you're just a poison fiend. Operating within the guidelines forces you to use the limitations within your hands and sometimes get creative, rather than just to default for the strongest weapon you can find which kills things the fastest. Sure, that tactic is what the Warrior class will go for anyway, but the very fact that other classes have different goals epitomises the class variety that I don't feel from free-form adaptive classes. 

So there is a compromise to be made somewhere along the line, this much is obvious, because hard-line class systems really belong more with Classic RPGs and free-form systems belong with modern RPGs. (Until Avowed comes along and changes that power dynamic entirely.) I like to think there's space for specific class systems that allows for equipment, at the very least, to be worn by all classes, because in that there's a lot of 'Adaptive' potential without sacrificing the uniqueness of class abilities, strengths and weaknesses. Let the specific disadvantages of wearing a heavy piece of armour have an effect (beyond just cancelling out spells altogether) in order to allow players to come up with their solutions and draw their own lines in the sand. Maybe heavy armour increases spell cast time, but if someone wants to play as a heavy battle mage this suits them just fine. I just maintain that old school classes have yet to run their course and we'd be foolish to leave them behind completely; and The Wayward Realms needs to get on board with actual real classes. (At least that's my two cents on the issue)

The Wayward Realms

 We need to bring back the adjective 'High Falutin' for the benefit of this game alone

Hype. The drug of the excitable and the foolish, whether you consider those two to be synonyms or not, that breathes tangibility to the unreal and to that which oftentimes does even exist yet. In some respects you could look on it as the twisted cousin of hope, fuelled by dreams and morphed by expectation, and rarely responsive to the rules of basic reality. We all like to have a little bit of hype in the grey drudgery that is our lives, like of shot our colour across our boughs, the promise of hype is the promise that anything is possible, a promise that magic can happen for you, a promise that is ultimately a lie. Hype is knowingly, and intentionally, peddling in exaggeration and half-truths in order to spark the all-powerful imagination train and spin the wheels of the hopeful. That's not to say that one should hide themselves from it's allure, but that they should not wantonly give themselves to it with no reservations. Be curious of all things in life, be critical, ask questions, get excited but be sensible. All advice I would lay upon anyone hearing just the first breaths of murmurs related to this game: The Wayward Realms.

This I say in guttural reaction to the very first thing I heard regarding this brand new project which has floated out of the nether, the first thing that most anyone has heard of this game "It's an RPG on a scale never attempted before." You can feel the pomp and pretentiousness dripping off a hype-fuelling message like that, can't you? And though the quote itself is actually bastardised from the, already active, Steam page which actually makes that claim in direct reference to the 'choice and consequence' of this new title, the sour taste is still there in my mouth. I'm still looking at a game which is claiming to be the best in the world (or at least to shoot for being the best) in a manner despite being totally untested. It's just a bold claim, and as much as I like and encourage one to be bold, there is a fine line to cross where excess falls into arrogance, and I fear these Wayward developers might just be toeing it with their rhetoric.

Thus might be their right, however, when you hear of the pedigree of this studio working on the project; Ted Peterson and Julian LeFay, two of the three who created The Elder Scrolls, are the key staff making headlines for this brand new title. Their key credits are for Arena and Daggerfall, but their legacy is one of the biggest and most successful Western RPGs of all time. Their brand is one of the key reasons why Bethesda is now a household name and the various spawned games from the franchise are beloved by many out there; me included. I love The Elder Scrolls, and thus I wasn't immune to a little bit of the prototypical name-drop tactics that was employed for this new project. I got excited, and whilst I'm still retaining some of that excitement, my critical mind has raised a few concerns. First of all, it's curious how The Elder Scrolls is the image which all the press is evoking, despite the fact that these two were responsible for the two games before the series really found it's identity.

Let me be more specific. The Elder Scrolls Arena, for those that haven't played it, is an Elder Scrolls game in name only. Historically it remains significant as the game that so many polished their craft on in order to bring it to life, and many of the lessons learnt in it's inception no doubt went on to fuel the skyscrapers that Bethesda would go on to establish, but as with Final Fantasy little of the DNA of the future series was founded in that first game. Daggerfall has a lot more of that DNA, making up for a lot of the basis for what The Elder Scrolls would come to represent, how the world was formed, the people who lived within it, how people lived, the way their stories would be told. But if we're being honest, it wasn't until Morrowind where that vision came together. Daggerfall was important, no doubt; but Morrowind was the blueprint from which The Elder Scrolls soared. Peterson has oodles of experience with Morrowind and Oblivion atop with the founding credit, but LeFay only worked on Morrowind a bit as a contractor after quitting. None of that is to invalidate their experience of course, just to point out a strange dichotomy in the coverage surrounding this new game.

