Eastern european devs make good open worlds, if you could combine the realism of kingdom come and day Z with the setting/story telling of fallout new vegas, and implement an inventory and levelling system that ties in with both of the RPGs while still giving that brutal survival element that loosely links all of them, youve got the best game ever made. The dark souls of fallout. Also, day z and kingdom come both have accurate sky boxes, the stars at night are true to the position of the geographical locations on earth and work perfectly as a navigation tool while also presenting the drawback of traveling at night in places where death looms around every corner.
Re-watched after watching the Pentiment trailer. I’m extremely excited to play it and so happy your have had a chance to make a game you’ve always wanted to. It looks amazing!
I always assumed one of the pitfalls with making historical RPGs is that you are working with the history and culture of real people and there is an extra emphasis that needs to be made to be faithful to history as to to not mischaracterize a group of people. A fantasy setting allows more freedom to use and remix different aspects of real cultures while creating distance from making a statement about a real group of people.
I am currently playing Kingdom come and love It, because its super immersive. I love the attention to detail, it basically work as a time travel tool with a guide. I learned so much about the life in middle ages, just from playing the game and reading its codex. truly amazing game. I feel like I am really roleplaying as a main character. I have that connection with the characters I dont remember, when or If I had before. I love that people talk and act like real people in that game. It is sad that at release It was plagued with bugs, but now so far for me, It runs well.
I think video games have the potential to be a great learning device for kids in regards to history. Take Assasin's Creed. Remove the killing part and have the players explore towns/cities and battles while meeting historically important people and you could have kids playing them in schools. Sure, you can't beat a book. But people have shown to learn a lot from games.
Yeah, because death by another is not and was not a part of our existence, it never happened, people just vaporized into rainbow coloured vapours when they got bored or they may have gone to their homes because their mothers said it's time. All humans, regardless of their age will learn about the unchangeable truths about life. Murder, therefore death is one of those. Hiding stuff from children is making a fool out of them, which they eventually end up if people does so.
I do love historical games, but I find that they tend to do anything between 1000-1400 really wrong(wrong in the sense of stereotyping, not just getting little historical facts wrong). Also I have similar complaints to some of your opinions(I believe I have heard articulate this before), they often really misunderstand the role of religion in the Middle Ages.
@@fotografick Well it is based on the 1500s so a little out of my time period but it is quite interesting. I really loved playing it actually. I still think that Obsidian somewhat allowed modern ideas to penetrate the historical setting, and definitely portrayed attitudes which are a bit anachronistic(maybe sentiments similar to those existed but not in the way they portrayed them and certain not to the extent which they are portrayed). This is all nitpicking though, as a game like Kingdom Come Deliverance which was made to be very historical also was influenced by those modern attitudes. The social structure was very accurately portrayed and the centralness of the Church was very heavily emphasized which is good. The characterbuilding was super fun in terms of being able to almost create myself if I were in a medieval society(for example, I am a Latinist, and I have studied in Italy before so I was able to select that option). I do wish you could select to be a canon lawyer instead of a regular lawyer haha so perhaps you could argue more with the Reformer attitudes. In fact, I almost think the game forces you to be somewhat pro-Luther, which again is a modern tendency. You can try to ignore the issue but you cannot easily disagree with Luther strongly.
I clicked on this video out of idle curiosity and came away with a longer reading list. Thanks! I also now have a newfound desire for a really good historical RPG. Strategy games are fun and all, but more immersive historical RPGs would be amazing.
My dream historical RPG would be set in the 1530s Netherlands and Germany, around the time of the radical Anabaptist rebellion in Münster, with the violent Anabaptist sect called the Batenburgers playing a major role in the story. Your character would have to make a choice whether supporting these militant "sword-minded" Anabaptists, or going with the peaceful ones like David Joris and Menno Simons instead. That whole subject matter is obviously way too obscure for the general public, as crazy and fascinating as it is.
1) Players may not need to understand the historical context to play a historical RPG, but devs must get it right in a really explicit way otherwise they'll have to deal with the backlashes from "historical experts" on the Internet. (AC: Odyssey is a prime example) 2) Historical events are set in stone, a game need to adjust its gameplay or other elements to fit for it, which is not ideal for game development iteration. 3) Also because historical events are set in stone, writers might need to get out their comfort zone to match the writing style for that part of history, which is also not ideal for creativity. I believe there are more reason, but these are the ones I can think of.
Many disliked it, but kingdom come deliverance immediately became one of my favorite games when I found out that Latin was a trainable skill in the game. Though already knowing Latin irl kind of made the intention of that skill broken in my favor lol. Tamen, quam magnus est ille ludus.
Josh if you ever want any reading recommendations for anything in the Ancient Near East before ca. 1200 BC, just let me know. That's my field and there are some incredible books/articles on a variety of subjects.
