Scrolls-Likes: The Unexpected Rise of a New Genre of RPG 

Really wish “Scrolls Likes” were more common because Bethesda keep dropping the ball.

Cool to see my game in such a list. Some people get it wrong, but you nailed what Raidborn is all about! I confess that The Elder Scrolls is likely 80% of the reason I wanted to make games and I think you can tell when playing my game :D I also listen to an unhealthy amount of TES soundtracks when building levels or doing other low brain activity tasks ^^

i actually think a underrated reason why cyberpunk is so good is because of its first person perspective; ive really been missing good first person games no offence to space marine and elden ring

One of the most important aspects of Skyrim, in my opinion, is crafting and levelling skills.

Ooo, no mention of Ardenfall? Granted, it's still not out but the demo, so far, has been perhaps the best representation of a "Scrolls-like" while still changing things to fit their own design philosophy. Honestly, love the fact that they ditched the whole "level skills as you use them" thing because it actually allows certain skills to become useful both in terms of progression speed and usability in, say, dialogue skill checks and utility. Wayward Realms is also on the way but only light bits of footage have been shown. Seems like an interesting "what if Bethesda decided to continue directly from the design principles of Daggerfall" kind of project.

The Bloodline is an amazing achievement for a single dev and has so many fun systems that i did not expect it to have. Honestly fun to just get and play for a while. Tainted Grail is more gritty but also more akin to an Elder Scrolls title. The systems in place all feel pretty good so far and i can't wait for full release.

0:28 "and some of the best music ever written for a video game, you have Skyrim" *Plays Oblivion sound track*

To be honest, the combat in these games is more like Dark Messiah than anything Bethesda has ever made.

Get Scrolls-like trending

Part of the scrolls-like for me is a fantasy world with playable fantasy races like elves. These don't have that.

Watched 5 minutes of the video. Gonna say that im gonna sub to your channel, because you really just took and analysed all my feelings from my heart in your labarotory. Man i really played all these games with same thoughts.

Ever played the King's Field games? Thought of it because of 'dungeon crawling', anyway, there's a cool indie game called Monomyth, inspired by the old KF games. And I think it's also a solo dev game. Maybe you'll like it!

I like that you can toggle between 1st and 3rd person in Skyrim. I’m clumsy, and want to see where my feet are going, but still zoom in when needed. Both views means more players.

@10:24 it's drastic, not Jurassic 😂 (great video btw)

The contrast between the heavy metal music and your calming voice is great. Anyways, I've played a lot of raid borne, it's a great game even though it ain't finished. But tainted grail is a game I'm just gonna keep an eye on until it releases to 1.0. The blood line looks fun enough to try out but I've been giving it the same treatment as tainted grail; wait and see. There's another game that could be cool to put into this bracket of "scrolls like" and that is Gedonia. Very similar to the Bloodline game's situation, but a tad more fleshed out. You should check it out.

I have played both Bloodline and Tainted Grail. Really like both. Hope Bloodline gets controller support eventually. I'm getting too old for M&K to feel comfortable for more than an hour, hahah. As for Tainted Grail, I'm very excited to see what that one becomes. But I totally agree with you on difficulty. To expand on that more, since I have probably played more than you: the MAIN issue, I think, with its difficulty curve isn't so much the nonlinear level scaling as it is the structure of it. It's very clearly intended to be one of those "come back here when you are stronger" games, but with less incentive to do so -why do I want to come back and fight a low level boss from 10 hours ago if the gear he would give me is now obsolete?- and, as you said, some extremely broken skills/builds. For example, with a little heavy armor investment, in one playthrough, I crafted an armor set with LITERALLY over 100% DR. I was literally invincible. There's very little middle ground. Either you are getting 1 shot or the game feels like a breeze. Still love it, tho. Excited to see spears.

What I miss most in many (if not most) similar RPGs is the immersive, interactable environment. Not only are there snow, rain, storms (and various mods like Wet & Cold and Frostfall) - everything (not quite) from potions, weapons, ingredients to clothes, tools, tableware and even bodies can be taken, dropped anywhere, moved, thrown; it’ll semi-realistically bounce of walls or float in water. This is not as deep as it could be: potions *could* break and affect whoever/whatever is nearby; torches *could* be used as weapons; fire *could* eventually burn down obstructions or ropes; water *could* make unprotected books/notes/scrolls unreadable; etc. - but that the surroundings aren’t just 3D wallpaper still adds greatly to my sense of immersion. Ultima 5-8 in particular went in that direction but a smattering of “physics dungeon crawlers” aside most modern games don’t… so sad. :) :(

"Scrolls Likes" need to become a thing! Couldn't agree more on your 1st person and 3rd person take!

