This is not a criticism - I love how much attention this game has been getting. I’m just not understanding why BG3 has been blowing up so much. It seems like BG3 is getting more attention than all of Larian’s previous games combined (and maybe all of Obsidian’s recent crpgs as well). Traditionally crpgs have not lit the world on fire in this way. Is it just timing of the release? Is it a combo of Divinity fans and new D&D fans and Baldur’s Gate oldheads all being stoked about this release for their own reasons? Or something else?
Note:I have not played it yet myself, just curious what folks think?
I’m being peer-pressured into playing it with friends, it’s an ok game. The quality is there, it’s full of content, though I wouldn’t say my lack of hype was misplaced - I’d still rather play some other niche games in my library.
What rubs me the wrong way is it’s GPU load even with lower graphical settings, and the hundred gigabytes of mandatory high-res textures and whatnot;
I find the UX clunky and infuriating at times, which is not ideal but acceptable for the genre.
What I really respect BG3 (and Larian) for is that its overall a very solid game and it’s making the AAA industry seethe, apparently.
It’s also DRM-free, but I would definitely buy it rather than Steam-Familying it if I were into its subgenre (and if it wasn’t a GPU hog).
It’s a great game, but so was Divinity: Original Sin 2. The main difference, besides the rules swap, is the cutscenes and dialogue animations.
I think BG3 is riding on the D&D brand and marketing campaign. In my mind there isn’t a massive difference between BG3 and D:OS2 (or other titles they’ve done) from a pure gameplay perspective.
Regardless, I’m for it. Hopefully we’ll see more innovative and high budget CRPGs.
I think BG3 is riding on the D&D brand and marketing campaign
With how much they adapted 5e’s rules for a video game (thankfully, 5e can be jank) I’d wager it’s more to do with them riding on the Forgotten Realms setting. It’s hugely popular (see: BG 1-2, dozens of books, most popular D&D setting through the last few editions) so it helps drive interest that there’s a competent game that is both faithful to the lore and excels at storytelling.
For instance I really liked a tiny scrap of paper dealing with the Mines of Phandelver hundreds of years ago. That’s a bit of flavor from the 5e Red Box. Tons of stuff like that calling back to adventures and books in the series.
@usrtrv@theangriestbird And with the debacle Hasbro has made this year, creating something in the universe of DnD that actually pleases the fans means so much to them.
I mean, the snarky side of me wants to say “tell me you completely misunderstood my comment without telling me you completely misunderstood my comment.”
Though in case you are asking in good faith, I already wrote above “Just because I’m calling it “hype” doesn’t mean I’m bashing the game, I’m making an observation where I give OP a concise response.”
To elaborate further: it seems like people are assuming “hype” has negative connotations where I’m actually delivering some underhanded criticism of the game, or Larian, or themselves as fans of the game, or themselves as fans of the movement of a non AAA game studio experiencing runaway critical success. I am doing none of these things. OP was wondering “what is up with Baldur’s Gate 3?” and I answered. It’s hype.
There are other comments from people explaining the fine details of why BG3 is getting hyped up so much and those comments are rightly upvoted to the top, as they should be. However, for someone who doesn’t have any skin in the game and is only passively interested in this whole thing (me, for example), this entire situation can be described as excitement, exuberance, noise, or… hype.
Holy fuck I miss the days when words actually had meaning.
My nephew whom is mainly an FPS player and said that BG3 was not for him has recently picked it up and is loving multiplayer with his friends.
As a previous player of the BG series and others like it, BG3 is a far cry from any of its predecessors. I’m not stating your opinion isn’t fair, but wanted to also give another account of players that don’t consider this their type of game and are surprised to like it.
I know I’m just getting downvoted by people emotionally hurt by me stating I dislike tabletop RPGs. But my opinion is also being informed by my past experience with Larian’s other celebrated game, Divinity Original Sin 2. No matter how hyped it was, or how clearly polished it was, I didn’t think that game was fun either.
I don’t see how me playing or not playing the game would disqualify me from recognizing the phenomenon surrounding this game as “hype.” It’s marketing hype, it’s fresh new game hype, it’s whatever you want to call it. The game is out, it’s popular, people are leaving glowing reviews about it everywhere. That’s hype.
Just because I’m calling it “hype” doesn’t mean I’m bashing the game, I’m making an observation where I give OP a concise response.
You nerds sure love putting words in my mouth. People need to calm their titties at best, or just shut the fuck up in general. Everyone’s so programmed to just turning every single casual discussion online into a black and white argument of who is right or wrong. (That’s you I’m talking about, btw)
Tell me you completely missed the point of every comment I’ve made in this thread without telling me you completely missed the point of every comment I’ve made in this thread.
yeah, i like the game and even i can see its hyped in articles and on forums.
every time someone article has the word “polished”.
it has tonnes of quest bugs, these type of games always do.
the ui is remarkably good - for this type of game, on steamdeck controller; but it’s not a slick ui.
there’s always tradeoffs and compromises. complexity of quests leads to bugs, complexity of player choices leads to analysis paralysis/tyranny of choice and cumbersome ui.
