Or at least in this case, the how one game developer was influenced by the particular RPG game Ultima VII in his long career in developing subsequent RPG games.
Ultima VII: The Black Gate came out in 1992 and was the seventh game in the Ultima series by the notable early 'celebrity' game developer Richard Garriot ("Lord British") and was revolutionary in how the world environment moved from a very strict tile and grid base (though it still used tiles it didn't limit character or monster movement nearly as much) and moved far away from the 'command' interface of earlier Ultima games, allow greater interaction with the environment using the mouse controls and point and clicking instead of typing in commands.
What Ultima was truly ahead of the time in was its sheer open world and interactivity with the environment which rewarded the open ended gameplay of character interaction, exploration and combat without being artificially limited for thematic or gameplay reasons. It turns out that sort of format was a dead-end however game wise. Compared to later games like Baldurs Gate and Fallout, despite the limitations of the Ultima VII engine, it was less static then subsequent highly celebrated games.
In this article it specifically talks about how Larian Studios, the developers of the Divinity series of games and Baldurs Gate III are trying to emulate. But that open world type of RPG setting is something that is seemingly being pursued by many other RPG's as well ranging from CDPR and Obsidian to Bethesda, though to varying degrees. Though it is worth noting that complete open world interactivity isn't always the ideal for an RPG game, even an 'open world' one. But it is the closest one could get to the creative freedom one might get in a pen and paper style RPG adventure.
How an obsession with Ultima 7 led to some of the PC's best RPGs
Swen Vincke is determined to put a little bit of Ultima 7 into every game Larian Studios creates.
www.pcgamer.com
Ultima VII: The Black Gate came out in 1992 and was the seventh game in the Ultima series by the notable early 'celebrity' game developer Richard Garriot ("Lord British") and was revolutionary in how the world environment moved from a very strict tile and grid base (though it still used tiles it didn't limit character or monster movement nearly as much) and moved far away from the 'command' interface of earlier Ultima games, allow greater interaction with the environment using the mouse controls and point and clicking instead of typing in commands.
What Ultima was truly ahead of the time in was its sheer open world and interactivity with the environment which rewarded the open ended gameplay of character interaction, exploration and combat without being artificially limited for thematic or gameplay reasons. It turns out that sort of format was a dead-end however game wise. Compared to later games like Baldurs Gate and Fallout, despite the limitations of the Ultima VII engine, it was less static then subsequent highly celebrated games.
In this article it specifically talks about how Larian Studios, the developers of the Divinity series of games and Baldurs Gate III are trying to emulate. But that open world type of RPG setting is something that is seemingly being pursued by many other RPG's as well ranging from CDPR and Obsidian to Bethesda, though to varying degrees. Though it is worth noting that complete open world interactivity isn't always the ideal for an RPG game, even an 'open world' one. But it is the closest one could get to the creative freedom one might get in a pen and paper style RPG adventure.