arpg、srpg、mmorpg……
Opportunity to open up a new way out for VR gaming?
Text |Green Cliff White Deer.
(VRPINEA, December 11, 2023).Last Friday, the TGA 2023 Awards Ceremony, known as the "Spring Festival Gala of the Game Industry", was successfully concluded, and the event was jointly organized by Sony, Microsoft, Nintendo, and Valve and other gaming industry giants. 《baldur'S Gate 3 won six awards, including Game of the Year, and became the "Prettiest Cub in the Show". The TGA 2023 "Best VR AR" award went to the VR mode of "Resident Evil 8: Village".
At the 2023 Golden Joystick Awards, which took place last month, Baldur's Gate 3 was also the biggest winner, taking home a total of seven awards along with developer Larian Studios. Baldur's Gate 3 was also named one of the "10 Best Games" by Time Magazine.
Swen Vincke, founder of the Liarian studio, who holds the Golden Rocker trophy).
After the TGA Awards were announced, many games** and players even shouted the slogan "Reforge CRPG" (CRPG is the name of role-playing games in video games). It is incumbent upon us to reforge the glory of RPG!So, RPGs "eat" so well, does VR have a chance to get on the table?
RPG games
Before further discussing the VR of RPG games, let's briefly take a look at RPG games, RPGs, role-playing games, that is, role-playing games. "You be a mother, I will be a father" can actually be seen as an RPG game. Of course, the scope of this article is definitely RPG games in the field of video games.
RPGs are thought to have originated in Dungeons & Dragons, a period of tabletop card games, co-created by Gary Gygax and D**e Arneson in 1974. In addition to this, well-known RPG game IPs include Final Fantasy, The Elder Scrolls, The Witcher, and The Legend of Zelda.
Gary Gygax shows a Dungeons & Dragons design).
Since the development of RPG games, many subdivided game categories have been derived, such as ARPG, SRPG, JRPG and MMORPG. The appeal of RPGs to players is huge, and even after a good RPG game is over, you even need to "quit". Just like the comments of netizens about the open-world RPG game "Red Dead Redemption 2": Red Dead Redemption 2 players are divided into two types, one is the one who did not get out of the snowy mountain at the beginning, and the other is the one who lost his best friend (game NPC - Arthur).
Red Dead Redemption 2 game screen).
Different development paths for RPG games to become VR
RPG derivative VR works actually have unique innate advantages, RPG games require players to play a role in the game world to move and develop. And the most striking label of VR games is immersion, role-playingNope!Direct Sims. Of course, if the existing technology wants to achieve the same effect as the movie "Ready Player One", it is undoubtedly a fool's dream.
At this stage, in fact, there have been many VR works of RPG games, with different performances. Here, Xiao P will discuss the style and VR prospects of these derivative works by category.
Ready Player One protagonist Wade and his avatar Parsifal).
arpg
arpg, action role-playing game, that is, action role-playing game. This genre is currently the most mainstream VR development direction of RPG games, and many VR derivatives of well-known IPs have been released. Such as "Horizon: Call of the Mountain" and "Assassin's Creed VR", etc., both of which are well-known, and Xiao P has also experienced them firsthand.
In P's humble opinion, there is a problem with both games or VR spin-offs of this genre: an RPG, that is, too much focus on action attributes. Taking "Horizon: Call of the Mountain" as an example, Xiao P spent almost two weeks to complete the game in his spare time, and the feeling of the whole process is: exhausting climbing, playing heartily, and "living" in a mess.
Horizon Call of the Mountain game screen).
Regardless of the background introduction of the game, the plot that Xiao P can recall now is: in the early stage, he was looking for an NPC, and in the later stage, he was fighting mechanical monsters to save the world. The narrative basically develops according to the linear plot, and the degree of freedom of exploration is not high. "Assassin's Creed VR" has just started, and under the initial experience: the plot is slightly better than "Call of the Mountain", and the game world is more open, worthy of Travel Creed!But it's still nowhere near the freedom of PC gaming.
srpg
SRPG, Strategy Role-playing Game, that is, strategy tactical role-playing game, usually a turn-based, wait-time-based war chess game. This type of VR works include "Demeo", "Demeo Battles", etc., and the VR "demand" of this type of game is not strong. But there's one thing, in the case of Demeo Battles, which can support both VR and non-VR modes, which represents a cross-device online experience.
demeo" promotional image).
jrpg
JRPG, Japanese role-playing game, that is, Japanese role-playing game. This type of game is biased towards the Japanese anime style, focusing on character setting, emotional design, and plot development. For example, this type of VR work is "Sushi Ben", which was just launched on the Quest platform in October, and many of the popularity of this type of game coincides with the audience of love simulation and Japanese story games, and it tends to be niche.
mmorpg
MMORPG, Massive Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game. This type of VR work is exemplified by "Zenith: The Last City", which was crowdfunded and developed by American studio Ramen VR.
Zenith: The Last City game screen).
Compared with the previous three, Xiao P believes that the possibility of such games being "popular" may be higher. Reminisce about the youth that passed away under the sunset, and imagine the scenes of running missions and gang battles in games such as "Sword Network 3", "Legends" and "World of Warcraft".
If one day in the future, brain-computer technology or other technologies break through the bottleneck and successfully enter the consumer market. Imagine what VR MMORPG games will look like at that time, and that won't be Sword Art Online, or the "oasis" of Ready Player One.
World of Warcraft game screen).
There are a lot of difficulties
Then again, a bright future basically means that the road is bumpy, after all, you can only see a rainbow after the storm. Compared with RPG games on PC, the current VR-based RPG games are lacking in experience. Without an appropriate operating system and tracker accessories, a typical VR device can only map the player's hands and head, which means that the player will not be able to actively perform even a simple "kick" motion.
At the hardware level, there are also problems with device battery life and "motion sickness". RPG games generally require a long game time, doing tasks, playing equipment, passing the plot and socializing with friends, etc., and the current mainstream VR all-in-one machine has a battery life of about 2 hours, which seems to be a bit stretched. In addition, the problem of VR motion sickness caused by the conflict of convergence adjustment is also a big test.
As far as the game itself is concerned, freshness is the key to the long-term operation of a game, and the technical characteristics of VR alone cannot retain players for a long time. In other words, the world view and plot are designed to be large enough, and there is enough content to explore freely, so as to create a good game environment. However, this also means a huge upfront investment, as well as high technical difficulties and insufficient carrying capacity of existing equipment.
The road is tortuous, and the future is bright").
Conclusion
Just like the classic line in "Daydreamer" says, "The dreams you have have to chase by yourself, from early morning to dark". Xiao P expects that more VR developers will set their sights on VR RPG games, to chase and realize our common "dream", and to create an "oasis" that belongs to our generation.
This article is an original manuscript of VRPINEA, **Please contact: brand@vrpineacom