Everyone Wants to Be Like Skyrim
How often are games released that have a major impact on the industry? Not very often. The easiest way to start gaining attention is through sales. When a game sells 14 million copies (and counting), people take notice. When an RPG sells 14 million copies, developers and publishers change the way they make games.
CD Projekt Red has recently announced The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt. As the developer’s major IP, the announcement wasn’t terribly surprising to the many faithful fans of the franchise. While the first two titles never really hit mainstream status, they are very impressive games. It stands to reason that additional quality sequels will continue to push the franchise to new heights.
An interesting thing about the announcement was the reference to The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim. It was specifically noted that parts of Skyrim were being used as an inspiration for The Witcher 3. The vast, open world and sandbox style of gameplay were specifically mentioned.
Another notable Skyrim reference came from Bioware when discussing plans for Dragon Age 3. This example proves to be a bit more interesting. Bioware spent a lot of time and effort developing Dragon Age: Origins. The game contained a lot of traditional RPG elements and proved to be very popular.
Dragon Age 2 turned out to be a rushed project where the only major focus was to strip out RPG elements in order to make the game more fast-paced. The obvious thought process was that games with traditional RPG mechanics don’t sell very well and so changes needed to be made to broaden market appeal. The result was that Dragon Age 2 sold significantly less copies than Dragon Age: Origins.
Bioware’s mention that Dragon Age 3 will be more like Skyrim isn’t all that surprising (but it is kind of funny because that goes against all the changes they made for Dragon Age 2). Skyrim has proven that traditional RPG’s can still make a lot of money if done right.
Time will tell how The Witcher 3 and Dragon Age 3 turn out, but this certainly won’t be the last we hear of how influential Skyrim continues to be.