I mean the niche best known for Bethesda's The Elder Scrolls III, IV and V.
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(Fantasy) The setting is a fictional world with fantastical elements, and a comparable level of societal progress as the 1600s or earlier.
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(Character Creation) You create your own role: character and class. It is a permanent character.
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(Action) You have direct control over your characters actions in real time.
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(Open World / Sandbox) You aren't forced to do the main story and can roam around the whole map finding items and doing side quests.
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(Single player) Not having to accommodate for multiple players, your choices can make a lasting impact on the world.
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(Alive world) There are events that can happen by chance, like meeting people on the road.
Less importantly, they are first person. This connects you more to the character, but downside is you don't see how cool armor you are wearing. First person combat might also keep it from reaching high action potential, although games like Mount&Blade and Kingdom Come Deliverance features good First Person fencing.
What are the competitors in this genre of single player, open world, fantasy, RPG?
Baldur's Gate is not an action game.
The Witcher forces you into a premade character and thus I don't consider it Free Role Playing.
Kingdom Come Deliverance is not fantasy and you are a set character.
Elden Ring has few NPC interactions, choices and well executed quests. The world is heavily hostile. I don't see it fulfilling the niche quite, but it fills my craving per now.
With Oblivion and Skyrim being real hits, why aren't there more competitors in the Single Player, Open World, Fantasy, RPG niche?
Tainted Grail honestly would probably be the closest feeling to a Bethesda game. I've played it, and it's really fun. The magic feels good, but the two-handed fighting feels best imo, super beefy. It's not quite as open as a Bethesda game, but there are plenty of choices, things to do and collect/craft, all kinds of little side quests to give you a good view into what life is like on the island.
Another person brought up Lantern of the Laughless Saint, which is currently in development and I don't think there's a demo yet or if there will be. It does look pretty fun though.
There's also Sword Hero which is also in development by a single dev, but there's a playable demo on steam and it's looking like it's gonna be pretty big. There's directional physics-based combat, where if you turn your camera into the swing of your weapon you'll do more damage, and you can target individual limbs; I believe it'll have a semi-persistent world where people will remember if you've pissed them off before; it has Kenshi-like lore, where they live on a ringworld that has advanced technology around the place like automated medics and prosthetic limbs (there is dismemberment and you can lose your limbs); dragons and other fantasy monsters. Honestly it looks like it might be my next most anticipated game.
Tainted Grail was fun. I was playing it on the high seas and deleted it so I could buy a copy instead. Fun gane