When Fallout came out, and for many years after, I was quite taken with the grim post-nuclear world portrayed in the game. Yes, I read stories before, like Sheckley's "Store Of Worlds", but this was a seemingly living world inside my computer!
There was something romantic about the simplicity of survival in the decaying world, a sense of adventure in a strange environment where all rules have changed. The gusts of sand blowing over an overturned, rusty car. Town guards blowing away giant rats that are getting at the town's food supply. Packs of lawless gangs scavenging the wastelands.
Now I find this feeling gone.
Post-apocalypse has become increasingly popular, and, in its various forms, flooded movies, TV shows, games. Fallout 3 and New Vegas came and went, Wasteland 2 is upcoming, The Walking Dead has been a comic, a TV show and a videogame, there's been a bajillion zombie movies portraying the world in various stages of ruin, and suddenly that romantic image of a rust-covered car has lost its novelty to me.
When it comes to CRPGs, is there something fresh and imaginative to be squeezed out of "Earth's quasi-realistic grimdark post-apocalypse"?
Does it still seem interesting/romantic/appealing to you, or do you think this cow ran out of milk?
Are there plot threads that were left unexplored, and yet can be implemented via CRPG structure?
Does the setting itself still lend a heavy emotional weight that makes it immersive, or are we desensitized by now?
Maybe, the one who is waiting for you, will prove untrue, then what will you do?
There was something romantic about the simplicity of survival in the decaying world, a sense of adventure in a strange environment where all rules have changed. The gusts of sand blowing over an overturned, rusty car. Town guards blowing away giant rats that are getting at the town's food supply. Packs of lawless gangs scavenging the wastelands.
Now I find this feeling gone.
Post-apocalypse has become increasingly popular, and, in its various forms, flooded movies, TV shows, games. Fallout 3 and New Vegas came and went, Wasteland 2 is upcoming, The Walking Dead has been a comic, a TV show and a videogame, there's been a bajillion zombie movies portraying the world in various stages of ruin, and suddenly that romantic image of a rust-covered car has lost its novelty to me.
When it comes to CRPGs, is there something fresh and imaginative to be squeezed out of "Earth's quasi-realistic grimdark post-apocalypse"?
Does it still seem interesting/romantic/appealing to you, or do you think this cow ran out of milk?
Are there plot threads that were left unexplored, and yet can be implemented via CRPG structure?
Does the setting itself still lend a heavy emotional weight that makes it immersive, or are we desensitized by now?
Maybe, the one who is waiting for you, will prove untrue, then what will you do?
