[bildung]

For me personally many of those high fantasy polished D&D based games have become quite boring. I mean they objectively are of high quality! But I couldn't e.g. manage to finish both Pillars of Eternity games because they somehow just became a chore to play further. The writing was great, the visuals were great, but something was still lacking. Achievements and collectables and similar 4th-wall-breaking elements were a turn-off for me, and the D&D ruleset again and again...

By contrast Jeff's Avernum series was such a breath of fresh air. Really interesting world, great writing, no D&D. Those were really great. I wouldn't mind better graphics, but that's a minor point for me.

[nottorp]

Even if said polished D&D games are great, how many of them do they make per year? 1/8? 1/5?

Even if you add the non design-by-commitee immersive games that are not quite rpgs, you end with maybe 2 titles per year.

That's not always enough, and then you go and snatch the Avernum series and whatever promises to be similar.

Btw there was another indie company that promised to go the same way: https://basiliskgames.com/

They seem to have got snagged into an ambitious engine change though. And nothing's come out of there in many years.