Witcher 3 Developer Calls Skyrim "Casual"

[Charli]

While it's a stretch to call Skyrim casual and I like the game quite a bit (140 hours before I got bored) the game is very light on actual systems and reactivity. It's ultimately a hollow game where you may be the guy who is the leased of every guild and saved the world but nobody in said world will note that.

Skyrim is a very casual game, because it's one of the ultimate "dick around" titles. Even the article here assumes he's not talking in the usual "casual v hardcore" slapfight people have.

Christ the term casual really is being thrown about alot these days isn't it. Lets put it this way my mum can work around Bejeweled and even a few Zelda titles. When it came to Skyrim she was decidedly stumped.

That's my measurement stick and I'm staying by it.

That's fine, but understand that casual is a real word with real-world uses and this use is completely accurate to Skyrim.

If you want "casual" to mean "games for moms," that's fine. Just don't pretend that's what other people mean, especially people from a different culture with a different native tongue.

Er? Pardon? Casual does not have a definitive checklist of definition in the English language when pertaining to games or ...well much at all. It is at best a descriptive term, individual to the user that utilizes it.
What other people mean is not necessarily what you mean, you may reach a level of understanding but there are still many factors that you may have not discussed in which you differ.
It may be a genre, but that too is decided by a panel of people. Adventure, action, etc these too are all completely subjective to the people judging it. Some may see an RPG where others see an Adventure with RPG elements.

'Casual' has not got a defined rule to it.

So I'm sorry but 'what other people mean' is completely different to each individual and coming at me going 'oh that's fine if you want to live in la-la land but the rest of us know better' is kind of childish.

And no I still do not believe that Skyrim is a game that anyone can pick up and make their way through it okay. To me, that is a element I see present in what casual games I define. To you, it may not be.

 

[Something Amyss]

What other people mean is not necessarily what you mean

Yes, exactly my point. Thank you for dedicating several paragraphs to proving me right.

 

[Absolutionis]

Considering the actual quote from CDPR, that's kinda been twisted into an inflammatory title...

I completely agree.

CDPR's quoted text states that they see Skyrim as a casual romp through a world due to the lack of restrictions and strict objectives. This contrasts with games like The Witcher which are story-driven and noticeably more linear than the "what was my quest again?" games like Skyrim.

The article title is absurdly inflammatory.

 

[ClockworkUniverse]

I'm not seeing the problem here.

I think the gaming community tends to define "casual games" as "games for little kids and old folks," but that isn't really what it means. It's all about how the game encourages you to play it.

For example, Animal Crossing is a game some might call casual. Yet it's a game that you pretty much have to play every day in order to do decently at it, and if you screw up your town, you will legitimately have to put in some effort to fix things up. Very much not a casual game.

Skyrim, meanwhile, is a game that very much encourages screwing around with minimal consequences. Wanna get married? It'll take all of two minutes. Run out of lockpicks? Quickload! You'll lose thirty seconds. The world's about to be destroyed, but you'd rather run around punching rabbits for a week? No worries, the world will still be JUST ABOUT to be destroyed if you ever get back to it.

People tend to apply a stigma to the term "casual," which makes it hard for them to admit it when something they like falls into that category, but yeah, Skyrim is definitely a casual game.

And yeah, title is blatant pageview-bait.

 

[Something Amyss]

So I'm sorry but 'what other people mean' is completely different to each individual and coming at me going 'oh that's fine if you want to live in la-la land but the rest of us know better' is kind of childish.

So is making a strawman argument and then calling someone childish for it. Please, don't cast stones from glass houses. Don't misrepresent me, and most of all, don't post criticism if you haven't taken the time to understand the post you're criticising.

 

[Smooth Operator]

Well he didn't actually say it's casual, but I very much would, compared to their older counter parts and actual "heavyweights" in the genre Skyrim is a walk in the park.

 

[Akisa]

Well Skyrim is a Casual when compared to Morrowwind though.

 

[Professor Uzzy]

When you think about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you probably don't think "casual." With its massive open world, competing factions, huge array of NPCs, widely varied environments, hundreds of dungeons and deep, flexible character creation options, Skyrim is by most measures a full-on, heavyweight RPG.

