Tabletop RPG Exalted is still in need of a video game adaptation. The relationship between tabletop roleplaying games and video games is nearly as old as either hobby. Amateur adaptations of Dungeons & Dragons, the first modern tabletop RPG, were created as early as the mid-1970s, and tabletop to video game adaptations continue through recent releases like Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous and the ongoing playtest of Baldur’s Gate 3. Some RPGs are more suited to the video game format than others, and the tabletop RPG most in need of a video game adaptation is Exalted, originally from White Wolf publishing. Exalted proudly displayed its inspirations from video games and anime. Its flashy, larger-than-life combat system, including “Charms” which essentially amounted to video game special moves, practically begged for a video game to showcase them to their fullest. More than 20 years have passed since Exalted’s original 2001 first edition release, and the absence of a video game continues to be a major missed opportunity.
Exalted was a significant shift for White Wolf, a publisher best known for its series of World of Darkness modern-day horror RPGs, which include Vampire: the Masquerade and later Vampire: the Requiem in its revised World of Darkness. The company was known for its trademark Storyteller System, a dice-pool-based system that put as much emphasis on mental and social challenges as it did combat. White Wolf’s games, appropriately, prioritized drama and storytelling over battle and loot. Earlier games had pushed the Storyteller System beyond the horror genre, like the science-fiction game Aeon and the superhero genre RPG Aberrant. Exalted was a bigger tonal departure, abandoning the “real world with fantastic elements” concepts of the World of Darkness and Aberrant for an original high fantasy setting where player characters wielded godlike power.
White Wolf had already expressed its interest in the video game world with its tabletop RPG adaptation of Street Fighter. With Exalted, it combined the special moves of the TTRPG Street Fighter: the Storytelling Game with the superhuman powers of Aberrant in a fantasy world inspired by both eastern and western media. The titular Exalted of the setting were mortals imbued with powers by the gods who had retreated from Creation following a battle with the Primordials. The core book covered perhaps the most powerful form, the Solar Exalted, while later supplements would provide rules for playing Lunar Exalted, Abyssal Exalted, and even the golem-like Alchemical Exalted. Each type of Exalted could learn Charms which enhanced a skill to superhuman proportions. The Dodge skill could be enhanced through Charms such as Flow Like Blood to make the character’s body mostly intangible, and Athletics Charms allowed for superhuman speeds and impossible leaps. Melee Charms like Blazing Solar Bolt evoked the energy attacks featured in fighting games and Shonen anime.
The Exalted RPG Listed FF7 And Anime Among Its Inspirations
Most games from the company included a “suggested resources” section which provided novels and films that fit the tone of that particular title. Exalted’s resources featured a number of novels, including the Hawkmoon series from legendary fantasy author and Elric of Melnibone writer Michael Moorcock, but it also named two video games, Final Fantasy 7 and Thief. “The huge weapons and the over-the-top special effects of the magic are absolutely the best,” Exalted’s first edition notes regarding Final Fantasy 7. Exalted embraced these video game-inspired aspects in its design, with Daiklave weapons that resembled the massive Buster Sword, and socketed magical gems similar to Final Fantasy 7’s Materia system. Its battle system was much more complex than prior Storyteller System games, including a video game-style system for creating “Charm Combos.” The game did not entirely lose focus on White Wolf’s storytelling-focused roots, as there were also Charms to enhance skills like Socialize and Bureaucracy to accomplish goals outside of combat.
Today there are a number of Vampire: the Masquerade video game adaptations in the works, but White Wolf’s most video game-inspired property has yet to make the transition. It is certainly arguable that an Exalted video game is unnecessary simply because so many video game fantasy RPGs have already covered similar thematic ground. BioWare’s Jade Empire offered up a wuxia-inspired take on a martial arts RPG, and superhuman demigod heroes are a common trope, continued in recent games like Astria Ascending. Attempting a literal adaptation of the Exalted mechanics would be complex even today, as it would require both the complexities of the game’s combat system alongside the possibilities afforded by non-combat Charm trees like Linquistics and Presence.
Still, it remains surprising that Exalted has not seen any form of video game adaptation, considering some of the tabletop RPGs that have received such treatment. Exalted would have made a more appropriate fighting game than D&D’s Ravenloft setting which spawned Iron & Blood. The more obscure Cyberpunk tabletop RPG received a high-profile adaptation with CD Projekt Red’s Cyberpunk 2077, which in turn inspired the new Cyberpunk RED version of the tabletop RPG. Even lesser IPs have seen video game adaptation, like Palladium’s Rifts RPG, albeit for the short-lived Nokia N-Gage platform. The World of Darkness tabletop RPG line has been adapted into PC RPGs like Vampire the Masquerade: Redemption and Bloodlines, the battle royale Bloodhunt, and action games like Hunter: the Reckoning and Werewolf: The Apocalypse – Earthblood. Despite being more inherently “video game-friendly” than the World of Darkness RPGs, Exalted has yet to see any such adaptation.
An Exalted Game Has Huge Potential, But Its Prior Adaptation Fizzled
Sometimes the most intuitive pairings never manifest with video game adaptations. The fourth edition of Dungeons & Dragons is considered among the most tactically rich tabletop RPGs ever created, and it incorporated some video game-style terminology with its character roles like Defender, Leader, and Striker. Somehow there was never a true 4e Dungeons & Dragons tactical RPG game, despite its rich potential for such a video game. Exalted is a similar case. Despite its video game inspirations, flashy combat, and rich fantasy setting, Exalted has been passed over for video game adaptation for years. Interested in Exalted was evidently still present in the mid-2010s, as the Kickstarter for the Exalted third edition, which released in 2016, broke records for a tabletop RPG product, at that time.
Onyx Path publishing, the group that handles many former White Wolf IPs, including Exalted, continues to put out a steady stream of supplements for 3e Exalted, but the adaptation appears no closer to becoming a reality. The obvious potential of an Exalted video game has been acknowledged in the past. Interplay, the developer that produced the video game adaptations of the earliest edition of the Hunter: the Reckoning tabletop RPG, was reportedly working on an Exalted video game as far back as 2003, but it was canceled along with other projects due to the company’s financial issues. Here’s hoping that, like Dungeons & Dragons, an Exalted video game will one day happen.
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