Age of Decadence
It’s been a long time since there was a PC RPG that really could live up to the name, and the glory days of games like Planescape: Torment and the first two Fallout games seem long gone. These games were too long, too complex, too text heavy and too plot focused to work in the 10 hour playtime, first person shooter world of today.
Add in rampant piracy of PC games, the dominance of consoles and it doesn’t seem like we’re likely ever to see another game in this style. Or so I thought.
But thanks to the irreverant British PC gaming site Rock, Paper, Shotgun, I’ve heard a little bit about the indie PC RPG scene and, in particular, about the upcomming indie RPG Age of Decadence. RPS has just run it’s second interview with lead Age of Decadence designerVince D. Weller. It’s not as outrageous as the first interview, run last year, but he still says that Balder’s Gate II wasn’t actually a roleplaying game.
The game looks like it’s going for a serious old school vide. It’s isometric, not first -person, and hugely text based. It’s also hugely ambitious, with features like different dialogue options depending on your character’s skills and massive, branching plotlines.
If they pull off everything they say they’re aiming for it could be amazing. The main issue at this point is that there’s no release date. A combat demo has been promised for the first part of the year, but I doubt we’ll be playing this until 2010 at the earliest.