An RPG that non-reactive to the players actions cannot be considered a 'full-on, heavyweight RPG'. The mechanics are shallow, the world lifeless and cold. Nothing you do is of any consequence in the game world.

Now it's certainly a fun game, and I've put a lot of hours into it, but calling it a heavyweight RPG is just silly. Jonas Mattson is entirely correct in his assessment.

 

[Charli]

What other people mean is not necessarily what you mean

Yes, exactly my point. Thank you for dedicating several paragraphs to proving me right.

I never said what I mean is what other people should mean, so why on earth did you feel to the need to enter into a discussion with me?

 

[Charli]

So I'm sorry but 'what other people mean' is completely different to each individual and coming at me going 'oh that's fine if you want to live in la-la land but the rest of us know better' is kind of childish.

So is making a strawman argument and then calling someone childish for it. Please, don't cast stones from glass houses. Don't misrepresent me, and most of all, don't post criticism if you haven't taken the time to understand the post you're criticising.

I understood you fine, it wasn't at all necessary and it was condescending. And that 'stawman' that people love bandying about like the vogue phrase of the internet right now, was perfectly well constructed. You implied that my meaning was misleading others. When I even went out of my way to say 'this is how I gauge a casual game'.

I ask again, what was your point here?

 

[SonOfVoorhees]

Skyrim is casual when compared to other rpgs. But in that respect so was Witcher 2 when i played it.

 

[The Feast]

If a game developer say it's casual, it's casual. We already experience the whole game and we know what it tends to achieve, the exploration and the sense of place. But it lacks the sense of focusing the game for story development and better combat integration. It had it's moment in the early stage but later, it's just giving you a linear pathway in some smart representation. I don't know if I can enjoy Skyrim if it wasn't for mods.

 

[Tiamat666]

I'm pretty certain from the context that he doesn't mean "casual" as in -for casual gamers who play Bejeweled-, but rather "casual" as in, -you can run around in Skyrim doing whatever you want, completely ignoring plot, quests and storyline-.

In that context, he is correct. You can play Skyrim a lot more casually than the Witcher, where the plot pokes at you at every turn.

While I must say that I enjoy both types of games a lot, I have a soft spot for the open world type of "casual" RPG's, because these are the -real- Role Playing Games in which you can ROLEPLAY many different roles -not just the one forced upon you by the plot- which I thought was the whole point of ROLE PLAYING games in the first place.

Contrary to popular belief, a role-playing-game is not a game in which you play a certain role. By that definition practically every game is an RPG. It's also not about the stats and leveling up. A real role playing game is a game that empowers you to use the game mechanics and your imagination to roleplay different roles. The Witcher is not an RPG. It's a 3D adventure game. Skyrim is a real RPG.

Thanks. Just had to get that out of my system.

 

[Therumancer]

I think they are right to be honest. Elder Scrolls has been becoming increasingly dumbed down and simpler even as the technology behind it has increased. It has a huge, explorable, world, but it has little depth, and requires very little from the player to be good at, pretty much anyone who sticks with it for a while is going to become an invincible godling with 90% of the world's wealth stuffed into the cupboards of their collection of huts.

Skyrim LOOKS like a hardcore RPG, but it's really not. It, and Elder Scrolls as a series, are among the "go to" examples for "serious" gamers talking about what casuals and companies catering to them have done to gaming. Elder Scrolls becoming prettier, but having less control and options, with every chapter. Ever since "Daggerfall" people have been complaining as more and more has been stripped away over time.

This is not to say it's a bad game, and yes serious gamers can (and do) appreciate it, including me, but when asked about "Deep RPGs for the computer" this one doesn't usually make my list.

