Instead:
No one saw this coming, least the creators. They didn’t struck gold either like PlayerUnknown, since they don’t have any new formula to copy. I guarantee that there won’t be Fortnight: Deliverance.
Or to be more specific, they didn’t create anything unique game-wise. But they did something unique PR-wise. It started that someone (that I do not know) found that this game has no black people in it. Which kind of makes sense, considering it plays in the Eastern European countryside in 1403, where foreigners (even from neighboring countries) were rare. In itself it wouldn’t be news even 5 years ago. But the political left went crazy over the past years. Not long ago, you were only racist when you negatively and stereotypically portrayed groups. Now you are “racist” if you don’t portray them. Because everything must be about social justice. They would probably find the 90-es TV series Friends “racist”. Not kidding.
Anyway, these type of SJWs attack everything they don’t like (and they like nothing, because they are crazy). But – unlike most studios that hope to survive by pandering to them – the lead dev flipped the bird to the ever-encroaching Social Justice Warriors and flat out refused to change the game:
He also made various statements with the obvious purpose to annoy SJWs:
The result? Both liberal and conservative sites wrote about the game. This is how I learned about it. I also checked it out – and found it not my type. But I did check it out, unlike dozen other games. Those games had no chance to even introduce themselves to me. This advertising cost them not a dime. Sure, it wasn’t without cost, it guaranteed that no liberal – not even moderate liberal – bought it. But conservatives, rebel-minded people did. And as practically everyone heard of it, that’s a big base. “About half” of the people (40-60%) votes right-wing in the US and in the EU countries. In some places it’s enough to win an elections, in other places it’s not. But it’s no way a fringe group. It’s about a hundred million people (including non-voting family members) both sides of the Atlantic. They are a market with purchasing power. They can uphold games. I’m sure the liberal side could too, but that side is saturated as practically every product tries to not look “-ist”, ergo if one makes a left-wing product, it’s lost in the competition to everything else. Being left-wing isn’t unique selling point. But being right-wing (even in the hilariously mild way of not putting blacks to medieval Eastern-Europe) is a unique selling point.
I expect many more “right-wing” games to come.
To say it brings nothing new is a bit stupid – there’s no other game which captured the growth of village idiot into noble knight as this game did.
Or the bazillion of ways to solve problems and game doesn’t even remotely hint you all these options.
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@destabilizator: except every single RPG where the player starts out as a nobody and ends up a great hero.
The problem solving is somewhat different from “press any key to solve riddle” current games, but for someone who played Baldurs Gate and its contemporaries it’s not at all interesting.
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The game does bring new gameplay to the table. The combat is realistic (i.e. one hit to the head and you are most likely dead), and all mechanics are tailored to provide immersion. Also, no checkpoints, quick saves and the like. Plus, the historical accuracy, and the fact that they really did simulate really well the journey of a peasant (who starts out fumbling with weapons) becoming a warrior. Most people I know have the game on their radar for those things specifically, not any liberal controversies, I’m guessing this might not apply to the US audience.
The statement “except every single RPG where the player starts out as a nobody and ends up a great hero.” is inherently misinformed and false, because you might as well say that EVE Online is WoW in space. Or that PUBG is just a Quake skin.
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This comment is probably a bit irrelevant now you’ve got a project and you’ve dropped Subnautica, but I’ve just started playing the mod Mayhem for X3: Albion Prelude. It’s a complicated space 4x sandbox in the base game (which has no real difficulty). The Mayhem mod totally changes the ruleset of the game to a sandbox along with a dynamic war with the ai as well as a bit of a tower defense game with a separate ai faction. The main thing that makes the mod compelling is that you can get wiped out if you don’t learn and ‘survive’ in the sandbox. May be worth a look as the mod is in constant development and is highly configurable;
https://forum.egosoft.com/viewtopic.php?t=381503
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@tithian: EVE is different from WoW by gear loss on death, even on PvP death and NOT by being in space. PUBG is different from Quake by it’s everyone vs everyone ruleset and NOT by its skins. Can you name a different rule in KC:D from the industry standards? Because all I see is “walk, talk, swing” like in every other RPG.
“Headshot instakills” is the most common thing in video games. All mechanics of all games are attempting to provide immersion. “Historical accuracy”, like healing potions, right?
Don’t get me wrong, it’s possible that they did things BETTER than competitors. But that’s not different. Just like a Ferrari is just as much a “car” as a Ford Focus, just has better acceleration and top speed. Also, being “better” wouldn’t make it a smash hit, it would make it slowly gain ground as more and more people find it better than other games and recommend it to friends.
