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Influencial post-2000 games

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Periods like 80' and '90' are overlowing with influential content bo honestly I know too little about what's has happened after year 2000. Please paste your type, not only milestones (if there were any) but also games that inspired further titles. It's doesn't matter if influence is good or bad though honestly I expect more of the latter. My types:

Mortal Kombat vs DC Universe
- how such forgotten geam can be influencial? It had first professional cinematic story mode in fighting game ever. Yes, it wasn't until MK9 when story mode became a thing but MK just aped MK vs DC, sharing the same chracter models, same voice actors (Richard Epcar stayed as Raiden even in MK11) etc. It is base not only for NRS MK / Injustice series but also made Capcom to bring story mode as well (SF5 / MvsCI).

Halo - Ok, it's a shit geam but I like minor one feature - grenades as quick use item. This would fit Quake 2 where grenades were terrible unless you gain dedicated gun.

Street Fighter IV
- it help resurrect fighting games on PC. Genre died in late '90 with last bg shots: Virtual Fighter 2, MK4, SF Alpha 2, Last Bronx and there was literally nothing to play unless you emulate SNK arcade board or (if you had strong hardware past 2005) Dreamcast.
 

GrafvonMoltke

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Codex Year of the Donut
there's easily more "influential" titles released post-2000 than pre-2000, if you disagree you have some serious nostalgia goggles on

of the top 10 games on codex's own top 101, only 3 were released pre-2000.
 

Zibniyat

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nnWls3H.jpg


Starting with Horse Armor DLC, Bethesda has "forever" altered the way publishers & developers can milk their customers with easily accessible downloadable game content, and one pretty expensive at that considering what you get for the money. 15 years later you have companies which earn more money through numerous DLCs than the base game, after a while. Additionally, it has annihilated the concept of expansions, with very few being created nowadays (or none at all, even for extremely successful games). Fully-voiced dialogue with just about every NPC was another curious move, because in the words of Todd Howard "gamers want that now" (and obviously he was correct, for the vast majority of people playing games).

Oblivion was one of genuine harbingers of decline and one which introduced whole new ways of generating revenue. Incredibly influential title.
 

bionicman

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World of Warcraft.

Makes you think how influential Blizzard have been on the games industry considering they also developed Diablo which spawned its own RPG subgenre, and Warcraft 3 where Dota was first created as a custom map and so the cancer that is MOBA was born.
 

Wirdschowerdn

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World of Warcraft.

Makes you think how influential Blizzard have been on the games industry considering they also developed Diablo which spawned its own RPG subgenre, and Warcraft 3 where Dota was first created as a custom map and so the cancer that is MOBA was born.

Not just the whole online craze and cosplay cancer, but also its comic style graphics.
 

DJOGamer PT

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Deus Ex | Massive impact on RPG's and computer games in general. The game that solidified the concepts of the systematic gameplay, non-linear storytelling and immersive simulator.

Metal Gear Solid 2 | The hype for this game was massive, as was it's impact upon release. This is pretty much the true inception of the "Cinematic" game. It established this series fame as well as it's director. Also, it's still regard as the most prophetic videogame in existence, along side Deus Ex.


Devil May Cry | First big hit 3D brawler - pretty much opened the way for this sub-genre

Morrowind | While most people might argue that Oblvion is more deserving of this section, since it was a big hit. They forgot that everything that Oblivion did, Morrowind had already established. Free-form sandbox RPG, check. Opened the way for wRPG's on consoles, check. Huge hit for its time, check. And IMO that counts more as "influence".

Resident Evil 4 | Massive impact on 3rd shooters and horror games, also changed Capcom's future in a major way

Halo 2 | This is one a bit of a reverse of Morrowind. But there's distinctions that make it more similiar to MGS2. While Halo 1 was a success, the series only gained its present fame with E3 demo of Halo 2. Much like MGS2, the hype for that game was even by today standards off the fucking charts. It was then that the Halo clones really started to take off. Plus Halo 2 deverses a spot in this just for the following: it completely revolutionized multiplayer shooters. At the time it surpassed even PC shooters in accessibility and usability.