Sorry for posting on an old video, you should convince someone at Master Class to give you a lecture series on making RPGs. It would be some of the best money I have spent in a while. Great video and I love the games you have been involved with at Obsidian.
You forgot to mention the most central reason: Not just developers, **everyone** had super shitty history teachers. So practically no one gives a shit about history.
You can learn to love knowledge on your own Blaming your teachers that your intelligence succs is a bit.... Like, you're an adult get over it lol (talking to anyone who uses this excuse)
@@hrsmp Kingdom Come Deliverance has a lot of SERIOUS inaccuracies again in ARTWORK. Both in that many of the art assets are anachronistic and that they are inaccurately designed to the point of being non functional, poorly made or unfashionable. But Kingdom Come's artwork is inspired by history. Hellblade's story and setting could be said to be history influenced, not the art. Ryse's art assets are better than KCD and Hellblade, because depictions of Rome are always better than medieval European ones. You can copy film tropes and land pretty close. Where as depictions of Bronze age, Medieval and Renaissance Europe have never been even close. Yeah Origns and Odyssey were much more authentic than Valhalla and Kingdom Come Deliverance. I was so annoyed by that, I was excited for the Viking setting. Instead I TV Vikings. It annoys me because you can clearly see they have reference and are well aware of what is authentic. You see it in some of the art assets for villagers, some of the buildings, some of the generic soldiers. But they deliberately sold that crappy TV Viking fantasy even though you can see they knew better. To be fair to them, there's less me's out there than there are Game of throne and Vikings fans. For me something is not 'history influenced' unless it's using contemporary works and objects as a reference. It's the art I'm criticizing really anyway, it's all I care about. I don't care about the stories or people. I want it to LOOK medieval, MOVE medieval.
Vagrant Story is my favorite square rpg and its based in a historical french setting. Beautiful and complex and interesting game despite its technological limitations.
or even in crusading period. if you guys worried about racism then make it an option to be able to choose the nationality and the religon of the protagonist.
Koei always did a great job.... Though it really only caught on with a small group over seas. Uncharted Waters 1 and 2, Romance of the Three Kingdoms, Nobunagas Ambition.
A good number of NWN modules have been created for historical settings. The Bastard of Kosigan series, set in mediaeval Burgundy, is basically an RPG in its own right, brimming with magical mystery and political intrigue. There is also a neat module for NWN2 which deals with the foundation of the eponymous al-Andalus (mediaval Spain).
As a project lead/developer would you say you prefer working on a project with a fantasy setting or something more historical? And what would your preference be from a player stand point? P.s great to see another upload j.s :)
Hey Josh, considering deadfire is done and you ain't working on the outer worlds as far as publicly known, are you teasing us with this video about an unknown project that you heading now?
I tie this to fears of the unknown as well. If I'm a developer and see that Skyrim sits on top of RPG sales, why deviate from the formula and touch on a historical/reality piece? I'd argue the same logic seized FPS as well. There was a long period of "stick to ww2" when I was a kid which then gave way to developers adhering only to "present day: give-or-take-35-years-in-either-direction" period. Then Battlefield 1 completely departed from that and showed that it could be done successfully. Likewise, we're always one compelling game from breaking that RPG paradigm as well. Personally I would LOVE a full-on RPG set in WW1 (hell, that'd be a great vehicle for New Vegas style RPG+FPS combo as well), or an RPG set in 1920s or 1930s Russia (contrasting the genuine optimism of creating a new form of politics with the disjointed reality that Soviet Russia was as much an illusory leviathan/broken machine as opposed to the totalitarian-nightmare-perfect-machine point hammered by contemporary Western history). Hell, take the New Vegas/Outer Worlds faction reputation system and that could be applied to several places in inter-war Europe with warring political groups (reds/communists, fascists, national socialists, greens/peasants, blacks/anarchists, monarchists, liberals) and you'd have grounds for a compelling historical RPG where the protagonist helps craft the local (and perhaps non-local!) history of the region. Same could be said of "inter-war" Asia (though in multi-faction China their hot war vs Japan starts earlier than "WW2" which could create some interesting dynamic of a civil war overlapping simultaneously with a war of an invading foreign power). Anyway, thanks Joshua. Thanks for not just repackaging the "this is what made money previously" formulas replete with 1000 micro-transactions and instead focusing on providing new content/possibilities. Looking forward to trying to play Pentiment as a troublemaking covert Satanist operating in the heart of the HRE haha.
I think people are afraid of the "gritty realism" thing. Which is weird, since that is not a given. I run historical RPG sessions all the time and they aways feel like playing an action movie. Like, yes, you are a dude in a historical setting, but you certainly are not "just a dude". You are the protagonist, the hero of the storie, like you would be in any fantasy setting.
