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| How Diablo Saved the Computer RPG Posted: 21 Jan 2012 05:04 PM PST
Feature  How Diablo Saved the Computer RPGWe look at how twelve people created a click-heavy game that revitalized a dying genre.By: Thierry Nguyen January 21, 2012 It's safe to say that by 1995, the computer role-playing game was dying. RPGs were losing traction to the wave of games modeled after two recently innovative titles: 1992's Dune II: The Building of a Dynasty and 1993's Doom. After the success of those two titles, the computer game industry as a whole shifted to producing more real-time strategy games and first-person shooters. The dwindling audience that enjoyed turn-based role-playing games full of mechanics, simulations, and obscure details were then being swayed by turn-based strategy games like Civilization II. By this time, traditional first or third-person RPGs were still being released, but pretty much no one except Europeans bought them. One of the bigger successes in the genre came from a small studio in Maryland: The Elder Scrolls II: Daggerfall from Bethesda Softworks. Yet that was more of an anomaly -- Bethesda saw better traction from shooters like Terminator: Future Shock and its sequel SkyNET. Even the stalwart Ultima series -- Lord British's saga of isometric RPGs in a fully fleshed-out fantasy universe -- abandoned its core principles in pursuit of the action-driven market. Ultima fans generally felt betrayed when Ultima VII Part Two: Serpent Isle -- a party-based RPG with a vast world -- was followed up with Ultima VIII: Pagan -- which featured a lone hero in a much smaller setting that bizarrely featured platforming elements (most likely in pursuit of luring action and even console gamers to the Ultima series). |
| Retronauts Lunch Break: The Week in Review Posted: 21 Jan 2012 11:07 AM PST Every weekday, the Retronauts Lunch Break brings you a dose of classic gaming action, but there's no need to worry if you can't watch our livestream; every Friday, we'll feature a roundup of all the videos produced over the past five days. But if your lunch hour is free, make sure to come back (at 1:00pm PST) starting Monday the 23rd as we devote a new week of Lunch Breaks to LucasArts adventure games -- along with our regular Friday playthrough of A Link to the Past. And hey, why not subscribe to our Twitch.tv feed while you're at it? |
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