Witcher 3 Developer Calls Skyrim "Casual"

[teh_gunslinger]

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.

The new skill system is also considerably more pointless than the earlier games and the game can't be lost and it never pushes back towards the player. Nothing has consequences and nothing ultimately matters. You may be able to sneak stab a dragon in the tail and kill it with that one stab but some dude will still call you milk drinker.

Casual game it may not be, but a game that doesn't demand anything or indeed give anything, that it is.

THIS.
Exactly how I feel about all the TES games I know (Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim), and exactly why I never really got engaged in them, I felt this from the start, everything felt like a cardboard scenery (not because of graphics). Games to me are (/should be) mainly about messing around with interconnected systems and experiencing the emergent scenarios it results in, but I never found anything connected to anything in any meaningful way in TES games... And that's why I never understood the people who love those games religiously. I mean, I still like them a lot, they show and realize big parts of the potential of the genre, but they neglect the one part that is most important (to me personally).

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

 

[Magmarock]

I couldn't agree more the way Skyrim's gameplay is structured and the the upgrade system works is very casual.

 

[SageRuffin]

An RPG that non-reactive to the players actions cannot be considered a 'full-on, heavyweight RPG'.

Sorry, but that depends entirely on how you define RPG, and from what I've seen, no one can come up with a definition that satisfies everyone.

I know what defines an RPG in my eyes: a game where you play a role irrespective to the one you're currently holding.. Sure, that makes virtually every game in existence some sort of RPG if you wanna get into semantics, but there you go, and there's nothing anyone can tell me that'll make me think otherwise.

Skyrim is like a giant ballpit. The Witcher is more like an adventure playground.

Nice analogy. Really, it is.

 

[CharrHearted]

With its massive open world - not that big...

competing factions - red v blue

huge array of NPCs - soulless shards of nothingness.

widely varied environments - oh look, a different shade of ice!

hundreds of dungeons - All look the same mostly.

and deep, flexible character creation options - Few bits and pieces, not flexible, just average.


Just my opinion on that subject...

 

[Machine Man 1992]

But then again, on the other hand, Yahtzee has a history of calling out gameplay mechanic issues that other critics over looked, or even praised.

And I prefer elegant simplicity over needless complexity any day. If a game is one of those games that requires you use the entire keyboard, like a flight sim, or space combat game, then fine. If a game arbitrarily adds steps to a process other games have done faster and simpler, then I want nothing to do it.

Again- ignorant pleb. Probably won't play the Whitchers. Only have a half decade old mac and consoles.

Let me put it this way: I roll my eyes at people who ***** about Skyrim being "dumbed down" compared to Morrowind because I prefer a good game where you don't have to RTFM to know how to perform simple tasks. I like that Skyrim's perk tree system lets me level up without having to juggle a bunch of stats. And the Witcher series is one of my all-time favorites. The Witcher 2 is available on 360, and I highly recommend at least renting it. Incidentally, after Yahtzee's review came out lambasting the game for not telling you how to do things, CD Projekt added a tutorial mode to the Enhanced Edition (that's their equivalent of a GOTY edition, except it's available at no charge if you bought the original version; even if I didn't like the game I'd have bought it just to encourage that kind of business practice).

Witcher 2's on 360? Damn, better update my gamefly queue.

 

[Krantos]

An RPG that non-reactive to the players actions cannot be considered a 'full-on, heavyweight RPG'.

Sorry, but that depends entirely on how you define RPG, and from what I've seen, no one can come up with a definition that satisfies everyone.

I know what defines an RPG in my eyes: a game where you play a role irrespective to the one you're currently holding.. Sure, that makes virtually every game in existence some sort of RPG if you wanna get into semantics, but there you go, and there's nothing anyone can tell me that'll make me think otherwise.

I'm not really going to respond to your RPG definition, as you've already brought up the biggest problem with it. Instead, I'm just going to point out that I said no one can come up with a definition that satisfies everyone.

Anyone can come up with a definition that suits them (most people here probably already have one). My point wasn't that such definitions can't be made, they already are. My point was that speaking in absolutes as the person I quoted was (saying something can't be an RPG unless if satisfies specific criteria) is futile, as it is completely subjective.

Let me put it this way. Saying an RPG has to or can't have certain aspects, be they gameplay or narrative constructs, is akin to that Wall Street Journal review of Borderlands. For those unfamiliar, it raised quite a stir as the game was compared to things like Halo and Call of Duty, but only in those aspects where the latter two were most proficient (Competative Multiplayer most notably). The problem comes when people fail to distinguish between elements central to the genre and elements they simply enjoy.

Obviously, that's not a problem with the definition you provided, I just wanted to make it clear what I was referring to and arguing against in my initial post, as your reply wasn't really related to that point.

 

[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.