BioWare Could Move Away from Fantasy and Sci-Fi

[theultimateend]

Whatever they make, will be 'streamlined to be even more accessible to the fans and when you press a button something awesome will happen! Twice!'.

Screw Bioware, they're cutting to many corners in the name of a quicker buck. And the corners they cut are all from the RPG-part of the equation.

Whatever it is it'll be super gay.

I mean that literally. They are forcing the topic so hard. Good lord, I'm as pro sexuality of any natural nature as you can get without becoming a point singularity for it, but even I'm thinking "Alright guys...that's a little bit forced."

I imagine their next game will be like heavy rain but the plot twist will be that everyone is gay.

I wouldn't mind it if it was canon, but the hardcore retconning is just really jarring.

Again, in no way anti-gay, just think Bioware is going about it very tacky and ruining an oppurtunity.

 

[violent_quiche]

Historical settings have to be an obvious option. The Assassins Creed series proved that there are plenty of options beyond medieval England and it's fantasy analogues. AC may have a sci-fi arc surrounding it, but it's hardly in my mind while I'm playing it. Just don't do Italy in the 1500's though, that's been thoroughly worked over

 

[Cain_Zeros]

A modern day Bioware RPG could be interesting. Something in a modern urban setting. Only problem is, how do they do it without making it urban fantasy?

 

[Caligulove]

Espionage RPG Espionage RPG Espionage RPG please, please pleeaaaaaase do some kind of Espionage or Intelligence/Spy Agency RPG.

 

[Stevepinto3]

Know what kind of setting they need to do? Ancient civilization. No, not even Assassin's Creed 1 ancient, I mean like just discovering how to build huts and making bone jewelery ancient. Or if not that's too much, perhaps around the invention of cuneiform.

Anyway, you would play an ancient man trying to become warchief of his tribe. You fight for land from enemy tribes, you learn to make spears, and kill anyone trying to usurp your leadership. It would be like the early turns of a Civilization game, but you beat the people with clubs yourself.

If historical accuracy gets boring you can always just go the Flinstone's route and have the player fight and/or tame dinosaurs. I mean, seriously, there are not enough games on the market where I can fight dinosaurs.

 

[Quiet Stranger]

I wonder if it'd be possible to make a horror RPG

 

[irequirefood]

Jade Empire just happens to be my favourite BioWare game...

I for one hope that they broaden their range. Not too far at the moment of course, but something other than Sci-Fi or Fantasy could be a nice change, and a new challenge for BioWare to tackle.

 

[MetallicaRulez0]

THE END IS NIGH!

I'm not really sure how to feel about this. Fantasy and Sci-Fi are easily my favorite themes in games, but I could see myself enjoying a modern spy RPG, if done properly.

 

[Zhukov]

Huh.

I'm surprised at how well people are taking this. I was expecting a torrent of hate.

Personally, I'd like to see them try new things. Just so long as they don't go for the grey-FPS-set-during-modern-conflict approach. That would be a tragedy.

EDIT:

Steampunk please, oh god please. If Bioware made a deal with Girl Genius I might implode from happiness :3

Stop taunting me with such visions. It's cruel.

 

[gmaverick019_v1legacy]

well this could be good, but at the same time i really do love the way they treat their rpg's, so as long as they either:

A)keep doing rpg's

B)keep the same "flow/point of their games" but with different flavors of genre's and theme's

i'm cool with it.

part A is more of a concern..but either way i'm sure i'll enjoy it.

 

[Soods]

Noooo! I hate modern era, it's so boring. Why would anyone want to be a cop when they can be ANYTHING? Dragons > Drug Lords

 

[mexicola]

I'm sure if they focused more on multiplayer, switched to first person andmaybe pull the accent away from the story (booooring amirite!) that would certainly "broaden their appeal, broaden their reach, sell more units and get more fans."

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

Bioware moves away from fantasy and sci-fi... and into gritty, brown, modern shooter territories?

Arghhhhh....

Why is it developers look at the gaming world and think to themselves "You know what would be cooler than an outlandish blitz through space with countless bad guys from multiple varied races fighting an intergalactic (technically) threat? A setting that any person could look out their front window and envision happening simply by reading the newspaper!"

Please ... not saying that modern, gritty cop dramas or brown, samey shooters are necessarily bad ... just ... you know ... maybe make a limit on how many of these games are produced and focus on some interesting, new, ips?

Like how about a pseudo medical drama where you're a psychiatric 'surgeon' ... in the near future all diseases have been cured, but the stress on our neural activity from the continuing increase of labour and ever immersive digital landscapes (cybernetic games, news, etc etc) creates biological computer viruses that warp our perceptions and thus require a psychiatric 'surgeon' to delve into your 'headspace' to isolate traumas and introduce chemical and/or electrical stimuli to combat the problem.

