For me the golden age was that entire decade, but I think the first half was still stronger: Star Wars KOTOR 1 and 2, Gothic 1 and 2, Baldur's Gate 2, Dungeon Siege 1 and 2, Jade Empire, Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines, Diablo 2, Final Fantasy 10 , World of Warcraft, Morrowind.
This. Morrowind, KOTOR, and Baldur's Gate are classic. Oblivion is only good for memes.
Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines is awesome too
Oblivion is basically a generic high fantasy european bland canvas, it's so tepid and undistinctive its like the ultimate modding game imo since you can turn it into literally anything and it'll have more soul than the out of the box potato pudding sapiens game ever will.
2006-2009 was a terrible time for (C)RPGs. Interplay and Troika were no more. Obsidian only had developed Kotor 2 and Mask of the Betrayer at this point. Larian Studios was still seen as some 2-bit studio with rough gems at best. Meanwhile, the Bioware formula was cemented around this time, and the inferior spiritual successor of System Shock was released. The most notable (C)RPGs that hit the gaming cultural landscape were Oblivion and Oblivion with Guns. And it was during that time when the infamous horse armor DLC was released, a harbinger of things to come.
golden era of RPG
Oblivion
Jeez, I know I shit on modern gaming for being trash, but I don't know anything more damning than being nostalgic for fucking Oblivion.
Gothic 3 was hot trash and easily the worst of the 6 in the thumbnail, it kind of sank the entire Gothic ship and the series never recovered.
Oblivion is okay modded, but that doesn't say much.
I think Gothic 3 was actually quite a solid game with the community patches. That said, the official state of the game is simply insulting to this day, because after the catastrophe of a release it had the developer and publisher parted ways and the game was never properly fixed by either of them.
This messy and very public divorce is also the main reason the Gothic series died, the publisher (Jowood) retained the rights and gave it to other developer studios which created games that more or less flopped (G3 expansion, Arcania). But what do you expect from a publisher that lets the game get fixed by fans instead of actually paying people for it. I mean at least they gave them access to the source, so that's something, but still...
I thought this was going to be about tabletop, I had fond memories of Dark Heresy
Fable 2?
I found a YouTube link in your post. Here are links to the same video on alternative frontends that protect your privacy:
