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What's an RPG? (video game)
like how is it different from other games ? what makes a game an RPG game? I never really understood
like how is it different from other games ? what makes a game an RPG game? I never really understood
Originally, an RPG was any videogame trying to simulate/copy a tabletop RPG.
From there, it started meaning "any videogame similar to RPG-simulating videogames". In particular, any game that 1) is primarily about managing character skill growth instead of you playing as that character and your performance being measured by your own skill, and 2) tries to have a particular emphasis on story,possibly which gives the player choices on where the story goes (like in a tabletop RPG)
And from there it sort of lost any coherent meaning - an RPG is what an RPG is. It's a fuzzy "I know it when I see it" thing.
Mostly though, when I see it I assume someone wrote a list of 'videogame genres' 30 years ago, and simply hasn't bothered to update it since. Much like when I see "action" and "adventure" categories. You're confused because you're trying to make sense of something senseless.
I always interpreted it by its "literal" meaning: any game that lets me roleplay
But I admit even then, it's still murky, because technically there are many games that let you roleplay and no one would necessarily call them RPG's, even me. E.g. F1 2025, where I like to play career mode and pretend I'm a new and promising driver. I am roleplaying, but I wouldn't call this game an RPG.
This is a complete red herring though and it's one of the sources of these sometimes highly explosive debates on what RPG even means. It's a holdover from tabletop RPGs, but even there some games focus almost exclusively on the roleplaying itself and others put a lot of focus on complex gameplay systems - character stats, fighting systems, magic systems and many others. Most of the OG tabletops were closer to the latter, the former only came later.
And most of the early attempts to transfer tabletop RPGs into videogames, establishing the videogame RPG genre, focused on the systems, because that's what was easily doable and actually brought some improvements to the formula (being faster and managing the complexity for the player), not on the roleplaying. You pretty much had roguelikes, dungeon crawlers and some open-world RPGs like Ultima, which were the only ones to feature some actual role-playing systems (virtues and alignment), and that was iirc only in Ultima IV.
Since then (and even just 10 - 15 years after the first games) the genre has expanded greatly, but the core of RPGs were always the systems and not roleplaying itself, and that applies today as well.
I see where you’re coming from, but I think anchoring RPGs to those old definitions just doesn’t hold up anymore. Yeah, those early games ran with stat-heavy systems from tabletop because that’s what computers could actually do. But fast-forward to now: tons of RPGs toss stats out the window and focus on player choice, role immersion, and branching stories. Think of games where you barely see stats, like Mass Effect; where they are interwoven into the narrative, like Disco Elysium; or games where stats barely matter or don't exist, like Pentiment; yet everyone calls them RPGs.
Genres evolve. At this point I think that "RPG genre definition" is a can of worms and always will be, not only because of the evolution itself but also thanks to its own (non-helpful) name "Role Playing Game".
But honestly, I don’t even care about nailing the “right” definition (if that’s even possible). At the end of the day, like PuddleOfKittens said, RPG really is one of those “you know it when you see it” genres, blurry edges and all, which is why these debates will never actually get resolved. And I’m fine with everyone bringing their own take.
Not really imo.
Fair point, though it is not stat-less, it does have many of the systems including resource management and item management, only simplified, and it is sometimes, imo accurately, called a third person shooter with RPG elements (surprisingly this is what Wikipedia says).
There has been a lot of discussion in enthusiast circles about whether Disco Elysium can still be called an RPG or not. Saying that it's not is a bit extreme, but I think a non-controversial consensus is that it is clearly an edge case.
I don't know this game, but none of its Steam tags say RPG.
I agree with this. But I think that focusing on role playing itself is clearly incorrect because it excludes not only games that defined the genre but also many RPGs that are still coming out now, and it includes some visual novels that almost nobody calls RPGs. Whereas when you focus on stats and leveling and other systems ("RPG elements"), with a wide net (not needing to have all of them in depth) you still catch even most of today's edge cases, so while the definition does not describe the depth of the genre as it currently is either, it at least does cover most of the games.
By this definition alone, couldn't one argue that almost every game is a RPG as well? F1 has stats. Football manager has stats. GTA 5 has stats. FIFA. Call of Duty. XCOM. Total War. Need for Speed. And so on and so on.
It is murky, yeah. Regarding this, I'm always thinking about Space Station 13, a game which is quite literally about role-playing, but shares fairly little with anything under the RPG name regarding its gameplay loop.
What everyone said, but there's also Japanese RPGs in which you control a team of already named characters, with characters' personality and backstory and the main story mostly set in stone. You basically go through the game loop and challenges on a linear path in an interactive novel. Final Fantasy, Tales Of ---, Legend of Mana etc. It's different from other interactive novel type games (like say Phoenix Wright) because it's usually in a fantasy setting, there's some level grinding, with warrior mage cleric archer types, and battle monsters until you battle the Big Bad.