And from that proceed into an action adventure setting which has the good doctor realize a secret that everyone is dying due to 'information overload' but the world government kept a lid on it to avoid mass panic, and thus the doctor mindfucks key conspiracy members into finding the big red button that collapses half of the 'neural-net' ... destroying the collective world government and plunging entire societies into civil war, but otherwise sparing some of Humanity's population.

Something like that ...

 

[Kahunaburger]

Doesn't necessarily even have to be modern to be fantasy/sci-fi. How about the lives of a wandering group of mercenaries in ancient Greece? And there are plenty of ways (cop drama, western, kurosawa-esque samurai story, alternate history, etc) to set places in non SF settings that aren't typical. Honestly, it might be interesting to see something that's not combat-related - I'm imagining Bioware doing Ocean's 11 or a game about running a field hospital in a war-torn country.

 

[airrazor7]

Bioware,

please catch onto what Access Games was trying to accomplish with Spy Fiction and make a true espionage game. We should have more games where the player can assume other identities and hide in plain site while accomplishing their missions, y'know, like a real spy. People call games like the Metal Gear Solid series espionage/spy games but I disagree. Sure you sneak around through air ducts and cardboard boxes gathering info but eventually you get caught in a fight with a giant robot and I think at that point you've failed as a spy. The series is great and the developers have my respect but I wouldn't call it a true espionage game.

But, I digress from my rant. Whatever you do I hope it will be good and by the way, do try to avoid the gritty realistic games that come in various shades of gray and brown. We have enough of those and not enough fantasy games.

 

[Tradjus]

Bioware, you know what you have to do, don't go looking around for other solutions for your creative rut, look right under your nose. Jade Empire 2, get on it.

 

[zerobudgetgamer]

Honestly, as much as I have to join the chorus of applause at BioWare's storytelling, I feel like the gameplay in their games need serious work. I've tried three times to play Dragon Age: Origins. I love the story, I really do. I want to know more about Ferelden, the Fade, everything. BUT, I can't play for longer than 2-3 hours in a sitting for more than 2 weeks or so before I just get so brain-dead bored of the slow-paced, stale combat that I'm clawing at my gaming library desperately for some relief. I have never finished the game, not because I was not interested in how it ended, but because some other game would always entice me and overwhelm my free time until I'd return to the game, see where I was at, and feel unfulfilled were I to try to resume where I had left off.

Also, could someone please send an Open Letter to BioWare stating that we do NOT need gratuitous sex scenes in every game they produce...and if we really do, PLEASE give us some more attractive options, either physically, personality-wise, or both. I do NOT want to engage in Alien Sex of any kind, and the entire female cast of both Dragon Ages could have bodies like Pamela Anderson and their fucking personalities would still be as grating as sliding down a gravel road at 50 MPH.

Like how about a pseudo medical drama where you're a psychiatric 'surgeon' ... in the near future all diseases have been cured, but the stress on our neural activity from the continuing increase of labour and ever immersive digital landscapes (cybernetic games, news, etc etc) creates biological computer viruses that warp our perceptions and thus require a psychiatric 'surgeon' to delve into your 'headspace' to isolate traumas and introduce chemical and/or electrical stimuli to combat the problem.

And from that proceed into an action adventure setting which has the good doctor realize a secret that everyone is dying due to 'information overload' but the world government kept a lid on it to avoid mass panic, and thus the doctor mindfucks key conspiracy members into finding the big red button that collapses half of the 'neural-net' ... destroying the collective world government and plunging entire societies into civil war, but otherwise sparing some of Humanity's population.

Something like that ...

So...Psychonauts 2???

 

[Grey_Gore]

I'd love me something slightly Steampunk-flavored, or maybe a sequel to Jade Empire?

[sub]...or mix and match, maybe coin in a new genre, oh my![/sub]

 

[Traun]

I'd love me something slightly Steampunk-flavored, or maybe a sequel to Jade Empire?

[sub]...or mix and match, maybe coin in a new genre, oh my![/sub]

1. Jade Empire was a financial disaster.

2. Going out of the RPG genre would be the death of Bioware. The company always creates games with weak gameplay. The only game in which the gameplay was good was Baldur's Gate - and that was because their targeted audience was DnD players. Everything they've made up until now is tolerable, however the plot and worlds they've made did make those games really good. If they move from the RPG genre there will be more weight on their weakest link, which is not a good thing for Bio.

 

[Abedeus]

Sure, Bioware. Right after Jade Empire 2.