So I'm wondering what people's thoughts are on an issue that has not received much discussion here or elsewhere. I've been pretty vocal on my feelings about certain aspects of BG3, but to be honest the issue that worries me the most is actually the game's expected focus on co-op/multiplayer play.
Here's my big question: Can a game provide a really awesome experience for people looking for co-op/multiplayer play while at the same time also provide a really awesome experience for those looking exclusively for single player play? And to keep the discussion on topic, I am only speaking of RPGs here and not games in other genres.
Personally, I don't see how one game can possibly deliver a truly great gaming experience for both audiences. Just as an example, in a co-op game, if you have one player who really wants to spend their time exploring the world and delving into extensive lore and such, but the other players are not interested and they just want to get on with "action", the latter are going to win out. And it is highly unlikely in a co-op/multiplayer setting that the majority of players will want to do a lot of world and lore exploring. So then the developer's incentive is to build the game to favor action and combat over more passive aspects such as story, world, lore, character development, etc, because all of those passive aspects of the game will be boring to most players in co-op/multiplayer mode.
So is it possible for one game to satisfy both audiences: people who want easy character creation, and simple and easy-to-figure-out game mechanics, so that they can gather their group of friends and quickly dive right into the game where the core gaming experience for them comes from combat; and people like me, who can spend an entire day working through the details of just creating their character, who want an extensive and complex character creation and character development system, who want a very deep and rich story and a very detailed and interactive world (outside of combat) and a very extensive amount of lore through which to spend hours wading and exploring? I am not convinced this is possible for any developer to deliver, short of literally creating two games in one.
