Is there a modern (i.e. post 2000s game) that matches the definition of a roguelike as given in the article?
I think Caves Of Qud qualifies. But “real” roguelikes are few and far between these days, so it’s no surprise to me that the term has expanded to cover more. Otherwise it would’ve become essentially obsolete.
My hot take on Bethesda is, they simply don’t do game design. They take their previous game, slap whatever is the fashionable mechanic of the day on top, and just roll with the punches until it sorta kinda works.
They haven’t done any real game design probably since Morrowind. Since then they’ve added weapon armor crafting in skyrim, base building and weapon customization in fallout 4, and now in starfield they’re adding procedural planets, resource mining, Ship building… the game is collapsing under sheer feature count.
The problem for me is, it’s not enhancing the core Bethesda experience; they are rather diluting it. All this extra crap just distracts from the actual thing I want from a Bethesda game, which is a big open designed world filled with interesting locations, characters and quests that you’re free to discover as you like. The procedural content especially is, like, antithetical to the formula.
It’s not that deep. Here’s the two main critiques leveled towards the game in the article.
you don’t always know the consequences of your actions, and they’re not always predictable: a seemingly sensible choice sometimes ends badly, and a seemingly dumb choice could get you a reward
you can load a save and redo your things whenever you want, i.e. save-scum
These are both somewhat obvious just from the structure of the game. Ultimately the conclusion the author is shooting for is that this makes Baldur’s Gate 3 a bad game but a good piece of interactive fiction.
The author uses the mechanics of chess often as sort of an example of the pinnacle of game design which to me is telling. Video Games are much broader than that. Insisting that people should not call the thing you don’t like a game but instead “interactive fiction” is pedantry at best, and gatekeeping at worst.
Sure, if you view the game through the lens of chess you will come away with these flaws. But for example, if you always knew the consequences of every choice the narrative tension would be destroyed. Of course chess has no such concern, so if we’re looking at games through that lens then narrative tension is of no value. Ultimately I think this is just a very narrow viewpoint of what games should be.
I think there’s a group of people who are just going to avoid quality completely and have entire factories running at normal quality only. Kinda similar to how some people don’t really do nuclear.
If you don’t like the concept of going into space though maybe this expansion is not for you. I think the base game will get the bot upgrades for free anyways.
How could you learn anything about what people think of microtransactions from the success of a game that doesn’t have them? If a beloved franchise added a sequel with microtransactions in it and that sequel tanked, then maybe you’d have a case. From the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 the most you could conclude is “people will still buy a game that doesn’t have microtransactions,” which is not particularly revelatory.
A bunch of AAA games that heavily feature microtransactions are smash hits and made millions of dollars. Sure, people complain about it, but they also purchase tons of them (may not be the same people, mind you). I’m pretty sure we can conclude that not all people hate microtransactions. Hell, publishers will look at Baldur’s Gate 3 and probably go “man, this game is good but if they put some paid cosmetics in there they could have made even more money.”
If a great game like Elden ring would’ve had cosmetic sets you could buy, would it have undermined the “greatness” of the game? I really don’t see it happening.
I agree with you that people mainly care about the game being good. However a game’s budget is more or less fixed. If From had made a bunch of cosmetic sets it would be taking away resources from making the “main” game, and it may not have been as great and polished as it is.
Also, once you have microtransactions in a game, there’s going to be a temptation to maximize the revenue gained from them, which can lead to the aggressive strategies you mention.
I’m not saying it’s impossible to do mtx without ruining the game, but it’s difficult. Without mtx, the only thing you have to maximize your revenue is to make the game as good as possible, and so everyone involved in the game’s development is aligned towards that goal.
Once you add mtx, there will be people involved whose main goal is to maximize revenue from the mtx (and I’m not saying those people are evil or want the game to be bad; they’re just doing their job). And so a sort of tug of war starts to happen between devoting resources and design decisions to make the game better, or getting people to buy your cosmetics. Finding the right balance through that mess is difficult.