Fallout creator asks why triple-A RPGs focus on violence, doesn't provide very hopeful answer
rockpapershotgun.comOriginal Fallout designer Tim Cain, also known for co-directing The Outer Worlds at Obsidian, has published a video responding to a player's question about why violence is the "default" path in so many big budget RPGs. That's specifically RPGs with "AAA" budgets, whatever AAA means these days. Cain is, of course, well aware that there are many RPGs from smaller teams that "evolve past the paradigm of violence being the default way in which the player interacts with the world", and that there are plenty of puzzle games, adventure games and the like in which there is no violence at all.
His answer to the question isn't very satisfying: violence is the focus at those production scales because games in which bashing, bruising and bloodening are central tend to sell more copies. If you'd like that to change, you must get off your arse and "vote with your dollars". He does, however, have a few interesting reflections about his own experience as an RPG designer attempting to support more creative player approaches, whether peacenik or otherwise. Beyond that, the question of why violent games do numbers is always worth chewing over.
"I've always touted my RPGs as not only not needing violence, not needing you to make a combat character, but I don't even tout that one as the default path - I don't consider combat the main path and stealth and dialogue as the alternatives," Cain comments in the video. "I've always said this game supports multiple paths - you want to talk your way through it, knock yourself out, you want to stealth your way through it, go for it. Even when there's combat that has to be done, usually your companions can do it, or you can use stealth or dialogue to avoid it or reduce it so much that it becomes a relatively trivial fight."
He points to the existence of easy modes, and more recently, story modes, as ways to sideline the process of decapitating elves and similar, even in games that prioritise violence. But the audience for such things is
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