Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why BG3 doesn't feel like Baldur's Gate to me

So, I wanted to come here after the gameplay reveal of Baldur's Gate 3, and provide an in-depth feedback.

First of all, what I've seen looks like a solid foundation for a new RPG from Larian, a worthy follow-up to the great Divinity: Original Sin 1-2. I think that's not really debatable, what Larian has accomplished here is stunning, it should impress anybody who loves a good CRPG.

Now, as a fan of the first two, I didn't feel that this new game captures the core of Baldur's Gate (yet?), but instead of being all contrarian, I just wanted to identify those pillars of what makes the Baldur's Gate experience for me, and what are the elements that I didn't get to see in this new game.

Again, the game looks astonishing as a new RPG, but here's what I'm missing as of now:


1. Home

Swen mentioned that the tutorial isn't ready and that this is a pre-alpha footage, so this might change, but here's my thoughts. Both Baldur's Gate and Baldur's Gate 2 started with you being among friends. Baldur's Gate explores your own home, which has a history of its own and your own, Baldur's Gate 2 starts with you being among previous companions and exploring the home of the villain. I feel this is an important part of what made BG1-2 the way they were. You were among people at the beginning of the game, people that not you but your character knew... I feel like a character like Imoen is crucial to a personal story, a foil, somebody with the ability to anchor a new player into the world... I don't know, being immediately thrusted into an apocalyptic scenario isn't the kind of vibe I was thinking, but this might be just me.

2. People and communities

This brings me to my next point. Again, this is pre-alpha... but I was kind of hoping to see inhabited, peaceful places first, or at least a glimpse of such. When I think about Baldur's Gate, I'm not thinking about combat, nor a supernatural threat (which is a looming backdrop thing), but the everyday struggles of ordinary citizen, corruption, how stuff like the iron shortage or the Shadow Thieves affect folks on a basic, human level... this is probably going to be expanded in the later game, but I kind of wanted to see something like this.

3. UI

It's clear that it is just a WIP version, but it just doesn't have any personality right now. Feels very tactical/MMO-esque, but the worst part is that it just doesn't have a nice hand-crafted feel like in BG1-2, and I feel like the UI is a huge part of the identity for these games. The little animated clockwork, the wooden/stone look... I don't know, something to be aware of.

4. The turn-based pacing

So, okay, I'll accept that we're getting turn-based combat. Makes more sense than RtwP anyway. But when I think about Baldur's Gate, I'm generally not thinking about staring at a combat situation for twenty minutes. Everybody seems to suggest that the original Baldur's Gate is slow-paced, but combat played out very fast and you got to expore new places at a pretty rapid pace. While you're micro-managing a turn-based fight in BG3, you have the time to peek around Beregost in the original, see its surroundings, flee from unnecessary combat, check out a small cave, etc. I fear that turn-based combat streamlines the game into a linear progression (mandatory combat serving as gates you absolutely have to plow through), and I know that fewer but more memorable combat situations are preferable to disposable small encounters (it made sense for D:OS), but it is kind of what I loved in the originals. "Adventuring a bit", so to speak.


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These are my main concerns for now, but overall, it looks like a very high quality game. I'm not sure how I feel about dialogue, writing, music, all of it feels very WIP-y, but that's maybe to be expected. It's looking good, even if it's looking more like a follow up to D:OS than Baldur's Gate.

Yeah it's obvious a lot of assets were reused so a gameplay demo could be cobbled together faster. I second all your points although it may be a tad too soon to have an informed opinion of the characters, world-building and introductory setting.

I'm really worried about this, honestly.

I was expecting the whole visuals and feel to come from a place inspired by the originals to create the atmosphere specific to BG, while being technically modern. In fact what I saw was pure Divinity from the copy-pasted environment, to the UI, dialogue options and even down to the way the characters stand in combat. I understand it's very early days but I can't think of a single aspect that screams "Baldur's Gate."

I see dozens of youtube comments praising the way the game feels and taken as an independent rpg or a Divinity sequel it does honestly look great. It's just not BG.

Larian do really great stuff and I have no doubt this can all be tweaked more in line as the development process continues. But still, something about this makes me nervous.

I agree the visuals should be more personalised.

I know this sounds weird, but... Baldur's Gate (looking at the words, the letters, the logo) just conveys a more... round / rotund feeling? Cities with domes, wholesome, grandiose music, something bold, world-encompassing, noble, and like... that's what I don't see here.

I hope to see more of the city of Baldur's Gate at least.

what bums me out the most is the way dialogue is handled. I feel like the cinematic camera is unnecessary (especially when the NPCs are looking pretty bland), and the internal monologue in past tense is a terrible substitute for properly written out replies that imbue the player character with 90% of its personality. especially coming off of Disco Elysium, the text in what we have seen thus far in BG3 feels extremely starved.

We have only seen one area, of yourse there are settlements including Baldurs Gate.

>hand crafted feel
>infinity engine games

literaly what.
Respawning trash encounters and a reused engine is handcrafted feel?
Im not even gonna disagree on the Baldurs Gate feel, it certainly didnt have that.

I personally dont mind, but i get that fans will hate that.
But come on, that point is bogus.
and obviously theres gonna be settlements.

On the >Home point
Blame Burgers. These days games have to start with explosions and shit hitting the fan.

Larians previous games started relativeley tame in comparison, but with this they got a much higher risk so they obviously need to start on a high note.

I agree. I think it's a characteristic of modern RPGs to have a bit less length to dialogue text, and while Larian do write some excellent dialogue indeed there's something quite immersive about BG's original take on lengthy, elegant and almost play-like dialogue. Admittedly it wouldn't gel so well with the more recent tendency to have all dialogue spoken as it'd take ages. But that notwithstanding it's one of the aspects that serves to represent the worrying difference between expectation and perceived result here.

If I'd been developing a sequel to BG the very first thing I'd want to do is make sure it doesn't resemble any other game series, but rather immediately evokes reminiscences. I wouldn't mind the technical differences or turn-based combat or anything that just tends to come with a more modern period of game development IF they got the essence of it right.

I was talking about the UI

large clunky UIs got out of style a while ago.
Larian used to do them in their older games,

This is realy just a matter of fashion, these days people prefer the UI not to block off the sceen so much.

On dialogue: eh, theres such a thing as too much dialogue.
Divinity already gets shit for beeing "words words words", not every game needs to be Planescape (Or Disco Elysium which seems to be the modern equivalent), and they shouldnt be.

Shadowrun was one of those games for me. Dragonfall was great, but Hong Kong just lost me.
I dont wanna miss the story, but reading thorugh the verbouse stories of my companions after every brief mission started to feel like a chore.

Here... Please Read my post. I think we can relate a bit here. I really liked your feedback!
It was very detailed!

http://forums.larian.com/ubbthreads.php?ubb=showflat&Number=659445#Post659445

I agree to 1) + 2) very much.
3) I dont care
4) I am undecided; TB and RTwP are both viable

BG had this unintrusive epicness; you where the child of a god. But only one of many and certainly no messiah/jesus dude (I HATE that). I hope BG3 gets that right.

After the presentation it seems more like NWN3, but tbh I can deal with that. It’s definitely going to be a great DnD game.

For real.
I like the everything here. but calling it "BG3" Doesn't feel right.