Mortismal Gaming Interview #2

1. Congratulations. You have now reached over 200k subscribers on YouTube delivering reviews for a range of RPGs. How does it feel? If the number of subscribers never went up, would you be satisfied with what you have achieved?

It's surreal, truth be told I try not to think about it too much lest the anxiety of that many people watching get to me lol. It's a dream come true though, making guides and just talking about games for a living was what I always wanted to do and the opportunity to do it is such a blessing. Yeah I would feel satisfied, I made videos for almost six years being happy if something got like 500 views before the channel started really growing. The aim is to keep growing of course, but as long as people are finding value in it I'll be happy. This is what I love to do, with or without the great growth.

2. It took only 8 months to go from 100k subscribers to 200k. What do you think sparked that massive ramp up in users and have you changed anything in particular to make this happen?

Most of that was really fuelled by my content at the beginning of the year when a lot of the big AAA stuff was releasing and I nailed the reviews for them. I'm particularly proud of the Forspoken review where I was able to take a game where everyone was focused on a few lines of dialogue and really expand on everything else the game had to offer and where I felt it stumbled in much bigger ways. I didn't wind up recommending it, but I was able to really capture the conversation around things that no one else was talking about. That's just one example but many of the reviews this year I've been able to capitalize on getting access that was previously unavailable (review copies) and provide reviews that seemed to resonate with people. Those are generally the big growth drivers, but being able to provide tons of guides and the like for games like BG3 here recently have helped a ton.

3. Onto games; you have made dozens of videos on the Divine Divinity series by Larian Studios and you have already started making a range of videos on Baldur's Gate 3. Would you consider yourself a Larian Studios fan in particular or is there anything specific about Baldur's Gate 3 and its own fantasy world that interests you?

I certainly enjoy what Larian is doing sure. In particular though I just really love the Divinity universe, it really captured those old feelings of winding my way through old CRPGs more than a lot of other more recent ones managed to. Divinity Original Sin 2 and then with Baldur's Gate 3 I feel they are really trying to push the genre (CRPGs) forward to new heights where a lot of other studios, not all but a lot, are mostly just rehashing what made the old games great. I enjoy the forgotten realms setting that BG3 uses because I've been interacting with it since the 90's so it's like fantasy comfort food, but mostly I just love getting to use that knowledge to introduce the things I'm passionate about to other people in a helpful way.

4. RPGWatch has always been somewhat of an enclave regarding Piranha Bytes games. After having completed all of them, what are your thoughts? Would you have your own particular ranking ? Would you play any future games such as Elex 3?

I actually made a video for both my rankings and my full thoughts lol. They're great though, each in their own ways, even the 'bad' ones still have people talking about them with strong opinions and that's remarkable by itself. PB as a studio I think has consistently grown and kept at it without ever really compromising what makes their games unique. Rankings wise though from worst to best:

• Gothic 3
• Elex 2
• Risen 2
• Risen 3
• Gothic
• Risen
• Gothic 2
• Elex

I'll definitely keep playing whatever they make, I want to support what they do and I need to know how the Elex series wrap up.

5. If you had to recommend one game for total RPG beginners, what would it be and why?

It depends on the person and the sub genres they enjoy, but I usually recommend DOS2 or Wasteland 3 as places to start for isometric games. Those two just really have a way of pulling you into the world.

6. In the same vein, if you had to recommend a truly obscure RPG to an RPG veteran, what would it be and why?

The Technomancer from Spiders the studio behind Greedfall which they did right after. I loved the world and concepts of it. You play a technomancer, someone who can control electricity, on a mars colony in the face of all these crises that you and a team of companions have to tackle. It's very similar to some BioWare games, and admittedly it's a jank fest at times, but I really loved it.

7. Most RPG fans know what major RPGs and DLCs will be released soon, but do you have any indie RPGs you are really looking forward to in the next year?

Colony Ship and Dark Envoy. Waiting on release dates for both, but supposed to be out this year, and another one Hammerwatch 2 out on Aug 15th that I loved the demo for. Dark Envoy is from the people who made Tower of Time and carries forward a lot of fun mechanics into the really interesting story they built. Hammerwatch 2 is a throwback pixelated RPG like the old Zelda games in gameplay almost.

8. One of mine is Colony Ship RPG by Iron Tower Studios. Is this one on your radar?

Yeah definitely, I've made a few videos on it, it looks like they really learned a lot from their Age of Decadence release and from what I've played they'd done a great job building out a unique world set in a unique situation. I'll be covering it when its released for sure.

9. On a more personal note, you have spoken in your videos about your son enjoying BioMutant. Are there any other RPGs you think may be suitable for younger gamers to play alongside a parent?

Yeah there's tons, but it really depends on the kid's age. My son is 4 now so he's not really looking to get involved in a big narrative and just wants to 'beat up bad guys' so something like Marvel's Midnight Suns is a recent one that was great for that. Beyond that he really loves Pokemon and all of those are really kid friendly of course and I need very little motivation to explain why Dragonite and Gengar are the best. I think the key there is to just show them age appropriate games in general and see what they take a shine too and then engage with them about it. When he gets a little older I'm going to see how he feels about Pathfinder and hope for the best though lol.   

10. Bonus: If you could take a one-week holiday anywhere in the world, where would you go and why?

Garden of the Gods in Colorado, just a beautiful place I've always wanted to visit. I love big national parks like that.