But what of this game? What is the Wayward Realms and why is it touted as being so ambitious? Well the Steam page can tell you that much, but I'll choose to quote their personal Website instead. "The Wayward Realms is an attempt to revivify the RPG genre by applying modern development standards and QOL advancements to- classic role playing games." It's a game they struggle to define, touting "Choice, consequence, scope and roleplaying will be experienced like never before- In depth class and combat systems- Complex and dynamic faction relations and a realistically scaled open world where players will experience a new class of game: The Grand RPG." So for those out there that weren't blinded by the spectacular fluff of that statement, these guys made a Sandbox RPG. They made a Sandbox RPG and pretended it was a new subgenre. I'm not sure if that's marketing being disingenuous or the team literally never bumping into games like this before, but they exist; and I'm going to talk about them.

Games like Kenshi, Mount and Blade, Freelancer, even modern RUST to some extent, are all games where the focus of the game in on creating a world that the player interacts with in a dynamic and meaningful way, rather than focusing on grand pre-written storylines and adventures. They champion player agency and complex systems which allow that to flourish, oftentimes by crafting intricate worlds that works together like a finely tuned clock, only to let the player loose into the world to make of it what they will. No matter how you go over the notes that OnceLost Games have made about The Wayward Realms, that is the type of game that they're making, not some mythical new type of unheard game, the first of it's Strand-like kind; it's a Sandbox RPG. Own that. And they should, because I think there's a real gap in the market for a proper AAA Sandbox RPG to roll in and show everyone how it's done, and if Wayward Realms can be that then there's a clear spot for it on the pantheon of Role playing right next to The Elder Scrolls.

That is a pretty big If, however, and it's dependant on nailing a notoriously loose type of game on a "scale never attempted before". I'm already dubious, not least of all because that 'scale' comment could easily be in relation to the world size itself which is said to take place on an Archipelago of over one hundred realistically scaled islands. Right away that sounds too big to be completely intelligently designed, which says to me that this game is either going to feature prefab dungeons and or/towns (certainly the promised thousands of NPCs in these towns will be prefab) or computer generation will be employed, which is notoriously hard to get right when we're talking about the generation of worthwhile exploration-based content. Plus, there's the fact that despite invoking the name of Classic RPGs, this game is clearly a more modern Action-Adventure RPG, to the point where they even shirk class systems for one of those 'adaptive class systems' which never feel as consequential and rewarding as their older cousins. ("In depth class- systems" indeed...) There's even a talk of a 'Virtual Game Master' to keep things evolving around the player, which really needs some fleshing out to detail what that even means, but immediately evokes thoughts of the 'storyteller' system from 'RimWorld'. And just a minor addendum onto that; I really don't like the look of the game right now. Orcs look... unique, but goofy. For such a 'Grand RPG', I'm not feeling the grandiose nature of it just yet. (And no; a sweeping vista shot over a mostly featureless mountain range isn't immediately 'epic')

So I have concerns, that much is obvious, but allow me to subvert the expectations I set myself by saying I'm utterly sold on following this game to the bitter end. Because whilst I find their rhetoric eye-rolling and with every mis-formed promise I loose hope in even the team working on it, I adore sandbox RPGs. They're the type of game that even if you make it a highly flawed mess strewn together and held tight with duct tape, as most of them are, as long as the EXE runs you've still made something special. There's a mysterious presence unique to these games, they're just so different and special and I'll always rock up for the next one when it's announced. I don't care for the pedigree this team is standing on, I don't care for various farts the team are sniffing, I don't even care for the early screenshots; but the idea is a solid one, and I'm eager to see it bought to fruition in whatever way the team can do. Although, baring in mind this was literally just announced, I'd expect a 2025 release date at the earliest. So that's about it, nothing else has really happened lately I want to talk about except... THE STONE OCEAN TEASER JUST DROPPED! (Yeah it's not gaming related but I'm excited, sue me.)