r/gaming spent the day balancing ambition with practicality: debating what “RPG” really means, celebrating talent and hype, and reckoning with timelines, pricing, and trust. Across top threads, the community’s energy converged on one idea—players want value, clarity, and room to define the experience on their own terms.
RPGs: Identity, semantics, and the long road
A spirited thread questioning whether RPGs must hinge on story-altering choices in the first place anchored the genre debate, with the community weighing in through a challenge to rigid definitions and a semantics battle over KCD2 vs E33. Even as fans argue the taxonomy, optimism remains buoyed by a mosaic of upcoming RPGs fans are tracking, underscoring appetite across styles, scopes, and systems.
"Gamers have been arguing about what's an RPG literally for as long as I've been alive. Genres aren't perfect rigid boxes—they're fluid, broad, and somewhat arbitrary." - u/Mediocre-Sundom (1404 points)
That fluidity meets reality in a sobering update that Star Wars: Fate Of The Old Republic may be years away, reminding fans that big visions take time. Meanwhile, hype finds a human face through a playful fan celebration of Jennifer English’s run of Game of the Year roles, signaling how star power and performance deepen the genre’s draw even as definitions evolve.
Power shifts: unions and prices
Structural change took center stage with news that id Software has officially unionized, a milestone moment that could reshape expectations around schedules, stability, and creative autonomy. As studios retool internally, the market conversation is shifting externally too.
"If you are going to charge $80, it has to look so high end that people can easily see why. Outer Worlds 2 doesn't check those boxes." - u/Iggy_Slayer (721 points)
That sentiment tracks with Xbox’s candid rethink of its pricing approach after walking back the $80 RRP for The Outer Worlds 2, where “meeting people where they are” becomes a strategic refrain. Together, labor solidarity and pricing recalibration point to an industry more responsive to long-term player trust than short-term sticker shocks.
Players rewriting the rules
At ground level, players kept redefining fun through a community prompt on games that only clicked when played the ‘wrong way’, celebrating emergent play over prescribed paths. That same agency fuels sharper instincts, as seen in skeptical first impressions of Highguard reading like Overwatch by another name.
"It genuinely feels like someone took a Thesaurus to 'Overwatch,' got 'Highguard,' and slapped that down saying 'That'll sell!'" - u/hadessonjames (885 points)
That skepticism also shapes the trust economy, highlighted by allegations that Ashes of Creation developers are scrubbing critical early-access posts. Whether it’s exploring worlds as a villager, side-eyeing clones, or insisting feedback stays visible, players are asserting the values they want the industry to uphold.