Or rather, we’re getting a more modern concept of war where small units fight for strategic objectives, rather than massive lines of dudes in pitched battles. (I would say that removing the other party’s financial ability to wage war counts as a strategic objective.)
Not that I’d really want to see sieges that last for months in what is supposed to be a fast-paced action game.
Skyrim did the same; you were just part of a small unit that assaulted a small enemy camp and killed everyone (except the enemy leader, who was unkillable because he was labeled as a “quest character”), rather than large-scale engagements. In the Witcher games there was an illusion of large wars because most of the battlefield wasn’t accessible to the player; it was just background noise, and the player was, once again, just “raiding” (to kill a king, or whatever it was about).
When playing as a single dude, full-scale wars just aren’t very interesting to play. You need smaller-scale objectives that feel like they’re part of a war. I’ve already “role-played” on my Siptah Single-Player game by attacking some of the Stygian ships floating around the place, “to stop them from establishing a beachhead”.
But from another perspective, “war” is a political state of affairs. In order to wage war, you need two (or more) sides who agree that there’s a war between them. So against whom are the Stygians waging war? Me? Why me? If the only reason is “because I have money” that’s less war and more, well, raiding, as you said. So from a philosophical perspective, what we have isn’t war. I’m just a random person with a beach house, a boat, and some money, not a hostile nation.
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