As I see it, it’s a confluence of things which have captured the zeitgeist:
Larian D:OS games have been very well received.
Baldur’s Gate and the Infinity Engine games are beloved.
Final Fantasy XVI, the big JRPG for the year, is squarely an action game and some view that as off-kilter. Baldur’s Gate 3, the big CRPG for the year, is squarely an RPG.
D&D is a big property and new D&D games often gain a fair bit of attention.
People seem to appreciate having no in-game purchases.
These five things, in my opinion, have pushed Baldur’s Gate 3 to the front of media outlets and, in turn, to the forefront of conversations.
D&D itself is close to the highest popularity it’s ever been at (I suppose with this game now it is at the peak), what with the movie having brought mainstream attention to it and Critical Role and other actual play shows bringing buckets of attention to the game/TTRPG hobby over the last 8ish years.
This is a big part to me, in addition to your other points. D:OS2 didn’t have the same hype going into launch because (at least to me) D:OD was good, but not amazing. Given how well received D:OS2 was, I think the media was primed both to give it attention and praise.
It’s a combination of good timing, a perfect product and going against the direction of most AAA-studios.
Though BG2 is more than two decades old, a lot of us still considers it one of the best games ever. I think quite a few of us have been eager to return to forgotten realms. That’s one group.
Then there’s a group of Divinity fans (some overlapping the old BG group) waiting for Larians next RPG.
Those two groups would be the critical mass for creating hype. Would the game live up to the old games? Would it be as good as Divinty?
Then comes the first reviews and people get to play the beta, and though the first few months were rough, once we got close to release it was clear, that BG3 would not only live up to its expectations, it would smash through the roof.
Now you have your core fan base talking about how good this game is, how do you sell this to people who normally don’t play this type of game?
Well, talk to them in a language they understand. This game is complete from day 1. No DLC. No ingame shop. Just a complete game that you can play over and over again with new ways of completing it… oh, and you can co-op with your friends. Even on the couch in split screen.
There are simply not anything of major significance to criticize about this game. You may not like it, or the genre is not for you, but as a complete product it’s simply perfect.
As a player you get the feeling that Larian focus on the game first where others focus on money first. That may not be the whole truth, but it’s the feeling this is creating, and hopefully other studios will acknowledge that there are other ways to do things.
I don’t think anyone at Larian thinks that they have created the perfect product. It’s pretty buggy still, and lacks depth in areas, but its intentions are pure and that buys a lot of credibility in and of itself.
I feel like there might be room for an old school PC gaming community here on Lemmy. There is usually a console/arcade game focus on the retro gaming communities, but it would be great to have a place to discuss releases from that 1990-2009 or so era.
Everyone else is playing the System Shock remake while I’m just sitting here hoping for a System Shock 2 remake, because it was a spiritual predecessor to BioShock that included class-based co-operative play. The netcode in the original was/is dogshit, so my friend and I never actually completed the game before our saves were totally corrupted.
Frankly, also wouldn’t mind a remake of the original Deus Ex either. Warren Spector was heavily involved in the development of System Shock and Deus Ex, while Ken Levine was instrumental in System Shock 2 and BioShock.
Same. And I grew up on Champions of Krynn and Eye of the Beholder and Pools of Radiance, so Baldur’s Gate was mind blowing when it came out. BG2 was even better!
I haven’t played a CRPG in a while. Never got into DoS series, etc. But there’s no way I was missing BG3 after the rave reviews it was getting, considering my history with the series.
Marketing. It generally being a good game and part of a beloved series, set in a beloved franchise (D&D). WOTC has been marketing and growing the Hells out of D&D lately. The recent movie and this game are part of that.
All of nonDD people, love the studio who made a great game without any of the bullshit we get fucked over in other genres… it shows it can be done, it can be great, and it can respect the player…
People throwing money at Dev as fuck you to EAs, Bethesdas etc
I think what isn’t being discussed enough is how many fans of games like Dragon Age Origins this game is pulling in.
What this game does is straddles the difference between classic CRPGs like the original Baldurs Gate and modern, cinematic RPGs like Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect, whose games began to veer into very action-oriented cinematic style as opposed to classic three-quarter-overhead-view turn-based style. It also brings the cinematic aspect to romancing companions as well, something that was also pioneered in DAO and ME. Other games had ability to romance as well, but not deeply like DAO and ME made it, with their cinematic style allusion-to-sex scenes.
