Victor Tombs wrote:Lum wrote:Skyrim is also depressing sometimes
And from the Dwemer's point of view also postapocaliptic
Nah, I've never been depressed by TES games (except that MMO abortion which I own but will never subscribe to). I've become watery eyed in some places in the games, powerful emotions brought on by plot and the glorious music of JS, but no depressing experiences. Although I do admit there is some truth in the point you make about the Dwemer.
The funny thing is that both the Elder Scrolls and Fallout worlds share an important quality:
melancholy for lost civilizations.
And I don't think that's an accident.
The lead designer at BethSoft on both
Morrowind and
Oblivion was Ken Rolston. (Rolston also worked on the tabletop RPG
Paranoia, itself a game set in a world in which normal civilization has been lost.) Although he left Bethesda to work on
Kingdoms of Amalur: Reckoning,
his design precepts inspired others at BethSoft and Zenimax. It's not unreasonable that his influence carried over into the design for Bethesda's version of the Fallout universe.
There's certainly a difference in tone between exploring, say, a wraith-guarded Ayleid ruin or a Securitron-protected bunker. But in both cases you're likely to discover little histories of the people who once lived there long ago, now lost to inexorable time. Is science-fiction sadness that different from fantasy sadness?
Of course I'm not suggesting these games are identical. But I think there's some reasonable evidence that they are, as Lum said, both post-apocalyptic in their own ways.
I'm curious to see how Frontiers treats exploration: as a melancholic rediscovery of lost places? Or as an optimistic expansion of the "frontiers" of knowledge and livability?