Upcoming AAA/AA CRPGs or story-based RPGs (updated 15/04/2025)

[Joshua Randall]

I am not sure I can enjoy Oblivion without the potato-faced characters.

 

[MarkB]

I am not sure I can enjoy Oblivion without the potato-faced characters.

I just hope they still have the same five voice actors with occasional OOC line readings accidentally left in.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

I'm hoping for the same system (leveling, magic, etc), but with better feel+physics, ya know?

Personally I hope they made some changes - particularly to levelling up, because the amount you wanted to "metagame" in Oblivion was absolutely obnoxious (i.e. avoiding levelling certain skills etc). People forget and rose-tint this I find - playing it un-mod'd is kind of shock as to how archaic and silly this was.

But they should keep the mechanics for the most part, including stuff like spell creation (though maybe rebalance it a little so tri-element blasting isn't like, hilariously more powerful than other approaches for nukes for example - my wife worked that out within like 30 seconds of finding she could build spells, absolutely trivialized the game with it).

I just hope they still have the same five voice actors with occasional OOC line readings accidentally left in.

That is actually a very interesting point.

I personally hope they re-voiced the entire thing except the Patrick Stewart stuff and similar (and I think that's quite likely, because audio quality standards have changed a lot since then), but maybe have an optional checkbox for "Original VA" lol?

Proper VA for the whole game would be a very real and noticeable upgrade. The terrible original VA next to modern graphics would be hysterical though.

 

[MarkB]

Personally I hope they made some changes - particularly to levelling up, because the amount you wanted to "metagame" in Oblivion was absolutely obnoxious (i.e. avoiding levelling certain skills etc). People forget and rose-tint this I find - playing it un-mod'd is kind of shock as to how archaic and silly this was.

But they should keep the mechanics for the most part, including stuff like spell creation (though maybe rebalance it a little so tri-element blasting isn't like, hilariously more powerful than other approaches for nukes for example - my wife worked that out within like 30 seconds of finding she could build spells, absolutely trivialized the game with it).

The other trick, as I recall, was doing the damage over a greater duration rather than all at once. It worked out cheaper, and an enemy hit with high enough damage would go into a stunned animation and wouldn't recover before they died, so it was just as effective at taking an enemy out of the equation.

That is actually a very interesting point.

I personally hope they re-voiced the entire thing except the Patrick Stewart stuff and similar (and I think that's quite likely, because audio quality standards have changed a lot since then), but maybe have an optional checkbox for "Original VA" lol?

Proper VA for the whole game would be a very real and noticeable upgrade. The terrible original VA next to modern graphics would be hysterical though.

Gotta still have Sean Bean in there, meeting his traditional fate in anything he stars in.

 

[Ruin Explorer]

The other trick, as I recall, was doing the damage over a greater duration rather than all at once. It worked out cheaper, and an enemy hit with high enough damage would go into a stunned animation and wouldn't recover before they died, so it was just as effective at taking an enemy out of the equation.

Yes that's right! That was the next thing she figured out - and IIRC, the duration didn't have to be very long to have quite a big impact on the cost.

It was the same with healing IIRC - a powerful heal-over-time was stupid cheaper mana-wise than an heal which took place immediately, even though casting time and pre-casting and so on could make the HoT much more practically useful on top of being more efficient!

 

[Reynard]

Looks like release day is Next Tuesday, so we will find out soon!

 

[Ruin Explorer]

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is getting INCREDIBLE reviews.

92% Metacritic on a large number of reviews!

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 Reviews

Lead the Expedition on a desperate adventure to destroy the Paintress before she erases the last survivors of humanity in the stunning new RPG Clair Obscur: Expedition 33.

www.metacritic.com

That means it is, review-wise, one of the best-review RPGs in history! Top 20 of all time for sure.

I don't think anyone saw that coming, and because it's had basically no advertising, it's likely to be overshadowed by the Oblivion Remaster, Blue Prince and so on, but that is absolutely wild. Very interested to hear what people think if people get to play it!