A very specific kind of RPG

[viranimus]

I need some help finding a list of RPGs, though there are several conditions regarding it.

First and foremost I am trying to find a list of (predominantly) 3d First person perspective RPGs made within the last 5 years.

Excluding the following:

Anything from Bethesda
MMOs
Action games with RPG elements (IE Bioshock, Deus ex, CoD, Stalker ect)

* I suspect this would be an incredibly short list.

 

[NPC009]

Does that include turn-based games? Are we talking PC or games in general? Because counting indie and Japanese games, that list may be way longer than you suspect.

I don't know if this helps, but: www.rpgfan.com/reviews

There's some visual novels and adventure games in there as well, but you'll comb through them fast enough.

 

[bluepotatosack]

Well, there's the Legend of Grimlock games.

That's about all I can think of.

 

[aozgolo]

Do you want PURE First Person games or are games where you can switch between 3rd and 1st acceptable?

A few I can think of:

Legend of Grimrock
Delver (indie roguelike)
Consortium
Might & Magic X - Legacy
Lichdom: Battlemage
Crystal Rift
Hellraid
Paper Sorcerer
Elminage Gothic


I'm sure there's others but that's just from what I know of that's available on Steam, but don't go into any of those if you're expecting a Skyrim type of RPG, most are Dungeon Crawlers.

 

[Aetrion]

I don't know about the last five years, but there is Arx Fatalis, which has a modding community that has kept the game pretty well up to date.

Vampire The Masquerade: Bloodlines is a hybrid first/third person game. (It goes to third person in melee combat)

There is also Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, but it's very linear and action oriented.


In all honesty though, saying you want a first person RPG that isn't heavy on action kind means there aren't any games out there you're really going to like. Even Legends of Grimrock which is incredibly oldschool as a first person RPG has a lot of fights ultimately.

I won't claim that I know every single RPG ever made, but it's my main genre, and I just can't think of anything that really fits your criteria. Nobody really makes first person games that aren't heavy on the action because first person is all about projecting the experience of the game onto the player. The more heavily a game falls on the pure RPG side the more likely it is to be third person, because third person is about observing the actions of a character of your creation.

 

[viranimus]

In all honesty though, saying you want a first person RPG that isn't heavy on action kind means there aren't any games out there you're really going to like. Even Legends of Grimrock which is incredibly oldschool as a first person RPG has a lot of fights ultimately.

I won't claim that I know every single RPG ever made, but it's my main genre, and I just can't think of anything that really fits your criteria. Nobody really makes first person games that aren't heavy on the action because first person is all about projecting the experience of the game onto the player. The more heavily a game falls on the pure RPG side the more likely it is to be third person, because third person is about observing the actions of a character of your creation.

Sorry, I think I may have confused that point. The problem is not a game heavy on action, the exclusion was intended to separate first person shooters that have RPG elements to them, that are not RPGs in the broader sense of the term. Don't get me wrong, I love Bioshock, Deus Ex, borderlands ect but they are at most a hybridization of RPGs and shooters, which puts them into a class of their own.

In fact I love FPP melee centric RPG that is action intensive, But still carries the hallmarks of RPGS in the fact there is a narrative in which you immerse yourself into the "role" you are playing, as well as being able to develop your "character" through experience, skill tree progression, incrementally improving equipment, ect. Without those hallmarks having to be sacrificed in the name of action and without the immersion being sacrificed in order to be able to look over the players shoulder.

My concern is, when I was initially looking, it seems like this past generation with a very few exceptions, Developers of RPGs have seemingly abandoned First person perspective with the lions share of RPGs being forced into third person perspective without option to switch. So I was trying to understand if that perception is accurate or speculative. Not knowing every RPG either, I was hoping others might be able to illustrate some examples, (which have been like Paper Sorcerer, Grimrock, ect, ) that are of that same stripe. So more ideas are certainly welcome.

 

[Aetrion]

It was your mention of Deus Ex that weirded me out, because that game to me is all about narrative and inhabiting a role, more than about its combat system.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Mount and Blade Warband!!!!!

