Fallout's co-creator picks 5 RPGs everyone should learn from, including Elden Ring, Baldur's Gate 3, and Skyrim

Fallout: New Vegas
(Image credit: Bethesda)

Fallout's co-creator has named his personal pick of the five modern ♏RPGs th🌠at everyone designing a game could and should learn from.

Tim Cain is no stranger to grand RPGs - he's been making them for over 30 years at this point, beginning with the very first Fallout, and stretching all the way to helping Obsidian make 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:The Outer Worlds 2 in 2024. Bringing all those decades of expertize to bear, Cain has announced his pick of the five modern RPGs that he thinks everyone designing games can learn something൩ from.

It's important to note that, as Cain himself highlights in the video below, these are five games that the developer believes can teach "certain aspects" of RPG development. This isn't a list of the five best RPGs ever - this is a list of five RPGs t📖hat you should be paying attention to, "whether you like them or not," Cain says.

Cain leads with World of Warcraft as his first pick. Why? Because even if it isn't the best RPG or even the 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:best MMORPG, it proved that "making things🌄 easier makes them more fun," Cain says. Whereas Everquest offers "all stick and no carrot" in its difficulty design, Cain ౠsays WoW is "all carrot," in its approach to difficulty, and it's fun as a result. "Fun trumps just about anything," Cain adds.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Elden Ring, Cain's second pick, proves "harder is more fun." Cain loved Elden Ring's lore being there, but "you had to dig for it," and likewise loves the RPG's use of status gauges to show the player character accruing poison or other status effects over time. The player c🎉ould stop the build-up of status effects with a variety of skills🤪 and items, and Cain loves that.

"Skyrim is an absolute masterclass in exploration," Cain sꦐays for his third pick. The veteran developer absolutely adores Skyrim for its use of art and 𒁃its geographical variety of locations. Cain even says Skyrim is the closest he's ever come to playing a computer game what he imagines Dungeons & Dragons is like in his head. 

Fallout: New Vegas is similarly a "masterclass," but for another reason: it's ability to take something older, and bring it into a new er🌳a. Cain lavishes praise on New Vegas for taking the older characters of the first two Fallout games, and 🧸"extending their storylines" by bringing them to new locations. Cain also picks New Vegas for nailing its humor, both in its situations and its dialog.

Additionally, Cain loves New Vegas for its "reactivity." Choices were presented to the player, Cain saꦰys, but they weren't presented in a "black or white" lens, and they had "huge consequences." They weren't "fake choices," in that they ended up being sort of similar, but were "fundamentally different" decisions. Cain imm🌞ediately wanted to play New Vegas again after finishing it, which he thinks is the sign of a really good game.

澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:Baldur's Gate 3 rounds out Cain's top five RPGs to lear🌌n from, and that's in part due to character customization. "Aℱgain there's a lot of choices, and again there's a lot of reactivity to those choices," Cain says. The veteran developer adores Baldur's Gate 3 simply because it proves people wrong for saying RPGs were dead, or turn-based combat wasn't cool. Baldur's Gate 3 isn't the exception to the rule, Cain adds, "it is the rule."

As we mentioned before, there's no doubt that Cain knows damn well what he's talking about when it comes to RPGs, and making them. If you're eager to see Cain's work i♉n action, we'd highly recommend picking up copies of Pillars of Eternity, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, and The O🌜uter Worlds.

You can also read up on our 澳洲幸运5开奖号码历史查询:new games 2024 guide for a look ahead at some new RPGs slated to launch throughout the rest of the year and beyond.

Hirun Cryer is a freelance reporter and writer with Gamesradar+ based out of U.K. After earning a degree in American History specializing in journalism, cinema, literature, and history, he stepped into the games writing world, with a focus on shooters, indie games, and RPGs, and has since been the recipient 𝐆of the MCV 30 Under 30 award for 2021. In his spare time he freelances with other ♔outlets around the industry, practices Japanese, and enjoys contemporary manga and anime.