It's almost like the whole role of stopping world ending events has been played out a little too much in the RPG genre. That narritive has its time and place as long as there is a strong story behind it with characters you care about and flaws inherent in the hero (looking at you, Enderal) , but who wants to be the "chosen one" in EVERY. DAMN. GAME.
Quite. I find it very wearying and it just makes the game world feel much smaller. My first RPG was Oblivion (yeah I know... the genre had somehow eluded me for the first decades of my video-game playing) and I loved making someone who specifically
wasn't the Doom Guy type protagonist and worse. Just some girl-next-door type who fell into a situation as events took on a life of their own. That part I enjoyed; being head of every guild, Saviour of Bruma, Hero of Kvatch, Champion of Cyrodiil etc just seemed a bit silly and was precisely not what my character was about. The Mages Guild was especially ludicrous as my character was very much a novice mage and not at all interested in the politics of the guild.
Yet that is something that more games get even more badly wrong than get it right. I'm reluctant to even mention "The W Word" because "The Witcher gets everything right" is a bit tired but actually, Geralt was very much like that. Yeah, he may have been involved in some serious stuff, but Geralt is just Geralt. People often don't like him much, but most don't know or care who he is. Greedfall (also at risk of over-doing it) being a more recent example, as much as the PC may as well have carried business cards with "de Sardet, Legate of the Congregation" printed on them she wasn't even the most important person from the Congregation on the island, and again, plenty of people didn't care for her nor about her.
But too many others just go for the "climb to the top of the guild's greasy pole! Even though you're head of the other guilds! Have fame or infamy! Everyone loves or fears you! Be a leader! Be
the leader! Be a
god!" No. Just let me be me.
