ABSTRACT
Th e time has come to bring our story to an end. But have we also come to the end of the CRPG itself? If not, what is the future of the genre?
In the last chapter we saw how three trends are emerging that will likely remain infl uential for at least the next few years: online gaming, console gaming, and, perhaps as a result of these fi rst two, an emphasis on action over the more strategic gameplay of earlier CRPGs. I could add a fourth trend: the tendency to announce the death of the standalone, single-player CRPG.
