RPGs have come a long way since their TTRPG and wargaming roots, with some of the best modern RPGs taking massive influence from the action genre. For gamers who hate turn-based combat, the action-RPG is absolutely the way to go, and they’ve proven extremely popular.
However, just because the mechanical complexity of hardcore RPGs may have dissipated doesn’t mean action RPGs are any less complicated. In fact, whether it be due to extreme skill trees, brutal difficulty, or simple obtuseness, some great action RPGs have really steep learning curves for beginners.
For the longest time, the Diablo franchise rules the isometric action RPG genre, squashing its competition and defining the genre as itself. However, in 2013,Path of Exileemerged as a strong competitor that not only took Diablo as inspiration, but in many ways superceded its inspiration by leaning heavily into mechanical complexity and leaving beginners behind.
Unfortunately that does mean picking upPath of Exilein the modern day is a difficult proposition. With staggering skill trees, a well-developed meta, and a world overflowing with content, it’s hard to blame beginner players for being turned off by the steep difficulty curve, but for fans of the Diablo-style action, it’s well worth the time investment.
It’s hard to underestimate the immense impact the Soulslike genre has had on gaming since the popular explosion of the series with 2011’sDark Souls. One major impact is the release of many other games in their image, many of which are good, but few are truly great. That’s whereLies of Pcomes in.
As likely the best Soulslike game FromSoftware never made,Lies of Pis an atmospheric, powerful, and difficult action RPG that takes the high-speed action ofBloodborneand dials it up to 11, focusing on tricky parries and devastating combos that could leave a newcomer completely flummoxed, particularly through the game’srogue’s gallery of tricky bosses. Yet, if the learning curve is surmounted,Lies of Pmakes a case for itself as one of the best Soulslike games ever made.
It’s a challenging prospect to jump into a decades-old franchise, particularly with such a storied history as the Monster Hunter franchise, and even more so because it has essentially created its own subgenre of action RPG.Monster Hunter: World, released in 2018, was pitched as a soft reboot to get new players into the franchise, but it’s a mixed prospect how successful it was.
Despite really strong sales numbers, it’s hard to deny thatMonster Hunter: Worldscan be an overwhelming prospect to new players. Its combat is very different from any other RPG; it has a web of interlocking complex systems, agrimoire’s worth of difficult bosses, and it has more gear and buffs to shake a stick at. However, with a friendly guide, new players are more than capable of overcoming the game’s difficulty curve.
If the Soulslike genre was the biggest new game design innovation in the 2010s, then the Roguelike has got to come a close second. The permadeath inspired RPG mechanics of the Roguelike set the foundations for countless indie and AAA games due to its addictive loop-based gameplay, and it was only a matter of time until someone truly mastered it.
That mastery came in the form ofHadesby Supergiant Games, a remarkable Soulslike that has a massive amount of mechanical depth mixed with superb storytelling and art design. Yet, the sheer complexity ofits improvisatory boon systemcan prove intimidating to new players, particularly as more and more systems get added. Yet, if players persist, they’ll find one of the best Roguelikes ever made inHades.
If anyone had guessed in the early 2010s that FromSoftware would become one of the biggest game developers on the planet, they’d be laughed out of the room, but the rise of the Soulslike grew unimpeded, resulting inElden Ringin 2022, arguably the pinnacle of the Soulslike genre that will be remembered as one of the greatest games of the 2020s withone of the most impressive roster of bossesever put to hard drives.
That being said, with all the new popular success came a contingent of new players unfamiliar with the Soulslike formula and the brutal difficulty. ThoughElden Ringis more forgiving than other Soulslikes, it is still an intimidating proposition for many new players, particularly due to its vast size, and it’s hard to blame some for jumping ship once the complexity grew too great.
There’s a fair criticism made of many RPGs that they’re often too in love with the idea of a power fantasy, and rarely give a player the opportunity to really live in a world as a commoner and work their way up. Warhorse Studios evidently took that criticism as a challenge and madeKingdom Come: Deliverance, an RPG that is entirely uninterested in giving players a power fantasy.
That means when players first step into combat with a sword, they are weak, and the somewhat esoteric combat system requires some time to fully understand. In fact, the combat is so strange that many players abandoned the game because of it. The difficulty curve is steep, but if surmounted,Kingdom Come: Deliveranceis one of the most rewarding RPG experiences around and well worth the time investment.
As the end of the 2010s came around, may were wondering what FromSoftware would do next now that their biggest franchise, Dark Souls, had finished, and no sequel fro Bloodborne was on the horizon. The answer came in 2019 with one of the most divisive and beloved action RPGs in recent memory,Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice.
Sekiro’s design is controversial because of its unrelenting difficulty. If a boss was difficult inDark Souls, different gear, specs, or strategies could likely solve it.Sekiro,on the other hand, is unforgiving. If the player doesn’t master its reflex-based parry system, they’re going to have a rough time. For some players, that was too much, but for those who put in the time to learn it,Sekirobecomes one of the most rewarding combat experiences FromSoftware ever made.
ThoughDark Soulshas aged to the point where its perfectly comprehensible to seasoned veterans of the Souls-formula, it’s important to realize just how strange it was to newcomers in 2011, with only the few folks who playedDemon’s Soulsknowing how it works. The brutal difficulty, obtuse tutorialization, and murky story made it an enigma that required community co-operation to get through.
Because the Soulslike formula was so new at this point, the difficulty curve feels greater than any other.Dark Soulsrequired RPG fans to play the game in an entirely new way, to rewire their brains, and to work with a punishing but rewarding new style of action design. For those who persevered,Dark Soulsrevealed itself as one of the greatest games ever made.