Assuming you're not looking for a well structured plot (there is no story, it's mostly a sandbox for you to do awesome medieval shit in), you'll find that you can be pretty much anything.
You can start as a lowly peasant who works his way up to command hundreds of troops while forging your own empire.
You can be a peaceful merchant who gathers more and more wealth for the eventual financing of a secret military campaign.
You can be a murderous bandit who raids villages and attacks caravans without provocation.
You can be a warrior renowned throughout the country because of your amazing feats of skill in tournaments.
You can be a social climber who marries his way into a powerful family, gains the love of many people, and then turns them against their former king to serve under your new kingdom instead.
You can be a loyal vassal to a king, only to stab him in the back and take everything just has you've expended his military into an intentionally suicidal campaign (you can be made marshal of a kingdom).

Then there's the combat. For starters, it has, in my opinion, the best melee combat in any game of it's kind. You actually have to decide which way to swing and block by moving your mouse in the chosen direction. Then there's the glorious large scale battles where you take the field with one hundred allies against an army of equal size and use your tactical skill to crush them. Leading a flanking cavalry charge into an enemy's army while you lance the enemy lord in the head is the single most satisfying feeling I've ever experienced in a video game.

The graphics kind of suck though. That's sort of to be expected though since highly detailed models in the huge battles would be challenging for a lot of people's machines to handle.

Also, the game has one of the best modding communities out there. There are numerous total conversion mods that basically turn it into a completely different game. Some of these exceed the base game in depth by a staggering proportion. Honestly, I'd almost call the vanilla game (as amazing as it is) just the tutorial for the even better mods.

Anyway, it's not an RPG in the usual sense of "go on epic journey to save the world", it's more an RPG in the sense that you really are playing the ROLE of a character in a deep medieval sandbox.

My favourite game of all time. Definitely not for everyone though.

 

[aozgolo]

Mount and Blade Warband!!!!!

While I agree with the zeal you have for Warband as it is an awesome game, even though it does have a first person mode, it's really terrible for anything other than archery, even then it's unnecessary. Also combat is really the only time when you'd even be in 1st person at all, which yes that's a big part of the game, but outside of that most things are done on the overhead map or through menus, Even doing your business in towns can be mostly done in menus and doesn't require going into actual scenes.

 

[MHR]

Minecraft; Experience bar and hunger meter, booyah!

Kappa

EDIT: Oh no wait! Barony. It's an indie rougelite that just came out about a month ago. To be honest, it looks almost exactly like minecraft, but it's an action RPG. Lots of equipment management, character building, stats, treasure, and randomized dungeon floors. You said no predominantly action-style games, but it has a lot more RPG stuff than bioshock, that's for sure. And it's real cheap, like 7 bucks.

Just watch out for all the cursed equipment. Almost half of all the items are cursed. It's like the craftsmen in that world all curse their own products so they can't be unequipped to enforce brand loyalty or something, it's fucked. I love it.

Really though, for things made in the last 5 years, especially in the FPS perspective, there's always going to be some action to the RPG. You wouldn't make a pure turn-based system and force it into a first-person perspective, that's a bit fucky.

 

[Tilly]

You've really not done yourself any favours by stipulating first person. First person games tend to require higher amounts of graphical detail and therefore bigger budgets. In fact, to generalise that point, the distance between the camera and the character is probably inversely proportional to the budget in most cases.

Mount and Blade Warband!!!!!

While I agree with the zeal you have for Warband as it is an awesome game, even though it does have a first person mode, it's really terrible for anything other than archery, even then it's unnecessary. Also combat is really the only time when you'd even be in 1st person at all, which yes that's a big part of the game, but outside of that most things are done on the overhead map or through menus, Even doing your business in towns can be mostly done in menus and doesn't require going into actual scenes.

Well I didn't even realise it had a first person mode. Brilliant game though. Quite a unique one too.

 

[Auberon]

Until I paid attention to first person, I had Shadowrun isometrics in mind.

 

[RedDeadFred]

Mount and Blade Warband!!!!!

While I agree with the zeal you have for Warband as it is an awesome game, even though it does have a first person mode, it's really terrible for anything other than archery, even then it's unnecessary. Also combat is really the only time when you'd even be in 1st person at all, which yes that's a big part of the game, but outside of that most things are done on the overhead map or through menus, Even doing your business in towns can be mostly done in menus and doesn't require going into actual scenes.

I completely misread "3d First Person" as "3rd Person".... In my defense, I was rather tired when I made that post.