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[BennyBlanco]

And presumably Diablo 4 has a decent chunk of players on BNET and all the console players.

Epoch has been out for a while but I guess it just had a huge update and is now getting more players than POE. Reading the reviews and it's all about accepting POE/D4 refugees. I never played Epoch but I'm tempted to get it looking at those reviews. PoE2 is great, but I only played the campaign. I also really liked D4 campaign and the DLC. Then you also have the amazing D2 remake. Grim Dawn is about to get another expansion and is also great.

This genre was considered dead and buried like 10 years ago. Now we're feasting. There are big games and I love the competitive spirit of the fanbases.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

Don't forget, Titan Quest is also randomly and suddenly getting a sequel!

This genre was considered dead and buried like 10 years ago. Now we're feasting.

You know, over the years many genres have been declared "dead" only to surge later when a really good game either strikes just right or manages to break through (see: CRPG and Baldur's Gate III). I think the reality is these genres never died, but were proclaimed as such and simply stopped receiving as much developer attention, sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it is absolutely the wrong way to think and these audiences didn't just disappear... But often developers seek greener pastures (see the evolution of the Final Fantasy series) whether that's truly effective or not, often to the detriment of the original fans. /whine

 

[SScorpio]

You know, over the years many genres have been declared "dead" only to surge later when a really good game either strikes just right or manages to break through (see: CRPG and Baldur's Gate III). I think the reality is these genres never died, but were proclaimed as such and simply stopped receiving as much developer attention, sort of a self-fulfilling prophecy. I think it is absolutely the wrong way to think and these audiences didn't just disappear... But often developers seek greener pastures (see the evolution of the Final Fantasy series) whether that's truly effective or not, often to the detriment of the original fans. /whine

IMO a lot of it comes down to trend chasing. You get some new interesting game that takes off and then copycats are created. So while a genre never entirely loses all its fans. The majority of players are playing whatever is the new hotness.

CRPG being dead before Baldur's Gate 3 is also an interesting take. There was a huge lull in number of games before the original Baldur's Gate was released. But over the last decade there were a large number of releases with many being critically acclaimed.

Final Fantasy also feels like change for the sake of change. The new action combat didn't bring in a bunch of new people and it alienated the fans of the classic ATB style.

But if there's one genre that's really in trouble at the moment, it's RTS. Starcraft 2 is 15 years old. It's time for a new be RTS release to take the world by storm.

 

[Arsic]

Very hard to keep this genre of fans happy. PoE1 did it so for the longest and now PoE2 is struggling to save face. The current meme is PoE2/10.

I'm hoping titan quest 2 launches as a full game and not some sort of early access piece mailed shit.

 

[DownLikeBCPowder]

CRPG being dead before Baldur's Gate 3 is also an interesting take. There was a huge lull in number of games before the original Baldur's Gate was released. But over the last decade there were a large number of releases with many being critically acclaimed.

I agree with you that it had a sort of resurgent buildup before BG III - I just mean in terms of the kind of portrayal that may have been given or perceived, not reality. PoE etc many good titles during the 10 years preceding.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Loved PoE2 on release, had the time of my life.

 

[Holammer]

YT started to recommend a guy called Zarfen the Loot Goblin. The guy does silly/masochistic challenges in Diablo 2.
So I'm loaded up on nostalgia right now, if only MS would sell it to me on Steam. They want to milk me with D4 instead.

 

[a'la mode]

This genre was considered dead and buried like 10 years ago. Now we're feasting. There are big games and I love the competitive spirit of the fanbases.

What I like the most is that there's something for everyone.

Diablo IV for a more casual experience when you just wanna blast a bit and not worry too much about anything, PoE(2) for a more hardcore experience, and Last Epoch sitting somewhere in between.

Fans of specific ARPGs are certainly committed and passionate, and often their cake is the best one while others are utter shit, but I think we should really see the situation as "holy shit there are three cakes" and enjoy the ARPG revival across the board.

 

[phant0m]

IMO a lot of it comes down to trend chasing. You get some new interesting game that takes off and then copycats are created. So while a genre never entirely loses all its fans. The majority of players are playing whatever is the new hotness.

CRPG being dead before Baldur's Gate 3 is also an interesting take. There was a huge lull in number of games before the original Baldur's Gate was released. But over the last decade there were a large number of releases with many being critically acclaimed.

Final Fantasy also feels like change for the sake of change. The new action combat didn't bring in a bunch of new people and it alienated the fans of the classic ATB style.

But if there's one genre that's really in trouble at the moment, it's RTS. Starcraft 2 is 15 years old. It's time for a new be RTS release to take the world by storm.

RTS is a genre that's been waning for a very long time.

Unfortunately it seems to be incompatible with both the modern marketplace (f2p, season passes, mtx) and demands of modern gamers (fast games, progression, unlocks).

Someone needs to do something truly innovative in the space, because just taking RTS game design from 20 years ago and slapping modern visuals on it isn't gonna cut it.

Main issues:

1. RTS matches are too long for modern dopamine addicts. Need to get in that 15-20 minute window.
2. How to keep money treadmill/engagement going brrrrr: Gear isn't really a thing. You can't get tech trees with progression. Most individual units are too small to make cosmetics worth it.
3. MOBA dominance in the competitive space. MOBAs distilled the RTS down into gameplay the community was most interested in. It wasn't base building.

 

[Hot5pur]

Definitely get LE.
It's not as pretty or well animated as POE2 but build wise it's better and crafting and SSF is actually fun.
PoE2 was a mess in the endgame but the campaign was quite fun.

 

[Bry0]

LE has a lot of great game systems ideas and build crafting, but the art and animation is pretty dreadful imo, largely a side effect of the limited budget and team I think. Still totally worth playing if you are an arpg junkie. I'm perplexed by how the genre has grown compared to the early 2010s where we basically had nothing. It's awesome right now indeed.

Grim dawn is probably one of my favorites. I've played through endgame once on last epoch and poe2 and enjoyed both but I mostly go back to d4 for seasons because the core gameplay feels really great, it definitely has a shorter tail than the other games but I'm okay with that. I'd play Poe more if there was campaign skip

 

[Hideous Snake]

Diablo 4 sucks ass. Last Epoch is a wonderful game. Don't know about either of PoE because as soon as I saw people playing with a second screen full of builds, I noped out.