Oh yes the three continents. Europe Asia and everywhere else.

What the fuck does this mean? I mean that no studio in America did anything good in decades. Baldur's gate 2 was 2003. What good rpg was there? Mass effect was good. 2 and 3 didn't deliver to legendary grade. Bioware is dead. Blizzard is dead. Bethesda did nothing since skyrim.

I didn't know we were ignoring old games. It was just what came to mind, sorry.

Bioware is from Canada, not the US.

Still newer than the Infinity Engine games mentioned (BG1 & 2, Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment).

4 is a great shooter. It's a terrible RPG.

wow really cause i played 4 and it was a great time because the game was great. you must have a very high standard. never played a single game under 90 score on metacritic (but that would mean new vegas is worse than 4)

didnt know it was contest of most rpg game and not just great game

Likewise, I haven't played RDR2 (started, but never got past the first 30 min or so), but RDR1 is pretty much just GTA in the wild west. You can buy stuff (like GTA), but I don't recall any stats to speak of, it's very much an action-adventure. Wikipedia claims RDR2 is an action-adventure, so I assume it's closer to the Yakuza series in terms of character customization than RPGs, and Yakuza games are very much action-adventure (despite having some skills to level up).

I consider Mass Effect and The Witcher to be action RPGs, more similar to games like Ys and Diablo than games like Elder Scrolls or Final Fantasy. The focus of those games are less on your character development (stats and whatnot) and more on the action, but the character development does matter quite a bit.

However, in RDR, your character development really doesn't matter at all, at least in the first, and I'm guessing the second as well.

So:

• Mass Effect - ARPG
• The Witcher - ARPG
• RDR - action-adventure

Yet another English L. USA number 1

Of course, it makes perfect sense to describe Canadian products as North American, but OP asks about "American" RPGs. It would be strange to call Canadian Bacon "American food".

For RPGs they almost always outsource the writing. Crafting a good story is not really a skill that a lot of the major developers have a lot of call for (normally they just have you shoot the bad guys because) so they don't have people on staff for it. In RPGs stories are a lot more important though, so they actually have to put some effort in.

pathfinding

Pathfinders, you could say

I propose we reclassify india as a dwarf continent

It has to do with geology. Europe basically swallowed up and mixed in with another continent a long time ago after Pangea broke up

india has HALF the landmass...seriously...thats not a continent

Geologists, scornfully staring at you.

oh. okay then, yeah, diablo, fav game as a young kid, local california studio, whoo!

I know blizzard (main) was in anaheim. just south (and sprawling with, but in orange county so nobody sane would ever go there) of los angeles. might be what you're thinking of? but also you could be right, and it was in, like, glendale or some shit.

(☝◞‸◟)☞

there are some pretty cool people with some pretty terrible ancestors. I don't think you want to apply this logic; it gets real gross real quick.

Rockstar was British, but it's American now. HQ is in NYC, along with their parent company, Take Two.

What elements that you consider core to the genre is it missing?

and you can get all those skills and will before you even finish the game there's no choices in the story or even how the character fights really everyone playing hzd gets the same experience those are rpg elements but rpg elements doesn't make a game an rpg it's just triple a game design needing to have everything from every game ever

Role playing game just means it's a game where you play a role, right?