Retro-style RPGs are big business, especially on the Nintendo Switch. We aren’t talking about masterpieces like Baldur’s Gate 3, or even old-school Zelda games but just your regular, fun, story-driven pixel-based RPGs.
Well with the help of the incoming RPG Maker WITH that is releasing for Switch on October 11th, you are going to get the chance to create your own Switch-based RPGs.
RPG Maker has been around for years and years in one form or another and the weirdly named RPG Maker WITH will be the latest version,
We are presuming the WITH part of the name comes from the included collaboration tools which let you co-create your RPG with other people online which is pretty cool as you could have one friend in charge of the story, another in charge of dialog, and even another sorting out your game’s maps. Sounds like a lot of fun.
The online aspect of the game will also allow you to play games that other creators have made, opening up potentially a never-ending world of new RPGs to play (disclaimer, some will be absolutely rubbish).
Assets wise the game will come with all you need to create fantasy or science-fiction-style RPGs and there are plans to offer more assets as DLC. If this is anything like in the existing RPG Maker ecosystem for PC, these will be plentiful.
A version of RPG Maker WITH will also be released for both PlayStation 4 and PlayStation 5 in the future, but the only date for that so far is the considerably vaguer 2025.
If you have always wanted to create your own game but simply have no clue where to start RPG Maker is a great jumping-off spot to see what catches your imagination. The new audience on the Nintendo Switch is an interesting one and it will be a lot of fun to see what people can create once it releases.