This game does both and so it is grabbing the attention of people who loved classic CRPGs like Baldurs Gate, Fallout and Neverwinter Nights, but it’s also grabbing the attention of more “normie(?)” players who cut their teeth on Dragon Age Origins through Inquisition.
It’s a “best of both worlds” approach that has solidified success because it appeals to the people who loved classic CRPGs as well as the people who wanted the cinematic beauty as well as ability to cinematically romance companions. It has beautiful cinematic detail as well as a fully fleshed out CRPG system and non-linear CRPG story. It’s giving players of all types what they wanted out of an RPG.
Also, excellent console controls directly help this. Old CRPGs required a mouse and keyboard, but I can play this game split-screen with my SO who only ever played the Dragon Age games and who I struggled to get into D&D previously.
My SO fucking loves this game, and she wouldn’t have ever been opened up to such a style of game without the excellent cinematic graphics alongside the top tier classic CRPG gameplay. There is no way in hell I could get her to play a strictly top-down no-cinematics classic CRPG. This game opened her up to the genre. It’s essentially the perfect modernization of a classic CRPG.
This is it right here, at least for me personally. I’m a huge Dragon Age fan (played through DAO and DA2 before Inquisition’s release) who has always been vaguely interested in Larian’s Divinity Original Sin games but never made them a priority in my backlog. Seeing the cinematic cutscenes and the 3rd-person voice acted dialog for BG3 made me immediately interested and now I’m 10-ish hours deep into Baldur’s Gate and loving it!
Also slowly resigning myself to DA4 not even coming close to matching BG3 in quality given the circumstances of its development.
Game is good, came out at the right time, had a lot of hype and lived up to the hype
Longer details:
The game is just really well made. It’s extremely fun, very polished (except for a few weird bugs), and complete
It has a massive IP tied to it. This game had impossible levels of hype and it met those expectations somehow
The recent D&D movie was a large success, and D&D in general has been the most popular it has ever been lately
Divinity OS 2 Definitive Edition was very well received, people trust Larian to deliver a good product
People are sharing this game with their friends. They had a strong marketing push as well as really strong word of mouth
Final Fantasy 16 left a lot of us wanting a more traditional RPG after FF16 was anything but traditional
We currently live in an era of games like Diablo 4 which ask for a $70 price tag, and then also have a paid battle pass and paid cosmetics. This game came out at $60 content complete with no additional microtransactions. Ultimately that makes this game much easier to reccomend to people.
I’m a crpg fan, and a D&D/PF fan. For me, the thing that makes this game so fun is it feels like a streamlined D&D session. Sure, you can’t do as much as you would like in a D&D session, but you can do 99% of what you would typically want to do.
The other thing is the game is extremely polished. So many recent games have been underproduced, unpolished garbage with DLC/MTX shoved in and a $70 price tag. BG3 is a breath of fresh air. It’s not perfect, but the care and dedication that went into it clearly shows.
I feel what makes this game so popular is the fact that the game is just really well made. The story is great, the classes are much better balanced than 5e, and the amount of interesting solutions you can use to solve any problem is just fun. Add co-op, and the game becomes a blast to play with friends.
Considering the recent rise in trrpg popularity and fans of older titles in the franchise, Larian’s existing fans, and an early access that showed off the game as being fun and promising, I’m not surprised it ended up attracting a lot of players. If you have a large enough player base at launch, and an amazing game, I don’t think it is a surprise the game is lighting the world on fire.
I’ve been telling people: it’s as close to a D&D module you can get in a video game. Right down to the banter between party members. It’s an amazing game.
Most great games never get anywhere near this much buzz.
I think it’s a product of the genre. BG3 is in the CRPG category, which had a bit of a resurgence lately between Pillars 1+2, Pathfinder 1+2, and (perhaps most relevantly) DOS 1+2. Good games in an existing category of game helps build up buzz in that category and more players. More players creates more demand… but there hasn’t been that much being made in the CRPG bucket lately.
Then, on comes BG3. It fits in that bucket. It has much higher production values than the other recent games in that bucket. It’s got one of the most valuable CRPG IPs attached to it with Baldur’s Gate. And it’s reportedly amazing as a game on top. The last part wouldn’t get it anywhere near this much attention on its own, but in conjunction with the others it’s gotten lots of buzz.
I also feel like Larian handled the early access part really well for keeping the game in discussion without making the game oversaturated in gaming circles. They got a lot of “free” (not actually free, but you know what I mean) marketing out of that.
Is it worth playing if you’re not into dnd? I saw lots of replies mention how it perfectly implements dnd 5e but that has 0 value for me. Is the game itself good not counting the dnd association, lack of anti features, release anticipation etc?
