What happened to fanciful games?

BeaconMavis

What happened to fanciful, open-world high-fantasy games? These days I find that nearly all games are focused on being dark, dreary, and "gritty". So many of them are fairly linear dungeon grinders. I've been shopping around for good RPGs, whether multiplayer or single-player. I've looked at just about every game out there and, to me, they all seem like they're rushing to advertise how dark and gritty they are. Either the plot is very dark or the game world itself is drab and oppressive. Usually both. I get that this is fun for some people and I don't begrudge them their fun, but I'm really, really tired of it.

My fondest gaming memories are of early EQII, with its lush, colourful, enchanted forests filled with amazing creatures. I loved playing Fae and Erudite characters. I loved the enchantedness of the game worlds. I loved bright, sunny landscapes, soaring vistas, magic carpet rides, mysterious temples, fanciful mounts. I get hints of this in games like Rift, BDO, and Blade and Soul, but only hints. Most games focus on drab dungeons, horrifying plot lines, a focus on "survival", and blandly realistic low-fantasy. Think TSW. Think Dark Souls. Think Divinity, Dragon's Dogma, Shadow of Mordor, the Witcher series, Path of Exile, and on and on ad nauseum. They're all trying to outdo each other with their "grittiness". They all seem so sameish and drab to me.

Don't mistake me: I'm not looking for "kiddie" games, or "goofy" games. I'm not looking for Adventure Quest 3D or Villagers and Heroes. I want serious 3D RPGs with deep RPG mechanics intended for adults, but those which explore the full range of the imagination, not just the dark and dreary bits. I want games that don't assume "mature" is the same thing as "horrifying". Do these games exist anymore?

Maurgrim

Pretty much all Asian games are what you looking for.

BeaconMavis

Yes, I do tend to be more impressed by the current crop of Asian games than by Western ones, not so much for the gameplay as for the aesthetics. BDO is my current game of choice, but I also have my eye on Revelation Online.

Are there no Western games with these kinds of aesthetics and tone?

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cameltosis

I'm in the same boat as the OP - I like high-fantasy settings with bright and colourful worlds and monsters. However, I've never really gotten on with asian aesthetics and more importantly, the stories in a lot of asian rpgs. 

For example, I love the Final Fantasy series - large open worlds, amazing monsters to find and kill and usually interesting mechanics. However, as the years have gone by they've focused more and more on stories and less on gameplay. FF13, for example, you have to play through roughly 20 hours of the game before it "opens up" and you finally gain some freedom to explore, grind some levels on your characters etc. 

I think part of the problem is simply our cultural history. European history (and by extension, American) is very dark and gritty. When we think of fantasy, swords and shields etc, we inevitably think back to the dark ages which were full of basic, rough living, lots of death, low life expectancy, forboding dark castles and witches living in caves etc. Asian history seems to have much more fantastic myths and folklore to draw upon, which is why we see more high-fantasy games coming out of asia. 

BeaconMavis

I would actually love to see more games that explore non-Western aesthetics. A Bollywood-style RPG would be amazing. Or one that drew from Middle Eastern lore. I really love the aesthetics of Blade and Soul. Revelation Online looks great. It's not so much any particular aesthetic I'm looking for, as it is a tone or a mood.

FFXIV looks interesting to me, and seems to press a lot of my buttons, but I feel like I've absorbed all I can of the FF universe for one lifetime.

There are some hidden gems out there. Black Desert has some of the kind of content I'm looking for. The tree city hiding just south of Trent is a great example, but it's a bit sad that it is so little used. I love the demihuman race in the game and some of the little goblin people, but again, they're just occasional NPCs. I hope BDO moves into some more high-fantasy territory with future expansions. I gather there are elves coming, but of course they have to be *dark* elves.

Mendel

The grim and gritty aspects of games follows what is popular is fiction.  Fantasy has become all 'grimdark', with an eye towards becoming more 'realistic'.  It tends to be a bit close to gratuitous for my tastes.  Gone are the fun and mischievous versions of elves, in favor of trying to make these fantasy staples seem real.  Fanciful (a great word -- perfectly describing a lighter touch) went out the door as fantasy writers strove to be taken more seriously.

Go scrounge around in some used book store near you, @BeaconMavis.  See if you can find some books from the early-to-mid 1980s.  This was pretty much before the darkness took notice of the fantasy genre.  If you can discover a cache of Elizabeth H. Boyer or James P. Blaylock or Robert Asprin, I think that will soothe the need for light fantasy.

As for games, I'm afraid that we will both be waiting quite a while for games to approach the lighthearted fantasy that isn't all dark.  That's because the darkness is selling.  To me, there's plenty of room in the genre (both print and games) to explore those regions between Disney and murderous, evil elves.

BeaconMavis

@Mendel Thanks! I used to read Asprin books when I was a kid, but I haven't read Boyer or Blaylock. I will look them up.

It sounds like you know exactly what I mean about the aesthetics of current games. "Grimdark" is the perfect word for it. I don't mind a little grimdark now and then, but I feel there is no relief from it nowadays. My great hope was EQNext, but we saw how that turned out. Pantheon looks like it might have some lighter elements, based on the artwork posted on the site, but the gameplay videos shown so far all tend toward the grimdark.

I'm actually quite surprised that no one has modded Skyrim to have more fanciful elements. I would have expected lots of mods featuring enchanted forests, elven castles, fairies, and so forth (even though those aren't Elder Scrolls canon), but it seems the only "lighter" mods are the sort that replace dragons with Thomas the Tank Engine.