Call of Duty 4 | If you played a modern military shooter, then you played an attempted imitation at CoD4. Also like Halo 2, CoD4 changed multiplayer shooters by introducing things that didn't exist prior to it.

Minecraft | From being a early access indie project back in 2004, to a AAA blockbuster when it released in 2011, and finally becoming one of the first to follow the "games as service" model when Microsoft bougth it from fat Notch. It's popularity exploded back in 2008/9 with youtube videos. And many games have tried to take its crown since its release. None have yet succeeded.

Dark Souls | Got to give it to From. They managed to turn a modest success that was the opposite in appeal compared to the big AAA titles of the 7th gen, into a now flooded market of their own.

Witcher 3 | Even if we don't agree, for the rest of the world Witcher 3 is the best game of the last decade...
 
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Machocruz

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Witcher 3 | Even if we don't agree, for the rest of the world Witcher 3 is the best game of the last decade...
Below RDR2 and GTAV in sales and review aggregate score, similar sales to Skyrim, a few points lower in score. Witcher 3 stans on fourms and are just loud.
 

Morpheus Kitami

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Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, which if not the first battle royale game, was certainly the one that put such games on the map. Every MP game since then is inspired by the format in one way or another.
 

DJOGamer PT

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Witcher 3 | Even if we don't agree, for the rest of the world Witcher 3 is the best game of the last decade...
Below RDR2 and GTAV in sales and review aggregate score, similar sales to Skyrim, a few points lower in score. Witcher 3 stans on fourms and are just loud.

Sales are not necessarily a measure of influence
At least not in the way I am perceiving what we are here talking about in regards to influence - constribution to gaming at large be it in features of tech or game design
Deus Ex, DMC1 and Dark Souls while clearly sucessful, weren't what we could consider smash hits, yet their influence is still in some form shaping games to this day

While Rockstar was ludicrously successful with GTA5 and RDR2, you can't deny they don't have the same "prominence" they had in the eyes of audiences back in the PS2 days. Nowadays it's mostly the brand name that carries them, not the quality and originality of their products

Skyrim is even a more extreme example
Yes it was a massive hit and I still remember how crazy its hype machine was
But, after 10 years, how many games exactly tried to copy Skyrim or were even "influenced" by it?
Far Cry 3 devs said it was Skyrim with guns (but I think that was more of a marketing stunt than anything else)
Kingdom Come is superficially like TES, because when get to the Quest designs and more advanced forms of world interaction it's much more to Witcher side rather than Deus Ex (which even Skyrim is more close too than KCD funnily enough)
That just leaves us with Obsidian's Outer Worlds
And maybe if you want to use Oblivion then you have Two Worlds (although aside from the landscape that game ressembles Gothic more to me than it does TES)
 

d1r

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Player Unknown's Battlegrounds, which if not the first battle royale game, was certainly the one that put such games on the map. Every MP game since then is inspired by the format in one way or another.

Also still one of the best FPS out there.
 

Machocruz

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Sales are not necessarily a measure of influence
At least not in the way I am perceiving what we are here talking about in regards to influence - constribution to gaming at large be it in features of tech or game design
Deus Ex, DMC1 and Dark Souls while clearly sucessful, weren't what we could consider smash hits, yet their influence is still in some form shaping games to this day

While Rockstar was ludicrously successful with GTA5 and RDR2, you can't deny they don't have the same "prominence" they had in the eyes of audiences back in the PS2 days. Nowadays it's mostly the brand name that carries them, not the quality and originality of their products