"Skyrim light" made me think of Kingdom of Amalur

You should try >> Dread Delusion

I generally much prefer 3rd person in my immersive scrolls-like rpgs. Morrowind/Skyrim would feel way different without the optional 3rd person. Especially when 1st person sometimes means we cannot make our character.

Been waiting on this

The issue with hoping for a lone indie developer to create anything that feels lie Elder Scrolls is scope. A lone person cannot possibly implement the sheer amount of content and features to recreate the sense of freedom Bethesda gave us

The Raidborn Dev and The Bloodline Dev should just work together

I thought I was the only human alive that has played "The Bloodline," I played around 20 hours of it, and then thought I had beaten it or something. But, from what your footage seemed to suggest (and later I investigated and saw a few updates), I have a lot more to explore. If you like this game, I'd also recommend Gedonia. Its combat and movement is way less free compared to Bloodline, but it's still fairly good actually.

I think that limiting yourself to only Skyrim-likes leaves a decent amount of Elder Scrolls' inspired games. Like the Morrowind's inspired Dread Delusion (which is an incredible game) or the Arena-inspired The Quest (which is a game that exist). I would also say that Kindgom Come Deliverance DOES fit as an Elder Scrolls-like. As it fit every characteristic (even being a simulation) outside the fully custom character or the fantasy world (although, for what people know about the Middle Ages, a historically accurate Middle Ages might aswell be as unknown for them as a fantasy world). Also. There are a few Elder Scrolls-like coming somewhat soon that I know about that might be interesting to look at. Like The Wayward Realms, made by former Elder Scrolls developers, Ardenfall (which has a demo), which feels like Oblivion if it was set in Morrowind, or Avowed by the creators of New Vegas, which seems like an open-areas (multiple smaller maps instead of one single overworld) Elder Scrolls set int he Pillars of Eternity setting.

I am also been desperate for an elder scrolls style game. I was updating the steam page for bloodline and tainted Grail every two weeks hoping for a release date before they released. I've never heard of raidborn though. Great list.

For all the uncountable issues BGSRPGs have, there's a definite uniqueness to them. Sure you might not get much choice in what you do in a quest, but you can choose if you want to do that quest. Which is vividly indicated by the main story being only maybe 8% of the game's total content and even then not being that much higher quality, as well as not really containing too much content locking. Unlike most similar RPGs you aren't gatekeeped by the main story, so you can just. Leave helgen, take a cart to falkreath, do a few quests for the city and buy a small plot of land to build a home and a family. And that can be called a full finished playthrough. A couple other aspects that make BGSRPGs stand out to me is obviously the moddability of them, people being able to completely change massive parts of the games and in addition, the diversity of mechanics to use. Which is why i was super happy to see bloodline in this video, as i strongly believe that is the only game that has almost nailed the charm of BGSRPGs. "Scrolls like" is a significantly more vague genre that goes beyond "have to have these few simple mechanics" like souls likes are. Hence why it hasn't really become a thing. The scale and design of BGS RPGs is not easily replicated.

There is still the Wayward Realms and the Senile Logs.

I hope this catches on, I don't have alot of hope for the actual Elder Scrolls franchise anymore

That music on those graphics was hilarious when I first saw it haha

Monomyth, loving it for £15 especially!!

What does 4%ER mean underneath the Cantina video thumbnail?

Eh... Tainted Grail is one of those "The world is dead, therefore we (conveniently) have nothing to do aside from combat". I see it compared to Elder Scrolls a lot- but I just don't see it, aside from it being in first-person. It feels more like someone tried to make a Dying Light spinoff in the Dark Souls universe.

Frankly, I have been playing *The Elder Scrolls: Blades* because I am itching for scrolls-likes. Also, can't wait for Avowed.

2:40 like swinging a balloon? All of the combat seemed fairly replicable, people just don't really want to do it. Heck, people have been saying their combat is shallow and needs to be improved

Hey man, I think you'd enjoy Bellwright. As a long-time Elder Scrolls fan it felt like the game was tailor-made for me. Let me know if you have questions.

