RPG fans? They’re busy playing Skyrim. Or at least they are if their games haven’t been broken by the latest patch (ah, irony). It’s a game that could be played for months. With another expansive RPG on the way in a few months in Kingdoms of Amalur: The Reckoning, should developer 38 Studios have anything to worry about, with its target market still hung up on Skyrim?
Reckoning’s designer Ken Rolston – also lead designer on Morrowind and Oblivion – believes that Skyrim players want Reckoning; they just don’t know it yet – and that the game will find its audience.
"I suspect that they won’t know that they want something else," he said of the Skyrim players in an interview with Industry Gamers ."That’s always the challenge when you make something that hasn’t been made before, and usually it’s opinion leaders who will stray outside or color outside the lines and say, ‘Hey! This is cool. You should be playing this.’ I think that’s the way, very often, revolutionary products work and we’re intending to be revolutionary in that sense. But I think anybody who works in the industry and who is concerned about releasing a product into the current bloodbath of blockbuster releases, it would be disingenuous to say that I didn’t notice, but at the same time it’s absolutely true that I don’t feel uncomfortable at all."
“From my point of view, a really good game always finds its audience, and role playing games more so than others because they have long shelf lives, because when you start playing them, you’re going to end up playing them forever unless they’re terrible,” he said. Everything I’ve seen of this game – from its colourful high fantasy setting, to its deep, focused combat make me want this game more and more.
The game’s out in February – and I hope I’ve had my fill of Skyrim by then. Any of you picking it up?
Last Updated: December 5, 2011
