That is the question I have had ever since I played Assassin’s Creed: Origins. The change in gameplay in Assassin’s Creed: Origins from its predecessors made me think about elements that made a game an RPG.

At first, I thought it was always about immersion and freedom of choice. Yet, these two characteristics seem to not necessarily define what an RPG is. My varied experiences in different RPG games and discourse on this thought supported this fact.

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In trying to clarify what defines an RPG, let’s explore my experiences with RPG games and how people talk about the RPG genre.

My History with RPGs

My history with RPGs goes as far back as early 2000 when I first played Legend of Mana on our PlayStation 1. My older brother and I would play coop or solo, depending on which one of us was first to play or was present.

This extended to other RPGs in PlayStation 1 and Gameboy Advance such as Breath of Fire 2, Final Fantasy IV, Vagrant Story, Chrono Cross, and Valkyrie Profile. Other RPGs I played that are less considered RPGs were Harvest Moon: Friends of Mineral Town and Pokémon FireRed.

Back then, I did not really think that hard about what was and was not an RPG. They all seemed very distinguishable to me until the God of War in 2018 came along. But didn’t I say it was when I played Kingdom Come: Deliverance? Well, let’s clear that up.

Is this not an RPG?

The first time I ever felt uncertain about RPGs was when the God of War remake came out in 2018. It was praised for evolving the old Hack-and-Slash series in both story and gameplay.

Many admired how it transformed Kratos into a much deeper character, and how different the gameplay was made with the addition of RPG elements like more detailed exploration, weapon choices, skill progression, and equipment stats.

Yet some didn’t consider God of War (2018) an RPG despite these elements. At most, it was seen as an action RPG, a subgenre of RPG. But doesn’t that still make it an RPG?

This doubt grew as I played games like Insomniac’s Spider-Man, Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring, and so much more.

In every game with RPG elements, I wondered, “Isn’t this an RPG?” In every game I thought was an RPG, I wondered, “Isn’t this an RPG?” In every discussion about games and RPG genres, I wondered, “Isn’t this an RPG?”

Then, Assassin’s Creed: Origins really challenged my RPG knowledge. I finally asked myself, “What makes an RPG?”

What is an RPG?

Assassin’s Creed: Origins was marketed as a shift for the franchise towards RPG gameplay to attract new players. Despite my dislike for this change, I still welcomed and tried it out.

The changes were honestly pretty bizarre. Its gameplay seemingly focused more on combat than stealth. This is very obvious from the start, as your main buttons for parkour in previous games became attack and dodge buttons. Parkouring was also simplified by requiring you to press a single button to engage in parkour.

Aside from real-time combat mechanics, there are now more weapon choices with specific stats attached to them. There are more pieces of armor to be used, offering different character bonuses. Stealth kills are also not one-hit kills, requiring you to engage in longer fights against higher-level opponents. This new character level system is also important, this defines your and your enemies’ relative strength. Levels also define which areas are more suitable for you; some regions are soft-locked with higher-level enemies.

These are some of the game elements and mechanics that marked the Assassin’s Creed franchise’ shift to the RPG genre. Almost nobody argued that this made Assassin’s Creed: Origins an RPG, this is the same for the next two entries in the franchise: Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey and Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla.

More RPG elements were added, and general improvements were made to existing RPG elements. Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey added dialogue choices, points of interest, random encounters, and more skills. Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla had more location-based quests, NPCs, and fantasy-based weaponry. Again, it was pretty bizarre to finish these three games in a row after getting used to the more stealth-based approach of the older entries.

The amount of things you can do in the game just piled on in this so-called RPG trilogy phase of the Assassin’s Creed franchise. With more game mechanics to play around with relating to combat and exploration, does this mean that freedom of choice defines an RPG?

Classic Japanese RPGs beg to differ.

Classic Japanese RPGs

Classic Japanese RPGs seem to have a different take on what makes an RPG. Go to the Steam store, find JRPGs, and you will discover how different these games are from the RPGs I listed in the previous paragraph.