Many people are just not curious, don't care to know or afraid to admit they want to know because of the negative peer pressure in their formative years. This isn't really all that much about subpar teachers, I think, although how good the accepted course in any given country egion\school is important.
I loved, like many others, the Barcelona stage (and I even liked some of the later parts) of Lionheart. An other game I can recommend is Age of Decadence. Both of these games take historical concepts, rites, places in some cases and art and then put a twist to it. And that makes for a both grounded and at the same time open ended and not fully known mileu. I love it.
The other Borgia series is amazing, and features the voice of Edward Sallow...but it's probably not very accurate. Still though, as someone who enjoys history I highly recommend it. I tried the Jeremy Irons one and just started yawning.
The idea that people don't want to play historical games is absurd on its face. If I have no interest in the actual history and don't know the real historical figures then there's really no reason I can't interface with a historical setting as if it were fantasy.
Oh, into the occult I see. Arbatel of Magic pseudomonarchia Daemonum Sworn Book of Honorius The Black Pullet Corpus Hermetica Three bBooks of Occult Philosophy by Herny Cornelius Agrippa Though you've prob read them.
Another thing they did in the Borgias was Cem, who was a real historical figure who was living in Pope Alexander's court for a time, but they changed and elaborated the story quite a bit.
I guess historical settings are also more at risk of "Um, actually..."-feedback and fact checking. I don't know if it's strong enough to act as a deterrent for developers, but I can imagine it plays a part. Generally, however, I think most people are fine with some artistic liberty.
I think Felix Biederman’s idea of a gta-style Operation Gladio game where you go around different cities in Europe either doing missions (*cough* terrorism) for the NATO side or teaming up with urban guerrillas like 17N or Red Army Faction OR going free agent like the Jackal. Obviously I could see some impediments to getting a large company to make this in the US (lol) but who knows it would be pretty dang neato.
The Total War series is also another successful historical franchise. Some of them can be really quite immersive. I played Total War Rome a lot - the music, the voices, the look of the game, the combat, pretty much everything sucked me in.
For Asian history I reccomend Imjin War By Samuel Hawley. It's a detailed account of the first Japanese invasion of Korea in the 1500s and how a single Korean admiral essentially repelled the strongest military force in the world at the time. It gives a lot of insight into how modern Asia formed and it's really cool.
I love all kinds of RPGs but especially Historically accurate RPGs. Even if the games are not fully accurate its always fun to play them and see how they measure up against your own knowledge of the time period it takes place in.
i love all kinds of RPGs too, also i do love Battle Brothers, it's game about assembling a mercenary group of nobodies (farmers, gamblers, cripples, with a slight or rare chance to get squires, militia men and adventurous nobles), buying your own equipment, and fighting against not only humans but also monsters that are more based on old German mythologies, and it sort of feels like Darklands, but instead of taking place in the 1500s, it takes place around early 800s - late 1200s Germany (which explains the lack of plate armor except the plate of coats, but if you're not a fan of that, then there's always the Legends mod, which gives the ability to hire females, more magic and higher fantasy stuff, able to add layers of armor like cloth/chainmail/plate/tabard/attachment same with headgear, which includes plate armor) it also has DLC, both free and paid, that includes -pagan barbarians with their own unique equipment - the lindwurm, a "worm" full of green scales - witches, demons that give you nightmares, trees that are alive -persian and southern city states with their own unique weapons, armor, units, NPCs, items, and even gunpowder weaponry though useless against armor but powerful against morale -and now with their new DLC that is based around the inquisition and based around plague doctors with their morbid curiosity of discovering stuff by dissections and other researches
Glad to see the mention for Carlo Ginzburg! Guy Gavriel Kay took the Benandanti and put them almost verbatim into hisnovel Tigana, it's a really cool bit of history.
Hey Josh.. I just remastered* Mount & Blade Warband by up-scaling all its diffused textures with a program called Gigapixel AI. The remaster is on Nexus if you want to see an example, its called Vanilla HD. My question is, can you suggest a way to isolate the the pre-rendered backgrounds in FO1 or POE and convert them to a png or another file ext so i can run them in Gigapixel AI.. I'll of course need to revert them back to the original extension after i upscale them.... Any tips will help!! Thx Josh!!
I thought St George was a Christianised interpretation of Jason from Jason & the Argonauts. When returning with the golden fleece he passed through modern day Georgia and was said to have slayed what we call a dragon along the way
I was turned off from history because in high school it was always presented as a matter of fact instead of the more interesting controversies and differing theories on what can be drawn from historical evidence.
That's a shame, because that's exactly how history for me was taught. We'd learn underlying theories about events in history, controversies, standpoints of both sides in a conflict and how they came to those standpoints etc. History this way was incredibly interesting, it was more of a discussion than just learning facts.
My god please make more videos Josh. Bonus Question: In RPG's what is your favourite archetype to play, mages, warriors thieves etc (or favourite DND class that works too).