Might & magic 6-9 i would consider Scrolls-like

the bloodline looks like classic runescape merged with skyrim gameplay style xD but as far as i know its a sandbox not OW... dont know if i heard you wrong... nice that you said it was like mount and blade as well.. thats cool though ... that would be an interesting aspect to an in-depth rpg, just where the quests maybe goes a little bit deeper.. (hopefully there's a good balance between the elements of the games you compare it to, cause we don't want a 100% mount and blade-like, that would be wierd, but not completely skyrim or runescape either if you get me, good balance)

The biggest problem of these three games is that their art style is as exciting as a wet cardboard

Bethesda forgor about es so we’re just gonna make a whole genre.

"scrolls like" first example looks like dark Messiah of might and magic and not elder scrolls

wut about The Wayward Realms? It's literally made by the guy who created elder scrolls.

Great hat! 🤘🏴‍☠️

After Starfield and shattered space... I'm not excited for ES6 anymore. Probably won't even pick it up for a bit after release

Ardenfall and Dread Delusion if you much prefer Morrowind over Skyrim's watered down RPG mechanics. Although Ardenfall only has a demo out.

Two addition to my list of scrolls-like because i'm whiney 😂... dual wield equip and spears...the bloodline has spears but no equip freedom while tainted grail has equipment freedom but no spears...

there are other games like tainted grail though, i can even mention a few old ones from around oblivion's era we have two worlds 1 + 2 from reality pump studios, its very similar to the gothic series as well and risen from piranha bytes (old THQ nordic) but both are kinda old, and especially two worlds classic has some issues if you ask me, the second is a lot better but glitchy and a bit janky

The best Scrolls-like is Tamriel Rebuilt

I’ve been begging for “Scrolls Like” clones for a long time! There is no reason Bethesda is the only ones allowed to make open world first person fantasy games!

Unexpected? There was zero reason that no one started to make Scrolls-likes. It's been a giant burning question in the sky: Why the f--k aren't there any studios or indies making Scrolls-likes. Also, ES VI will be Dog s--t. Just like everything Bethesda has made since a game 12 years ago. :| Don't even hope. Starfield was a wake up call for you slower folk.

I think Elden Ring is the son of Souls like and Scrolls like games... but I always play in 3rd person.😏

Dude, don't forget Ardenfall! And Archaelund is this weird hybrid between Elder Scrolls exploration and Baldurs Gate 3 combat with X-COM RNG. Both are solid and worth looking at.

cool

we need Morrowind-likes specifically. not something vague like "scrolls-like"

I am not V. I am not Henry. I am, however, Skyrim... and the guy from Starfield... but not the guy from Fallout 4 :|

First and elder scrolls fan :D

>Scrolls-Likes wtf?! is everything THAT bad in the western segment of rpg games? >Skyrim >Bethesda's Magnum Opus I see

So where are the khajit-like characters for all the furry money?

All 3 have better combat than ES games, which is easy to do but gj anyway.

Do they have choices and consequences like how Morrowind did? Because if not, what's the point of calling them Scrolls Like? There's already a genre tag for games where you have skills/points leveling and dungeons... *It's called dungeon crawling* just feels weird to add this new Scrolls like tag when dungeon crawling is nothing new

I think *Enderal* also counts.

"...some of the best music [in video games, there's] skyrim." ???? Did we play the same game??? I played it as recently as a few weeks ago... Also you ended up using oblivion's far more melodic soundtrack while making that claim LOL

fully... clothed? this is a foreign concept.

Dread delusion, it's a better Morrowind than Morrowind.

lol tbh hearing the term "Souls-like" or like now ig "Scrolls-like" i mean anything "x-like" like come on lol it sounds so silly to me... if a game is good why do ppl have to like basically compare it to an existiing thing like its kinda insulting to the origional ghame like if its good its good in its own way it dosent have to have some dumb tag/label to be seen as something its not or like trying toi imitate it. idk =p

Scrolls like is not a thing. Lol. 1st person rpg

Elderscrolls 6 is never comming, at least not thenone you think is. fo76 and Starfield proved that.

took you nearly 10 minutes to get to the game. waste of time

ESO is a great game. I really think that the only people who truly dislike it are those who played it for 5 minutes and didn't understand how to play, or Skyrim players who didn't realize it's an MMO and not a Skyrim clone.