Witcher 3 Developer Calls Skyrim "Casual"

[SageRuffin]

In snip we trust.

Oh, believe me, I know. I can't speak for everyone and I'm not gonna even try to begin to attempt such a feat. I'm just saying that yes, a "proper" definition for an RPG is nigh-impossible to create, but for me, it's pretty simple. And like I said before, there's nothing anyone can say to make me change my mind.

 

[Miroluck]

Oblivion and Skyrim are certainly more casual games than previous TES ones (and I don't think that "casual" is a dirty word, unlike some people in modern gaming).
And CDPR haven't even called Skyrim "casual", they simply said that it have "casual fun".

 

[sumanoskae]

You know, it's been a long time since I've played vanilla Skyrim, so I'm not sure I can comment. I don't think I could describe Skyrim as "Casual", it's not a particularly challenging game in any sense of the word. The leveling system is more about discovery than complexity, but I think that's what Skyrim is really about; exploration.

Skyrim doesn't punish it's players because it wants them to feel free to explore, to get lost in it; it lulls you into a sort of trance and you forget that you're playing a game. I think that's what makes Skyrim special, it's immersive because it's world not only stands up to scrutiny, (If you can find a way to avoid the bugs, which I find aren't really an issue on PC) it rewards scrutiny.

 

[MidnightSt]

Messing about with interconnected systems? Have you played STALKER? If not, I think that might scratch that itch for you.

I had tried it once so far, but it kind of scared me off with surprisingly... difficult combat (I probably just don't understand how I should behave/act in it), so I repeatedly failed the first quest. I'm still eyeing it from time to time, waiting for a moment when the desire to try more of it outgrows the humiliation :-D

(Which might be right now, hm... See ya.)

 

[Signa]

When you think about The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, you probably don't think "casual."

I do though.

Skyrim is by most measures a full-on, heavyweight RPG

Ahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!

Oh god my sides!

Nearly all actual RPG aspects of the Elder Scrolls series were removed from Skyrim, and that's saying a lot considering how much Oblivion had already removed.

Skyrim's mechanics are tea-spoon shallow, and the world is cold, dead and nonreactive.

It isn't to say that Skyrim is a bad game, it's pretty fun just fucking around, but, like most casual games, it's the kind of game that you can pick up for 5 minutes and then set it down again for weeks, and nothing will really be lost from the experience.

It's a decent game, but it is most definitely casual, I still despise it though, but not simply for being a casual game. I would have had no issue if it could simply have been it's own IP, instead of taking a series I love and watering it down to unrecognizability.

The Witcher devs comments are completely spot on, Skyrim is EXACTLY a game for people who like playing around casually, that's literally all the game is good for.

If you want a good, deep RPG experience, Skyrim is not the place to look.

I pretty much came here to say this. I couldn't even read the article past "Skyrim is by most measures a full-on, heavyweight RPG."

Nope nope nope. You could say that about Morrowind, despite its first-person action elements, but both Oblivion and Skyrim have been shooters with swords, and increasingly less actual RPG elements.

 

[jim1398]

Gee? You think maybe ol' Jonas might be baiting us in order to start a conversation that equates his game with Bethesda's long running gazillion dollar franchise? This is cheesy marketing. Nothing more. I really had hoped that we, the gaming community, had learned to recognize this sort of crap and ignore it by now?

How is he baiting? He was asked if Skyrim was an influence, it's not like he randomly decided to just compare the game to Skyrim or claimed that it's going to be better. What he said is correct, it's very easy to just jump into Skyrim and play casually for half an hour or so. That's not a bad thing, it's just a different way to approach the genre than they are trying with The Witcher.

 

[nexus]

He didn't actually say that...

However, Skyrim is pretty casual. It's a very relaxing game, that you sort of just persist in until you've had enough.

 

[ZippyDSMlee]

It is a casual game there is no balance and no depth and is in general piss easy unless you push it to legendary and that only lasts til you hit 70 or so on your primary offensive skill then its mostly one shot for you or your target......... such a shame to so much potential and non of it fixable to any satisfying degree.....

 

[Grumman]

I'll take Skyrim over The Witcher games any day, for both story and gameplay. Even if they improve the gameplay such that The Witcher 3 is the kind of game you can immerse yourself in the same way you can in Bethesda's games, it's still a story that I absolutely loath. I don't /want/ to immerse myself in Geralt's story, because too often it just feels toxic. Not even the promise of boobs can make me slog through a story where I /have/ to let the guy I rescued burn the other prisoners alive.