Clear 100 hours in your calendar, cos CRPGs are here to stay

In the mid-to-late 2000s, publishers abandoned the CRPG genre an acronym describing the very specific genre of video games adapted from tabletop RPGs to be played on computers which a decade earlier had been a cornerstone of PC gaming. They were more interested in accessible, console-friendly series like The Elder Scrolls, and PC-centric RPGs all but died out.

Then, around 2012, RPGs made a comeback, largely thanks to the rise of crowdfunding and an endless well of nostalgia. Since then we ve been treated to heaps of good ones Pillars of Eternity, Torment: Tides of Numenera and there are plenty more in the works. But there s no guarantee that CRPGs are back for good. Some, such as Torment, haven t sold well. The future of crowdfunding remains uncertain. And asking fans to commit 50 hours to a single story is more difficult than ever, given the volume of great games that release every month. So how can developers ensure that the genre stays relevant?

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