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This game has been one of the most anticipated non-AAA PC RPGs releases of the last year! Maybe I only think that because it landed inside my bubble. As a vague check I quickly googled “hotly anticipated pc games 2018.” 3 of the first 4 returns included Kingdom Come – Deliverance. They were PCGAMERN (https://www.pcgamesn.com/best-pc-games-2018), Forbes (https://www.forbes.com/sites/erikkain/2018/01/08/the-top-upcoming-video-games-of-2018-and-beyond/#62f6703f1f99) and PCGamer (https://www.pcgamer.com/new-games-2018/4/). The miss was Gameradar whose list only included console games. This game has been getting daily exposure on my of the gaming sites I read and that coverage has almost entirely ignoring the Gamergate and racism angle.
Maybe Kingdom Come – Deliverance has sold well because it was much hyped game built to appeal to the fans of Skyrim or The Witcher 3 with a selling point of being set in a more grounded medieval world and then actually delivers what it promised.”
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““Headshot instakills” is the most common thing in video games.”
Not in RPGs though. How about the lack of a typical saving system? Is that different enough for you? The combat is also completely different than any other RPG I’ve played, but I cannot convey the “feel” for it, nor can I compare it to something you can relate, because it’s new (that’s the point). I have difficulty explaining why this game is different, specifically because I cannot point to other games and say “it does that, but better”.
“Because all I see is “walk, talk, swing” like in every other RPG.”
All I see in EVE is NPCs, Quests (missions), Avatars, PvP and a cancerous General chat, just like in a WoW PvP server. All I see in PUBG is dudes shooting each other in an Arena style map, like in Unreal Tournament 20 years ago.
I’m obviously wrong, because the core mechanics of the games are different, but this is how you sound like right now. The existence of dialogue and combat in a game doesn’t make it a clone to all other games with dialogues. Skyrim is “walk talk swing” too, yet completely different.
They didn’t things BETTER, because if you look around the overall quality of the experience due to bugs, tachnical issues, optimization etc. is generally NEGATIVE. People stick with the game because it’s a breath of fresh air in an ocean of stale shit DESPITE its flaws.
Eh, whatever, no point trying to convince you anyway.
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@tithian: “it does that, but better” is the opposite of “different”. I don’t question that it’s a good RPG. Maybe it’s the best RPG on the market. But it’s still just “another RPG”, the same way as SWTOR is just a WoW clone.
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“The problem solving is somewhat different from “press any key to solve riddle” current games, but for someone who played Baldurs Gate and its contemporaries it’s not at all interesting.”
Have we played the same Baldur’s Gate serie? It was a glorified dungeon crawler, with quest rarely involving more than 2 ending (usually one optimal, and one sub-optimal), with 99% of problems being solved by killing monsters, or selecting obvious dialogue choices. Stealing/sneaking was occasionaly (i.e: a handful of occasions per game) useful (beside it’s combat-oriented utility, trap disarming, backstabs, etc), and on some rare quests you could find a third way by being really exhaustive, but it mostly involved “talk to the guys, kill the monsters, loot the treasure and get the reward”. It was a good game and I have fond memories of it, but it barely qualified as an RPG.
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I have to say, “Historically accurate” sounds damn cool.
And, to be fair, I’ll allow them to have “Healing Potions” because let’s be real… if any combat was “historically accurate” it would be almost never.
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@Smokeman: but then any game could call itself “historically accurate”, even one with Asian girls shooting arrows in lingerie while jumping, since otherwise it would be “almost never”.
Honestly, an Asian girl in lingerie, shooting arrows is more real than a magic healing potion.
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Gevlon, I won’t deny that some people will smirk at the reaction of the dev who defied the SJW, to be honest, putting Morgan Freeman with Kevin Costner in Robin Hood was just pandering to diversity, no one took offence putting Idris Elba in the role of Heimdall… Seriously? A black norse god?
I respect the dev for sticking to his game and not pandering idiotic egalitarians, but will I buy the game because of it? Certainly not. The game was highly anticipated by all those folks who like medieval things, swords and armour without an over the edge fantasy approach. The beta was a success and it was promising good sales numbers. Whether this “controvery” will affect sales numbers remains to be seen.
There has benn a recent drop in the player count for PUBG, which was to be expected, you just proved that in a survival “PVP” game, the best strategy is to not pvp, but hide and collect medkits… People will soon no longer praise top rated players with:”Wow, you must be really good at pvp”, but go like:”Wow, you are good at hiding, big deal…”
The same could be said for EVE, which you so brilliantly proved.
Unfortunately, KC:D ist still buggy and glitchy, which is why I will wait before buying it, my times as an unpaid beta or gamma tester are over…
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@Smite: I don’t say anyone buying the game because of the controversy. I’m saying many people hear about it because of the controversy, which is the highest barrier. There are 20K titles released a year and I doubt I hear about more than 100 (less than 0.5%). There is a high possibility that there is a game that I’d love but never hear about. KC:D doesn’t have such problem. Everyone did or will do hear about it unless he actively avoids venues of gaming talks.
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