If you already don’t like 5e, I don’t know if the game will change your mind. It’s not a 1-to-1 adaptation, which might help, but there are also still some bugs here and there (such as the Lucky feat not working correctly).
tldr: This is a great game if you enjoy rich storytelling, compelling character arcs, and actual consequences. This is also a great game if you enjoy turn-based, environment-aware combat of the likes of Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. Overall, it’s a well-oiled machine, with polish in all the right places to make it very welcoming to dnd newcomers and veterans alike. If you have played Larian’s older Divinity: Original Sin games (which was not based on the dnd ruleset), there’s a lot of quality of life updates that fix a lot of the gripes that I had with those games.
My wife and I are loving it (individual saves, although co-op is supported in this game). We are not dnd tabletop players; the extent of my experience is the recent dnd movie that came out. I don’t know the difference between 5e and 3e, but I do know I’m having an (eldritch) blast playing this game. I bought it on a strong recommendation from my friends (although, these friends do have dnd experience), and I can confidently say it’s a fun game.
The most overwhelming experience you might have as a newcomer is during character creation, where a healthy amount of reading is involved to understand what classes, races, subraces, spells, and cantrips are (among other things). They provide very neat tooltips that provide the information you need, when you need it, without getting in your way - there is no pause-every-5-seconds-for-a-tutorial-notification deal here. You can get involved as much (or as little) as you wish. If you’ve ever made a character in a game like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, or Dragon Age: Origins, and messed around with the relevant skill trees, it’s around that level of involved.
If you do get overwhelmed with character creators, fret not - you can choose one of the pre-built characters that come packaged with their own personalities, builds, and stories. Speaking of stories: I personally feel like the writing is compelling and is leagues better than previous Larian titles, if that means anything to you. Make no mistake, this is a fantasy story and you’ll have your fantasy tropes in this game, but I’ve yet to encounter a moment or twist in the story that feels cheap or unearned. It depends on how much you like this sort of genre. There are times when it takes itself seriously and times when it doesn’t, but it has never felt out of place.
Besides the narrative, the other major part of the game is combat, and I think it shines there too. From a non-dnd perspective, it’s a turn-based, environment-aware tactics game. It doesn’t feel exactly like any one type of system I’ve played before, but I feel a lot of different aspects that get utilized in ways that mesh well. Unit placement on the field matters. Typically your party’s makeup plays a role in how you approach encounters. I’ve never felt like my party couldn’t figure out their own way to solve a situation, and it never felt like it was just handed to me. The encounters are flexible enough to allow multiple approaches without depriving them of the depth each approach needs to remain engaging.
Just so you can gauge how well my suggestions will apply, I love playing tactics games but don’t always have a lot of time, so I typically adjust the difficulty when possible to emphasize story progression over tactical difficulty. I’m not a maddening-difficulty Fire Emblem: Three Houses player (more power to y’all out there); I just casually enjoy combat puzzles. I think games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance Wars, Tactics Ogre, Brigadine, Battle for Wesnoth, etc., are fun to play, and I don’t necessarily need to “win” every combat encounter to feel like I had a good time either. I really enjoy is a story that presents fresh ideas, even if it means remixing some old tropes here and there; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, etc. - any game that gives you characters who mesh well (or “contrast” well) with one another usually can maintain my attention.
Still has the shitty locked camera though and lots of the same little issues DOS2 had. They are great games, so the small problems stick out a lot more.
The camera is very restrictive. Dos2 had a mod that unlocked the camera allowing you to zoom in or out as far as you wanted or tilt it as much as youd like and it made the game infinitely more enjoyable. It still got stuck on terrain like, but it was still better.
BG3 has the same camera, constantly getting stuck on or in terrain, cant handle elevation changes, cant zoom out, cant tilt far. The game just needs a free cam where I can look wherever I like without it colliding with terrain and objects, there’s no reason for it to be so restrictive. Why build this beautiful world and then dont even let us look at it?
Well clarified. Thank you for that. While that doesn’t bother it nearly as much, it does find itself battling the camera more often than it’d like so it can definitely see where you’re coming from.
Thanks for the in depth response! It’s probably too early to answer this, but does making your own character instead of choosing from the pre-built ones result in a more generic storyline? Are there stuff that are exclusive to those characters that you know of?
As @bigevildan said, they’ll all be recruitable. There is also the option to play as an amnesiac custom character that gets their own origin background. No spoilers as to what that is like, but it’s a possible option if you’re not quite sure. (I’ve seen it recommended to avoid that for your first playthrough, however).
You are not logged in. However you can subscribe from another Fediverse account, for example Lemmy or Mastodon. To do this, paste the following into the search field of your instance: !gaming@beehaw.org
From video gaming to card games and stuff in between, if it’s gaming you can probably discuss it here!
Please Note: Gaming memes are permitted to be posted on Meme Mondays, but will otherwise be removed in an effort to allow other discussions to take place.