Skyrim is even a more extreme example
Yes it was a massive hit and I still remember how crazy its hype machine was
But, after 10 years, how many games exactly tried to copy Skyrim or were even "influenced" by it?
Far Cry 3 devs said it was Skyrim with guns (but I think that was more of a marketing stunt than anything else)
Kingdom Come is superficially like TES, because when get to the Quest designs and more advanced forms of world interaction it's much more to Witcher side rather than Deus Ex (which even Skyrim is more close too than KCD funnily enough)
That just leaves us with Obsidian's Outer Worlds
And maybe if you want to use Oblivion then you have Two Worlds (although aside from the landscape that game ressembles Gothic more to me than it does TES)

No I agree TW3 is a more influential game, on current game design, than RDR2 or GTAV. That's the important point per the thread topic. But I don't know that the majority of audience think it's the better or best game. Maybe I took you too literally, which I'm wont to do at times. Btw I assume it's at the bottom of your list because it's had the least influence of those other games, so far?

Skyrim's star absolutely burned bright for a few years after. Nintendo and Capcom cited it when discussing the genesis of BoTW and Dragon's Dogma. And others that I can't specifically remember. But Skyrim was not a revolution of design, it was it's hype others were after, whether they admitted to it or not, so it's influence on game development could only be short lived. It didn't have the originality to single-handedly write the roadmap for an entire genre (in 3D), like DMC. A roadmap that is still the foundation 20 years later.
 
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DJOGamer PT

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Btw I assume it's at the bottom of your list because it's had the least influence of those other games, so far?

Nah I organised the list by year of release
I was having a hard time figuring out a influential game post 2011
Witcher 3 was the best I came up with given the fact that since it's release, its "influence" in pretty much any open world story-driven AAA game seems to be almost inescapable


Skyrim's star absolutely burned bright for a few years after.

Yes the praise continued well after its release
In fact it seemed that Witcher 3 release was the only RPG to finally shut it up
But despite this popularity, I find it weird that barely any one even tried to do a TES clone


Nintendo and Capcom cited it when discussing the genesis of BoTW and Dragon's Dogma.

I have no trouble thinking that BotW indeed took inspiration from Skyrim
Specially given the fact that the previous big 3D Zelda - Skyward Sword - released a few days after Skyrim's 11.11.11 date, and was as even more overshadowed by it than Horizon Zero Dawn was by BotW
Although I don't remember Nintendo ever outrigth stating their "inspiration" in Skyrim

But I do have doubts regarding DD, given the fact that not only did that game started development in late 2008 or early 2009, but also the fact Itsuno was already working on its concepts way back in 2002 by DMC2 development
 

curds

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I feel like DUSK, that fps, was pretty influential. Seemed to be the first of the unfortunately named "boomer shooter" games which are all the rage right now.

Star Wars: KotOR, I think was very influential for many RPG developers. AFAIK the game which popularised the whole cinematic presentation thing in RPGs.

Early Kickstarter-era CRPGs like Wasteland 2, Divinity, Pillars and Shadowrun Returns, they started a big resurgence in the genre. Legend of Grimrock also spawned a bunch of clones.
 

Dodo1610

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Cave Story 2004

Pretty much the game which started the modern indie game scene, I remember being utterly perplexed 15 years ago by the fact that this big and good could be made by one guy.

Assassin's Creed 2 2009

Combining Stealth, parkour/climbing and melee combat into one open-world package, almost every modern Action Adventure is an AC clone.

Amnesia: Dark Descent 2010

Brought back the horror genre from the dead and started the indie horror craze.

Destiny 2014

Started the live service loot shooter trend that defines AAA gaming to this day.
 
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Zed Duke of Banville

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Shadow of the Colossus (2005) and its predecessor Ico (2001) for immersive atmosphere and minimalist story-telling

shadow-of-the-colossus-forbidden-lands.jpg


ICO11.jpg



Both these games in turn were inspired by the classic Amiga game Another World.

31582-out-of-this-world-amiga-screenshot-arriving-on-an-alien-planet.gif
 

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