Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General More isometric gameplay previews?

During one of the gameplay demos Swen mentioned that the game will support both [s]isometric[/s] top-down mode, as well as the "free camera/third person" hybrid mode that is mostly shown off.

I would love to see more gameplay where the focus is on using mainly the more zoomed out isometric angle to play, without constantly having to focus on the mini-game of spinning the camera and changing angles all the time to execute actions. Ideally, the isometric mode should work as a kind of "tactical camera", where you always have an overview of all the action without having to hunt for the correct camera angle.

I hope the game plays well in that mode, as it is most reminiscent of the original games. If it doesn't work well it would be good to know! Solasta seems to execute the isometric angle while using a lot of verticality in game, and it gives me more of that infinity engine feel.

I do hope too, that they will work on top down view as to make it as enjoyable and smooth to play as possible.

I don’t expect it to play as well as BG1&2 or Pillars/Tyranny - those use “perspective projection” (WARNING! I am using terms I don’t fully understand) which allows to keep camera to be in one position and not conceal much. BG3 map is in full 3D, so like in D:OS2 wiggling the camera too peer behind corners and building and getting confused as to where is what and where our party came from will be part of the course I am afraid.

I prefer the rotating camera myself, gives you more freedom to choose what you want to see and also you can place more interactable objects, secret passages, hidden treasures, puzzles, etc in a map in 3D in less space so that could give you more things to explore.

Yes, definitely there are things you can do in 3D map that you can't in 2D. And while I disliked move to 3d in some of the older RPGs, Larian's games (and from what I played of Solasta demo) make a good use of 3D maps fully justifying the inconvenience of navigating a 3d envoroment.

I'm reminded of the earlier versions of DOS which gave ~90⁰ rotation. It was nice to have something, but frustrating that it wasn't the entire way round because sometimes (well, often) it's just more convenient to see stuff from a different angle. And then they did, and then it was obvious that everything facing away from the original perspective was completely lacking any detail!

Some time after that, I played Tyranny which really did feel a little constrained for my tastes since it was olde worlde sprites painted onto a static 2d background. I would've preferred it to offer at least some of the rotating and zooming of DOS; as much as I liked some of the '80s graphical adventure games, Tyranny felt a bit incongruous with its mix of more modern graphics and old tech.

That's one of those unholy ideas every one takes from FiraXCOMs. Free camera rotation is a must have mode in any game that does that. I am pretty sure, D:OS got over that phase by the time I got to play it.


PoE1 and Tyranny are quite static. I think PoE2 did a lot to liven up the world a bit and improve on visual fidelity. Still, "perspective projection" games aren't forced to use pre-rendered backgrounds - one can have 3d assets and still use perspective projection/isometric/whatever-the-correct-term-is view (think Starcraft 2 or Civ5). Meh, I don't mind either way, and classic isometric view is really bad in communicating verticallity in maps - something that upcoming RPGs play with a lot it seems.

I have to admit that I find it impossible to understand why anyone today would want the 2D painted graphics and sprite-based characters of BG1/2, apart from nostalgia, perhaps.

I know that some people find cameras that can rotate around the environment disorienting, so it is important to provide good map/minimp UIs, and even a camera "re-center" option to get back to a known orientation.

But other than that, I think it would be a real shame to be unable to look around the full 3D environment, as it looks to be a big step up in quality from previous Larian offerings.

I'll go one step further and admit to not really understanding why so many RPG fans still hold on to the isometric perspective. I loved that perspective back in the day, but the third-person perspective with a fully rotatable 3D camera is soooooooo much better.

Simply put: comfort of play and full overview of the battlefield. Being able to click on everything I need to click, and see what I have to see without having to stop and wiggle the camera.

Being able to zoomin gets old to me in 5 minutes. Hassle of having to regularly move the camera and going the wrong direction after combat encounter gets more and more annoying the more I play. And I definitely don't like those third-person, but still click-based movement BG3 have been showing off. It's like the worst of the both worlds.