I’m being peer-pressured into playing it with friends, it’s an ok game. The quality is there, it’s full of content, though I wouldn’t say my lack of hype was misplaced - I’d still rather play some other niche games in my library.
What rubs me the wrong way is it’s GPU load even with lower graphical settings, and the hundred gigabytes of mandatory high-res textures and whatnot;
I find the UX clunky and infuriating at times, which is not ideal but acceptable for the genre.
What I really respect BG3 (and Larian) for is that its overall a very solid game and it’s making the AAA industry seethe, apparently.
It’s also DRM-free, but I would definitely buy it rather than Steam-Familying it if I were into its subgenre (and if it wasn’t a GPU hog).
It’s a great game, but so was Divinity: Original Sin 2. The main difference, besides the rules swap, is the cutscenes and dialogue animations.
I think BG3 is riding on the D&D brand and marketing campaign. In my mind there isn’t a massive difference between BG3 and D:OS2 (or other titles they’ve done) from a pure gameplay perspective.
Regardless, I’m for it. Hopefully we’ll see more innovative and high budget CRPGs.
With how much they adapted 5e’s rules for a video game (thankfully, 5e can be jank) I’d wager it’s more to do with them riding on the Forgotten Realms setting. It’s hugely popular (see: BG 1-2, dozens of books, most popular D&D setting through the last few editions) so it helps drive interest that there’s a competent game that is both faithful to the lore and excels at storytelling.
For instance I really liked a tiny scrap of paper dealing with the Mines of Phandelver hundreds of years ago. That’s a bit of flavor from the 5e Red Box. Tons of stuff like that calling back to adventures and books in the series.
Exactly. I should have expanded further, but I was including Forgotten Realms as part of the D&D brand.
@usrtrv @theangriestbird And with the debacle Hasbro has made this year, creating something in the universe of DnD that actually pleases the fans means so much to them.
It’s hype.
I hate tabletop RPGs, so I know no matter how good everyone says it is, I know it’s not for me.
Why is it “hype” when it’s not made for you?
I mean, the snarky side of me wants to say “tell me you completely misunderstood my comment without telling me you completely misunderstood my comment.”
Though in case you are asking in good faith, I already wrote above “Just because I’m calling it “hype” doesn’t mean I’m bashing the game, I’m making an observation where I give OP a concise response.”
To elaborate further: it seems like people are assuming “hype” has negative connotations where I’m actually delivering some underhanded criticism of the game, or Larian, or themselves as fans of the game, or themselves as fans of the movement of a non AAA game studio experiencing runaway critical success. I am doing none of these things. OP was wondering “what is up with Baldur’s Gate 3?” and I answered. It’s hype.
There are other comments from people explaining the fine details of why BG3 is getting hyped up so much and those comments are rightly upvoted to the top, as they should be. However, for someone who doesn’t have any skin in the game and is only passively interested in this whole thing (me, for example), this entire situation can be described as excitement, exuberance, noise, or… hype.
Holy fuck I miss the days when words actually had meaning.
My nephew whom is mainly an FPS player and said that BG3 was not for him has recently picked it up and is loving multiplayer with his friends.
As a previous player of the BG series and others like it, BG3 is a far cry from any of its predecessors. I’m not stating your opinion isn’t fair, but wanted to also give another account of players that don’t consider this their type of game and are surprised to like it.
That’s fine and fair.
I know I’m just getting downvoted by people emotionally hurt by me stating I dislike tabletop RPGs. But my opinion is also being informed by my past experience with Larian’s other celebrated game, Divinity Original Sin 2. No matter how hyped it was, or how clearly polished it was, I didn’t think that game was fun either.
No, you’re getting down voted by people for saying “It’s hype” while at the same time tacitly acknowledging that you haven’t even played it.
I don’t see how me playing or not playing the game would disqualify me from recognizing the phenomenon surrounding this game as “hype.” It’s marketing hype, it’s fresh new game hype, it’s whatever you want to call it. The game is out, it’s popular, people are leaving glowing reviews about it everywhere. That’s hype.
Just because I’m calling it “hype” doesn’t mean I’m bashing the game, I’m making an observation where I give OP a concise response.
Motte and bailey
You nerds sure love putting words in my mouth. People need to calm their titties at best, or just shut the fuck up in general. Everyone’s so programmed to just turning every single casual discussion online into a black and white argument of who is right or wrong. (That’s you I’m talking about, btw)
Tell me you completely missed the point of every comment I’ve made in this thread without telling me you completely missed the point of every comment I’ve made in this thread.
yeah, i like the game and even i can see its hyped in articles and on forums.
every time someone article has the word “polished”.
it has tonnes of quest bugs, these type of games always do.
the ui is remarkably good - for this type of game, on steamdeck controller; but it’s not a slick ui.
there’s always tradeoffs and compromises. complexity of quests leads to bugs, complexity of player choices leads to analysis paralysis/tyranny of choice and cumbersome ui.
well, it’s a damn good game
As I see it, it’s a confluence of things which have captured the zeitgeist:
These five things, in my opinion, have pushed Baldur’s Gate 3 to the front of media outlets and, in turn, to the forefront of conversations.