These are very different from the original tabletop RPG (think Dungeons and Dragons) where you roleplay as a unique and new character with your choice of backstory and actions to take, but JRPGs are still called such for historical reasons, to distinguish between JRPGs and arcade types of games like driving shooting fishing puzzle Zelda-like etc. strictly speaking The closest genre to tabletop RPGs is actually the dating sim genre of games, where you roleplay as a (usually) male protagonist who chooses character development beats and chooses which girls to talk to / date. But dating sims are not called RPGs because they lack the fantasy setting grind, set classes, monsters big bad mechanics.
The closest genre to tabletop RPGs is certainly CRPGs -- 'Computer RPGs"; the name is a holdover from when computer games were completely new -- games like Disco Elysium, Planescape Torment, Pillars of Eternity, Baldur's Gate, Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, Warhammer: Rogue Trader all aim to capture the full experience of a tabletop RPG, including buildcrafting, role-playing and branching narratives. The CRPG genre probably has the strongest writing of any game genre, apart from maybe visual novels. But the games also tend to be a little slow, thorny, and inaccessible.
There's this one dating sim I played years back called Boyfriend Dungeon that incorporated dungeons, mobbing, grinding, and buildcrafting but I still don't think it was experientally very similar to a TTRPG at all. In contrast, the Immersive Sim genre feels more like a TTRPG to me, despite very different mechanical identities, because of the emphasis on branching narrative, player choice, and emergent systemic gameplay with an almost natural-language quality.
RPG is one of those hold overs from the time when games were far less complex. Mecanically restrictive and extremely linear. RPGs were classified as games with blank slate characters that you play to fill a specific role. And the best way to differentiate roles when there was strict limitations story and personality, is combat. Stats, gear, powers, perks, classes. But most times the class and gear you chose would not play a part in the progression of the story.
The most notable evolution that I remember is Fallout. Where the characters behaviour and charisma plays a big part on what opportunities and outcomes the players gets and your options are tied directly to you combat capabilities.
Over time RPG elements started to creep into other genres where loadouts and classes allowed players to differentiate a playstyle. Arcade shooters became loadout based. Sports games started letting you create players with custom stats. Immersive sims gave you a character with a broadly defined role that you specialize as you discover a style.
Currently RPGs are in a definitional swamp. Theres the gear farming RPGs like Diablo, Destiny and Path of Excile where you grind for itwms across complex systems of challenges and activities. Theres the character driven games like Witcher, Mass Effect or Horizon where you manage the fighting style of a defined character through mostly linear stories. DnD style games like Baulders Gate, where it's a mix of story and gear choices. Full story games like Telltales Walking Dead (Edit: for some reason i had Last of Us) and Life is Strange where its all about character choices and its impact on a grand narrative. Combat focused games like Elden Ring where gear/class is a factor but it's more about mechanical mastery.
The lable of RPG is in a place of "you know it when you see it". Single player CoD has RPG elements occasionally but it's clearly not RPG. Procedurally generated games lean heavily about character/gear loadoits but are most often not RPGs.
RPGs are Role Playing Games. It's a somewhat loosely defined genre of games where you as the player are given a role in a story to play out.
I'd say RPGs usually have strong coupling between story and gameplay. You might be able to make choices, or influence the world around you and it'll react accordingly.
There's also usually gameplay elements associated with D&D, like skills or other progression systems. Things that further define the character you play. A game like Skyrim let's you lean into various different archetypes; like a thief, warrior, mage or anything in between.
When it comes to video game RPGs, aside from what everyone has already said about it being very much a "you know it when you see it" kind of thing, there are a general few guidelines that a video game RPG adheres to:
A notable emphasis on the narrative/story and how your character influences/is influenced by the events that unfold. Your character/party should be having a real impact on what's happening story-wise, and should also be going through emotional or growth arcs throughout. Even in games where you can create your own character, they should still feel like they have a real place and emotional stake in the setting.
A leveling system with skill choices that allow you some freedom in how you want your character(s) to engage in combat and/or non-combat skill checks, such as dialogue or bypassing obstacles that require a specific skillset. Many other game genres have co-opted skill trees from RPGs but usually purely for combat and not for interaction with the world at large.
Story-gated progression that limits you from skipping important events or going straight to areas you're not meant to be in yet that are likely beyond you or your party's current level. This ensures that you actually experience the full story, or at least enough of it for it to make sense. Open world RPGs like the Bethesda Fallouts and the Switch Legend of Zelda games do ignore this to a degree and sometimes reward players that are up to the challenge, but more often than not you're blocked off and bypassing these gates through not intended means like glitching out of bounds doesn't count.
Or if we're going by a real simple vibes explanation of it, everybody plays generally the same story, maybe with a couple different branching points and endings, but they get to customize their character(s) on how they get through said story.