Yes the being able to see everything part I get and do appreciate. That's exactly why I cannot handle playing in first person. But 3d-person with fully rotating camera tends to be a good compromise for me because I also really love being able to see my characters up close and in detail which you can't really do in isometric.

I agree completely !

(Having to) constantly rotate the camera can be a real hassle sometimes -- something oldschool isometric doesn't require (nor 3D RTS still around for that matter, e.g. Starcraft 2). If that is an option in BG3, I'd actually prefer it to play more akin to Gothic or Dragon Age, with a shoulder camera and WASD direct controls of the character. The shoulder cam will go in, as for WASD, that seems unlikely. That's for the exploration bits. The (party) combat is still best experienced from an overhead camera. Which could be toggled like in Neverwinter Nights 2.

It's a matter of implentation though. As August is almost around, will be interesting to see whether Wasteland 3 has improved upon its predecessor in that regard.

this reminds me of the debate with HoMM 5.
clarity vs aesthetics.
I personally think clarity isnt that important.

I think you need 3D camera control with complex environments. I didn’t have much trouble with camera control on DOS games, but with all the vertical stuff going on in BG3, they’ll probably need some extra options to the camera to make it easier to navigate.

Maybe that could include things like zoom out to top down or zoom out to isometric, but so doubt there will be a single view that always works the best.

Space mouse support would be nice. I guess that’s a bit too niche a product though.

Lots of good conversation in this thread, I just want to clarify that all I'm hoping for is more footage of a mode of playing the game that has been talked about by Larian, but not really shown so far. This is not a "it should be more like the originals"-thread.

I fully realize that, as an old Infinity Engine fan, this game may not be for me, someone who likes tactical top-down party based games, and that's fine. BG is allowed to evolve beyond what it was, so don't let that derail the conversation. The original saga has existed for 20 years, and is not diminished by this new entry. However, since Larian has mentioned that they will be actively working on making the game "feel" more like BG, I'm curious about seeing if it will be possible to play the game this way or not. For those who want it.

The free roaming, pseudo third-person, mode seems to be working fantastically so far, but it isn't really a mini game I'm interesten in playing. The old saying goes "show, not tell", but I find that Dungeons and Dragons is a lot more about the telling than the showing. Your own imagination can be as powerful as the actual visualisation. I find the gameplay demos so far very disorienting, and by far the largest amount of gameplay time goes to controlling the camera rather than, what I would call, playing the actual game.

Oh, HoMM is a seperate topic altogether - and aesthetics of 2d art vs 3d (though I don’t think this is what you meant). I much prefer handrawn animation films over CGI films, and I also have a special fondness for good 2d artwork in games - I loved Rayman Origins/Legends, klei work, and super art of Jen Zee elevated Supergiant into the best looking games in the industry while being overall quite modest in production values. With that said: I would love for proper 2d HoM&M. I “grew” up on HoM&M5, rather then 3, but there is something to story book aesthetic of the 3rd game, that holds up so so well to this day. IE games convey what they intended to this day. Dragon Age Origins on the other hand - yikes. And I won’t mention older 3D RPG which were always hideous.

Something I wasn't a fan of in D:OS1&2 was linking the characters - esencially we couldn't control a group, we could control only one character at the time, and link others to follow him like cattle. I never quite got used to it, constantly leaving someone behind or having someone rush to me when not asked for. I think Swen said in on the the showcases they are examening it, but don't quote me on that.

Yeah, and this happens constantly to Swen in the gameplay demos. The characters are spread out across the map, and he has to wait for them to catch up, scroll around individually control each of them. It looks quite nightmarish compared to a mode that would allow fairly easy control of both individuals and the full group.

Yes this is one I don't understand given that Larian is supposedly all about improving on things. Seamless control of the whole party has been around for a very long time, including in the original BG games. This whole linking up characters bit is very much a huge step backwards. Why not just do what most other party-based RPGs do? That works pretty darn well, right?

Two words: Multiplayer mode.
It´s easier to code for both if you do it that way instead of giving group orders.