D&D itself is close to the highest popularity it’s ever been at (I suppose with this game now it is at the peak), what with the movie having brought mainstream attention to it and Critical Role and other actual play shows bringing buckets of attention to the game/TTRPG hobby over the last 8ish years.
This is a big part to me, in addition to your other points. D:OS2 didn’t have the same hype going into launch because (at least to me) D:OD was good, but not amazing. Given how well received D:OS2 was, I think the media was primed both to give it attention and praise.
D:OS2 was better? As you might tell if you dive into my comments history, I absolutely did not like D:OS.
It’s a combination of good timing, a perfect product and going against the direction of most AAA-studios.
Though BG2 is more than two decades old, a lot of us still considers it one of the best games ever. I think quite a few of us have been eager to return to forgotten realms. That’s one group.
Then there’s a group of Divinity fans (some overlapping the old BG group) waiting for Larians next RPG.
Those two groups would be the critical mass for creating hype. Would the game live up to the old games? Would it be as good as Divinty?
Then comes the first reviews and people get to play the beta, and though the first few months were rough, once we got close to release it was clear, that BG3 would not only live up to its expectations, it would smash through the roof.
Now you have your core fan base talking about how good this game is, how do you sell this to people who normally don’t play this type of game?
Well, talk to them in a language they understand. This game is complete from day 1. No DLC. No ingame shop. Just a complete game that you can play over and over again with new ways of completing it… oh, and you can co-op with your friends. Even on the couch in split screen.
There are simply not anything of major significance to criticize about this game. You may not like it, or the genre is not for you, but as a complete product it’s simply perfect.
As a player you get the feeling that Larian focus on the game first where others focus on money first. That may not be the whole truth, but it’s the feeling this is creating, and hopefully other studios will acknowledge that there are other ways to do things.
“a perfect product”
I don’t think anyone at Larian thinks that they have created the perfect product. It’s pretty buggy still, and lacks depth in areas, but its intentions are pure and that buys a lot of credibility in and of itself.
I was in my early 20s when BG1, BG2, NWN, and Icewind Dale came out. The hype was real, and it was a spectacular time in gaming.
Icewind Dale was awesome! I still have my copy stored somewhere in my basement lol.
I feel like there might be room for an old school PC gaming community here on Lemmy. There is usually a console/arcade game focus on the retro gaming communities, but it would be great to have a place to discuss releases from that 1990-2009 or so era.
Plenty of communities in that vein overe here on lemmy.sdf.org
Everyone else is playing the System Shock remake while I’m just sitting here hoping for a System Shock 2 remake, because it was a spiritual predecessor to BioShock that included class-based co-operative play. The netcode in the original was/is dogshit, so my friend and I never actually completed the game before our saves were totally corrupted.
Frankly, also wouldn’t mind a remake of the original Deus Ex either. Warren Spector was heavily involved in the development of System Shock and Deus Ex, while Ken Levine was instrumental in System Shock 2 and BioShock.
yeah, nostalgia for me.
the other larian games didn’t register with me.
Same. And I grew up on Champions of Krynn and Eye of the Beholder and Pools of Radiance, so Baldur’s Gate was mind blowing when it came out. BG2 was even better!
I haven’t played a CRPG in a while. Never got into DoS series, etc. But there’s no way I was missing BG3 after the rave reviews it was getting, considering my history with the series.
That seems like a good question.
I guess the marketing team did a really good job?
Yes, that too.
And dungeons & dragons is incredible popular at the moment.
And Larian did a very good job with the last games and gained a big fanbase.
And the original Baldurs Gate Games are considered cult among older pc gamers.
No micro-transaction bullshit.
And last but not least: It’s an incredible game.
Marketing. It generally being a good game and part of a beloved series, set in a beloved franchise (D&D). WOTC has been marketing and growing the Hells out of D&D lately. The recent movie and this game are part of that.
All of nonDD people, love the studio who made a great game without any of the bullshit we get fucked over in other genres… it shows it can be done, it can be great, and it can respect the player…
People throwing money at Dev as fuck you to EAs, Bethesdas etc
I think what isn’t being discussed enough is how many fans of games like Dragon Age Origins this game is pulling in.
What this game does is straddles the difference between classic CRPGs like the original Baldurs Gate and modern, cinematic RPGs like Dragon Age Origins and Mass Effect, whose games began to veer into very action-oriented cinematic style as opposed to classic three-quarter-overhead-view turn-based style. It also brings the cinematic aspect to romancing companions as well, something that was also pioneered in DAO and ME. Other games had ability to romance as well, but not deeply like DAO and ME made it, with their cinematic style allusion-to-sex scenes.
