The Entire History of RPGs

Hi! I was the lead designer on Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning. For the record, the game DID turn a profit. Not a smash hit but respectable for a first outing. It just didn’t generate enough profits to fund an MMO at 38 Studios in addition to keeping Big Huge Games afloat—the amount it would have had to make in a very short time to clear that bar was untenable. (The whole story is very complicated, but I feel compelled to at least address that one point, as it’s a common misunderstanding)

"Then-esteemed PC publisher Electronic Arts" 🤣

Man watching almost 2 hours of older RPG’s to end up at Oblivion really puts into perspective how fuckin gorgeous and groundbreaking that game was when it came out

Opened this video, noticed the run time and said to myself. No way I'm watching a nearly 3 hr video. But decided just to watch the beginning for a nostalgia trip see if you'd included the SSI games I played in the 80s. You did include them and so many other great games. I've played at least 80% of them all. Amazing video, so spot on it should be used to teach young devs and gamers in general. Hopefully it's not just old farts like me who will love this video.

2010/11 having Mass Effect 2, Skyrim, Fallout New Vegas, Dark Souls, and Witcher 2 all in that 2yr span was INSANE to experience

Really glad that "entire history" seems to be becoming a long running series.

I used to hate the category of "RPG" because whenever i looked up for RPGs what i wanted was turn-based combat but instead found a diverse amount of genres under the same category, it wasnt until recently that i finally understood what makes an rpg an rpg, still not into them only into the turn based combat and linear stories, but now i can aporeciate what peoplenwere doing back then and now.

This video was well-made and genuinely a joy to watch. Thanks for the great work, NeverKnowsBest!

I can't believe we're far enough into the 2020's that we can have such a deep dive into the 2010's and the effect they've had on RPGs. It felt like only yesterday.

Nice to see a shout out to Dragon Quest. RIP Mr. Akira Toriyama.

ive had this video on hold for like 2 weeks it was in my tabs because of its length always putting it aside saved for the moment i can actualy watch it complete .. and now since ive seen it what a beaufitul and respectful way to walk through history ... i can only imagine all the work needed to create this one. and man it was worth it waiting for the moment i can actual sit back and relax and enjoy the video all the way through. thanks for this one .. this .. just great .. thank you

This intro of mine to your channel had to take place in two sittings, but whew, was it well worth it. Congratulations on masterful writing, framing and analysis. Looking forward to watching the rest of your content!

Purely anecdotal, but I was a teenager HUGE into crpg's in the mid/late 90's when Ultima IX came out, and another huge reason it flopped was that the requirements to even run it were MASSIVE. Like, if a game today required an RTX 4080 for minimum graphics, massive. Naturally neither me nor my other rpg friends could even afford it, only that one kid with rich parents that just got a new PC could run it. The one in our school that got it said it was fun, but I think he just wanted to sound cool because some of us went to try it and the bugs were basically unplayable. Basically a combination of hella bugs and the huge requirements would have made the game a launch flop even if there was a good game under it. That's how bad its circumstances were, it was doomed from quite a few angles. Figured I'd bring up my story since you didn't mention either angle when mentioning how bad it failed.

I'm 42 and been playing jrpgs, crpgs, and ttrpgs my entire life and I have seen it all. I am HERE for this video!!!

Bethesda didn't create VATS. That system was born in Fallout 1, you just never had the dextrerity to use it.

Excellent video! Love the musical cues leading into different sections of the video. Especially when the instrumental version of Lohse’s theme started playing near the video’s climax.

One thing that has to be noted is that the "collapse" of hardcore RPGs in mid 2000's is that a lot of it is due to the fact that the few US based, RPG centric developers and publishers who survived the 1990's often accumulated debt from these failures(for instance Bioware went away from Interplay after BG2 was done because Interplay wasn't paying the full royalties from the sales of their game which shows that despite the seeming recovery the financial conditions were rather poor) and so they couldn't really adapt to the different conditions of the era, as downsizing meant interests couldn't be paid, making mainstream-appeal games was beyond their reach and making high production "oldschool" game was something they didn't have capital for. As these companies failed, the financial side of game development(investors, banks) decided that since the successful games in the genre are called Oblivion, Fable or KotOR rather than Temple of Elemental Evil or Lionheart then that's the end of the story on their financial viability. So in a certain way the crisis of the early 2000's was just an extension of the crisis of the mid 1990's.

In all fairness, Final Fantasy I was directly based on D&D. It used its base classes, took inspiration from its combat system, directly lifted its spell system, and flat out plagiarized its monster manual. The series eventually moved away from it, but it did start with significant tabletop roots.

These documentaries are some of the best Ive seen. Amazing work as usual.

Your work and channel is SUCH a gem. Thank you once again!