Games like Final Fantasy Tactics, Final Fantasy VII, Persona 3, and Ys Seven offer turn-based combat, limited choices, linear stories, predetermined main characters, and different complexities of character progression. This isn’t to say that all of these games are like these three, just that most of the JRPGs you will find will be like these.

Having played different JRPGs in Playstation 1, Playstation 2, Gameboy Advance, PSP, and now PC, there truly seems to be a different philosophy in creating RPGs for Japanese game developers.

Aside from the art style, you can almost always immediately tell that an RPG video game is from Japan and this is not a bad thing.

Grid-based Dungeon Crawler RPGs, CRPGs, TTRPGs, and so Much More.

There is so much more in this discussion that I haven’t even explored yet; even more than modern-day RPGs and JRPGs.

Around 2014, I also encountered a First-person Grid-based Dungeon Crawler RPG called The Legend of Grimrock. Searching about it in recent years, it turns out this style of RPG has also been around for as long as RPGs were put into video game format.

When people think about the first video game RPGs, people tend to look at Computer RPGs, or simply CRPGs. CRPGs were the most popular RPGs in the West. This is evident with Fallout and Fallout 2, Baldur’s Gate, Planescape: Torment, and Wasteland. Compared to the Dungeon Crawler RPG I barely know anything of, I have actually tried playing these games. I never finished them, but I learned some things about them as well.

Yet despite all the different kinds of video game RPGs, they all call back to the original forms of RPGs: Tabletop Role-playing Games, also known as TTRPGs. The most famous example of a TTRPG is Dungeons and Dragons, which is where the Baldur’s Gate series was based.

Other TTRPG games that were also adopted into video game format were Pathfinder and Vampire: The Masquerade.

Now, each type of RPG – whether it’s tabletop, CRPG, or Dungeon Crawler – has its own strengths and weaknesses. They’ve all got their own design philosophy, and each one brings something different to the table. And it’s not just about how much freedom you’ve got or what you can do – it’s about the whole experience.

Maybe the adoption of RPGs into video game format may have come from the desire for more vivid imagery; to create observable cinematic of what people would have otherwise imagined when playing with their friends around a table. This came; however, with the expense of less freedom compared to how much you could conjure from your imagination when you are with your friends sitting around a table.

So, what makes an RPG?

I have no clue. Honestly, I don’t know.

For me, what constitutes an RPG remains a bit of a mystery. Despite exploring various factors like combat systems, character progression, narrative structure, and history, pinpointing a single defining feature proves challenging.

The RPG genre spans diverse experiences even for me. This is made much more complicated by the multitude of people who create and enjoy RPGs, the differentiation of Western and Japanese RPGs, as well as the evolution of RPGs.

All I know is that the RPG genre continues to change in many different ways, offering more and more varied experiences for gamers to have.

Personally, I also just want to get this question out of my head and move past this. I just want to enjoy RPGs. It pains me to see that enjoyment goes down the drain when looking at the discourse around RPGs and the RPG genre. Maybe arguing over the specifics of genres isn’t the way to go about them.

Maybe a little bit of flexibility is all we need. We should accept that different genres can have subgenres. Games can have only some RPG elements and still be an RPG. Maybe the game designers only wanted players to feel like they’re in an RPG in certain moments.

Some people want more freedom because limitations hurt their imagination. Some people want less because too much freedom without guidance means they get lost in the world without purpose. Some people want to feel like their own heroes in warfare and combat. Some just want to be in intricate fantasy stories. Different games that cater to all these people should exist.

PS

Still, I am in pursuit of credibility in my knowledge of RPGs. If you want to help me out in this endeavor, then check out this link. This is a Google Excel file of my attempt to find out what makes up an RPG. It features different game elements such as Character Customization, Worldbuilding, Exploration, and so much more.

I also tried to quantify these to evaluate how much of an RPG a game is. It is not necessarily accurate or a true defining system, but I think it is helpful to clear out my thoughts on whether a game could be considered an RPG.

So, help me out a bit.

Thanks for reading Alfenwylm’s Listless Restless Mind! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.