This game does both and so it is grabbing the attention of people who loved classic CRPGs like Baldurs Gate, Fallout and Neverwinter Nights, but it’s also grabbing the attention of more “normie(?)” players who cut their teeth on Dragon Age Origins through Inquisition.
It’s a “best of both worlds” approach that has solidified success because it appeals to the people who loved classic CRPGs as well as the people who wanted the cinematic beauty as well as ability to cinematically romance companions. It has beautiful cinematic detail as well as a fully fleshed out CRPG system and non-linear CRPG story. It’s giving players of all types what they wanted out of an RPG.
Also, excellent console controls directly help this. Old CRPGs required a mouse and keyboard, but I can play this game split-screen with my SO who only ever played the Dragon Age games and who I struggled to get into D&D previously.
My SO fucking loves this game, and she wouldn’t have ever been opened up to such a style of game without the excellent cinematic graphics alongside the top tier classic CRPG gameplay. There is no way in hell I could get her to play a strictly top-down no-cinematics classic CRPG. This game opened her up to the genre. It’s essentially the perfect modernization of a classic CRPG.
This is it right here, at least for me personally. I’m a huge Dragon Age fan (played through DAO and DA2 before Inquisition’s release) who has always been vaguely interested in Larian’s Divinity Original Sin games but never made them a priority in my backlog. Seeing the cinematic cutscenes and the 3rd-person voice acted dialog for BG3 made me immediately interested and now I’m 10-ish hours deep into Baldur’s Gate and loving it!
Also slowly resigning myself to DA4 not even coming close to matching BG3 in quality given the circumstances of its development.
The short version:
Longer details:
It’s Minsc obviously
I’m a crpg fan, and a D&D/PF fan. For me, the thing that makes this game so fun is it feels like a streamlined D&D session. Sure, you can’t do as much as you would like in a D&D session, but you can do 99% of what you would typically want to do.
The other thing is the game is extremely polished. So many recent games have been underproduced, unpolished garbage with DLC/MTX shoved in and a $70 price tag. BG3 is a breath of fresh air. It’s not perfect, but the care and dedication that went into it clearly shows.
I feel what makes this game so popular is the fact that the game is just really well made. The story is great, the classes are much better balanced than 5e, and the amount of interesting solutions you can use to solve any problem is just fun. Add co-op, and the game becomes a blast to play with friends.
Considering the recent rise in trrpg popularity and fans of older titles in the franchise, Larian’s existing fans, and an early access that showed off the game as being fun and promising, I’m not surprised it ended up attracting a lot of players. If you have a large enough player base at launch, and an amazing game, I don’t think it is a surprise the game is lighting the world on fire.
I’ve been telling people: it’s as close to a D&D module you can get in a video game. Right down to the banter between party members. It’s an amazing game.
Game is good. People like to talk about stuff they like.
It’s that simple.
Most great games never get anywhere near this much buzz.
I think it’s a product of the genre. BG3 is in the CRPG category, which had a bit of a resurgence lately between Pillars 1+2, Pathfinder 1+2, and (perhaps most relevantly) DOS 1+2. Good games in an existing category of game helps build up buzz in that category and more players. More players creates more demand… but there hasn’t been that much being made in the CRPG bucket lately.
Then, on comes BG3. It fits in that bucket. It has much higher production values than the other recent games in that bucket. It’s got one of the most valuable CRPG IPs attached to it with Baldur’s Gate. And it’s reportedly amazing as a game on top. The last part wouldn’t get it anywhere near this much attention on its own, but in conjunction with the others it’s gotten lots of buzz.
I also feel like Larian handled the early access part really well for keeping the game in discussion without making the game oversaturated in gaming circles. They got a lot of “free” (not actually free, but you know what I mean) marketing out of that.
Side question:
Is it worth playing if you’re not into dnd? I saw lots of replies mention how it perfectly implements dnd 5e but that has 0 value for me. Is the game itself good not counting the dnd association, lack of anti features, release anticipation etc?
You’ll be fine. It’d be different if you were familiar with and disliked D&D.
What of I’m of the unpopular but firm belief that 3.5 was the pinnacle of D&D and therefore am heavily boased against 5e?
If you already don’t like 5e, I don’t know if the game will change your mind. It’s not a 1-to-1 adaptation, which might help, but there are also still some bugs here and there (such as the Lucky feat not working correctly).
I’m a Pathfinder fan with vague disdain for 5e as a ruleset and active loathing for Forgotten Realms as a setting. I love this game.