As far as "The Witcher" goes though, I can't really say that's the series I'd use to champion serious hardcore RPGs. This is a series where your combat has been literally dictated by simply clicking your mouse when the pointer changes. "The Witcher 2" (which I never got to run perfectly) made things a little more arbitrary at the beginning and pretty much got it's initial difficulty by throwing you to the wolves without explaining how to use half of what you had (though to be fair if you played the first one this isn't as big a deal). An open world "Witcher" sounds like a lot of fun, but seeing as your unlikely to be able to create your own character and instead be handed "Geralt The Polymath" who will rapidly become as invincible as your typical Skyrim character, and whose advancement will probably continue to be gated (it seems like you have a lot of options, but everything is carefully controlled in terms of what you can take and when).

In short I agree with these guys about Skyrim, but it's like the pot calling the kettle black. It's like the guys who did Nethack dissing ADOM for being a roguelike.

 

[Tradjus]

Yeah, I guess in comparison too RPGs such as The Witcher and Dark Souls it is pretty casual.
Although I would argue that that isn't actually a bad thing, since those games are made too appeal to a very specific niche and Skyrim and The Elder Scrolls have always been about a slightly more widespread audience including the majority of fantasy lovers, and not just people with inhuman tolerance for frustration.

 

[Orks da best]

When you think about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you probably don't think "casual." With its massive open world, competing factions, huge array of NPCs, widely varied environments, hundreds of dungeons and deep, flexible character creation options, Skyrim is by most measures a full-on, heavyweight RPG.

An RPG that non-reactive to the players actions cannot be considered a 'full-on, heavyweight RPG'. The mechanics are shallow, the world lifeless and cold. Nothing you do is of any consequence in the game world.

Now it's certainly a fun game, and I've put a lot of hours into it, but calling it a heavyweight RPG is just silly. Jonas Mattson is entirely correct in his assessment.

I think he is meaning compared to other well known games. And there is truth in that matter after all with you ask an average joe about Skyrim they think a big massive rpg. Well ask the common gamer you get well what this guy is and most other posters have said.

Now then, would more people do more rpgs in space and sci-fi setting, ya old medieval ages gets dull after so many many many tries don't it?

 

[Phrozenflame500]

Developer Calls Skyrim "Casual"

Unless you work at CD Projekt Red, that is, where they apparently think that it's a fun way to pass some time in between rounds of Bejeweled.

Dude not freaking cool. The quote doesn't even put Skyrim in the same vein as Bejeweled.

"I am a fan of Skyim, a lot of us love Skyim. But while they are doing their thing, like open world, jumping and playing around quite casually, we are doing it a little bit differently," Mattson told Gameranx. "We are heavily story driven and open world. This hasn't really been done before and we want to prove that it can be done."

It doesn't even badmouth Skyrim as "casual" as you are insinuating, it's pointing out how it's less story-driven and more "player-doing-stupid-shit-driven"

You even say:

In all fairness, I don't think Mattson is actually suggesting that Skyrim is a "casual game"

I mean Jesus I know Escapist does plenty of link-baiting from time to time, but this is just trying to start a flamewar.

 

[Thyunda]

I would say Skyrim is pretty casual. Its interface is limited and interaction with the world is entirely minimal. You can't accidentally make the game harder for yourself, you acquire new equipment pretty easily as you level up - at no point did I ever struggle to find a new weapon, and I'm pretty sure I skipped a few weapon stages things moved that quickly. Then I wandered about with my soul-eating Dragonbone swords the Corsairs until the Solstheim DLC, and then I just switched them out for the...oh god I don't remember what the material is called - but I have the whole suit of armour of it too.

What I'm trying to say is that the game really does just press gifts into your hands every time you do something. I never felt challenged or that I could do something wrong...or even that I was in a living, breathing world. It felt flat and empty and developing my character did not seem as worthwhile as in Oblivion - as soon as the werewolf perk tree became available, I completed it in one transformation. It was quite the blitz, admittedly, and I admit it was fun, but I still feel like I haven't developed at all.


Also what's with the bitchy headline? Did you want us to start calling the developer names? Maybe we could sleep with their boyfriend in revenge.

 

[Doom972]

Considering the actual quote from CDPR, that's kinda been twisted into an inflammatory title...

I agree. What's the point of this article? Incite people into arguing about it? He was referring to the free-roaming nature of Skyrim, as opposed to the more story-based nature of the Witcher series.

Andy, you should be ashamed.