I have no exposure to dnd but am loving the game. I like turn based games in general though.
tldr: This is a great game if you enjoy rich storytelling, compelling character arcs, and actual consequences. This is also a great game if you enjoy turn-based, environment-aware combat of the likes of Fire Emblem or Final Fantasy Tactics. Overall, it’s a well-oiled machine, with polish in all the right places to make it very welcoming to dnd newcomers and veterans alike. If you have played Larian’s older Divinity: Original Sin games (which was not based on the dnd ruleset), there’s a lot of quality of life updates that fix a lot of the gripes that I had with those games.
My wife and I are loving it (individual saves, although co-op is supported in this game). We are not dnd tabletop players; the extent of my experience is the recent dnd movie that came out. I don’t know the difference between 5e and 3e, but I do know I’m having an (eldritch) blast playing this game. I bought it on a strong recommendation from my friends (although, these friends do have dnd experience), and I can confidently say it’s a fun game.
The most overwhelming experience you might have as a newcomer is during character creation, where a healthy amount of reading is involved to understand what classes, races, subraces, spells, and cantrips are (among other things). They provide very neat tooltips that provide the information you need, when you need it, without getting in your way - there is no pause-every-5-seconds-for-a-tutorial-notification deal here. You can get involved as much (or as little) as you wish. If you’ve ever made a character in a game like Cyberpunk 2077, Star Wars Knights of the Old Republic, or Dragon Age: Origins, and messed around with the relevant skill trees, it’s around that level of involved.
If you do get overwhelmed with character creators, fret not - you can choose one of the pre-built characters that come packaged with their own personalities, builds, and stories. Speaking of stories: I personally feel like the writing is compelling and is leagues better than previous Larian titles, if that means anything to you. Make no mistake, this is a fantasy story and you’ll have your fantasy tropes in this game, but I’ve yet to encounter a moment or twist in the story that feels cheap or unearned. It depends on how much you like this sort of genre. There are times when it takes itself seriously and times when it doesn’t, but it has never felt out of place.
Besides the narrative, the other major part of the game is combat, and I think it shines there too. From a non-dnd perspective, it’s a turn-based, environment-aware tactics game. It doesn’t feel exactly like any one type of system I’ve played before, but I feel a lot of different aspects that get utilized in ways that mesh well. Unit placement on the field matters. Typically your party’s makeup plays a role in how you approach encounters. I’ve never felt like my party couldn’t figure out their own way to solve a situation, and it never felt like it was just handed to me. The encounters are flexible enough to allow multiple approaches without depriving them of the depth each approach needs to remain engaging.
Just so you can gauge how well my suggestions will apply, I love playing tactics games but don’t always have a lot of time, so I typically adjust the difficulty when possible to emphasize story progression over tactical difficulty. I’m not a maddening-difficulty Fire Emblem: Three Houses player (more power to y’all out there); I just casually enjoy combat puzzles. I think games like Fire Emblem: Three Houses, Final Fantasy Tactics, Advance Wars, Tactics Ogre, Brigadine, Battle for Wesnoth, etc., are fun to play, and I don’t necessarily need to “win” every combat encounter to feel like I had a good time either. I really enjoy is a story that presents fresh ideas, even if it means remixing some old tropes here and there; Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic, Dragon Age: Origins, etc. - any game that gives you characters who mesh well (or “contrast” well) with one another usually can maintain my attention.
Still has the shitty locked camera though and lots of the same little issues DOS2 had. They are great games, so the small problems stick out a lot more.
Whatcha mean by locked camera? Not disagreeing, just not sure what you’re referring to.
The camera is very restrictive. Dos2 had a mod that unlocked the camera allowing you to zoom in or out as far as you wanted or tilt it as much as youd like and it made the game infinitely more enjoyable. It still got stuck on terrain like, but it was still better.
BG3 has the same camera, constantly getting stuck on or in terrain, cant handle elevation changes, cant zoom out, cant tilt far. The game just needs a free cam where I can look wherever I like without it colliding with terrain and objects, there’s no reason for it to be so restrictive. Why build this beautiful world and then dont even let us look at it?
Well clarified. Thank you for that. While that doesn’t bother it nearly as much, it does find itself battling the camera more often than it’d like so it can definitely see where you’re coming from.
Thanks for the in depth response! It’s probably too early to answer this, but does making your own character instead of choosing from the pre-built ones result in a more generic storyline? Are there stuff that are exclusive to those characters that you know of?
The pre-built characters are all recruitable party members, so you’ll be able follow their stories once you find them.
As @bigevildan said, they’ll all be recruitable. There is also the option to play as an amnesiac custom character that gets their own origin background. No spoilers as to what that is like, but it’s a possible option if you’re not quite sure. (I’ve seen it recommended to avoid that for your first playthrough, however).
If you like RPGs in general, I think it’s worth playing. No need be a fan of DnD.