As you have mentioned, it was a somewhat unfortunate decision to call this game "Baldur's Gate III". The only common ground to the predecessors (
as we know today) is the setting in the Forgotten Realms in and around the city of Baldur´s Gate. Unfortunaly nothing from the predecessors will be continued (
as we know today) but what the title "III" implies.
Since the outcry was predictable, I wonder why it was done anyway. Maybe Swen/Larian Studios had no choice. It is no accident that WotC released a new campaign for the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop game: Baldur's Gate: Descent in Avernus last year when Baldur´s Gate III was announced. It tells what's happened since Baldur's Gate II and plays 100 years after Baldur´s Gate II. It could be that the title "Baldurs Gate 3" was certainly a mandatory requirement for the game from Wizards of the Coast. No Baldur´s Gate 3 game, no D&D licence. In this case Swen had no chance to name the game "Baldur´s Gate: NamedItWhateverYouLike" and was
forced to use the Baldur´s Gate 3-name. But maybe it was a strategic sales decision just to bring the D:OS identity to Baldur's Gate as a franchise because Swen think Baldur's Gate 3 will reach more people than Divinity will have done. Like he mentioned
here at 3:30
However this was not the first time we heared about Baldur´s Gate 3. Already in 2002 "Baldur’s Gate III: The Black Hound" by Black Isle Studios was announced. As is well known, it was canceled. The Designer Josh Sawyer just
tweeted: it's been a long time since i worked on The Black Hound, but i want to make clear (again) that i never had any intention of that game being called Baldur's Gate III or Baldur's Gate (whatever).
IPLY put that title on it after well over a year and a half of dev had been done.
they did it for contractual issues they had (they were only allowed to publish D&D games with baldur's gate or icewind dale in the title). i, and many others on the team, expressed concern over tacking the name onto a game that was made to be its own thing, not an IE/BG game.
the only connection it had was with IWD (maralie fiddlebender was a companion). it had no connection to BG at all.
in the end it didn't really matter, but i think it's important to note that the team's intention was never to use the BG name.But to be honest,
we know almost nothing about the story except the outer frame. How often the story has changed in BG1, SoD or BG2 and pushed us in another direction. How many times have we been surprised? Swen is definitely not going to reveal what the whole story looks like. All information is currently based on a few interviews, a demo and a bit of gameplay. The information available is also interpreted differently. Could Larian Studios even build on Baldur's Gate II even though the story of Bhaalspawn is over? Of course there are many easy ways. At the end of BG2 it is mentioned that this adventure is over but others will follow. So it would have been possible to continue this serie somehow, e.g. the Maincharacter is having a romance (or did it like Bhaal did back then), a child is born, as an adult he is kidnapped, INTRO BG3. The story could have been continued
considering Baldur's Gate: Descent in Avernus. I mean that´s what everybody loved in the old days, to transfer your group/character from one game to the next part. Back then that was also a key feature for me of the good old SSI gold box games. To the different endings in BG2 it make sense to go further with the hero's descendant and so you having the directly connection to BG 2. Because you can’t directly import your old save file you could do it like in the Witcher games and choose your decisions before starting the game or something similar like Dragon Age, to transfer it to the DA Keep.
I´m an old school gamer (and i am not hard to please @David Walgrave) and i don´t have a problem to see another gameplay than in the original games. I don´t have a problem with a turn-based game. No, i think i will LOVE it because it reminds me of the old "Das Schwarze Auge" games by Attic. They were released outside of Germany as Realms of Arkania / Northlands Trilogy. The Lady, the Mage and the Knight should be a successor. I am open to a new gaming experience and it´s okay to transfer proven properties from D:OS to BG3.
But I personally hope that Baldur´s Gate III will be not only a D:OS clone with a D&D Skin and that a lot of the presentation were just placeholders, borrowed by D:OS. I really hope we will see and hear a completely different and independent
Baldurs Gate UI, spells and sounds. The spirit of Baldur´s Gate, not the old gameplay.
I think Swen is well aware that the Damocles sword hovers over him and Larian Studios.We know almost nothing at all and therefore nobody can not really judge at this point whether Baldur's Gate 3 deserves the name or not.We have to wait and watch the development of the game. Therefore i am still looking forward to this game and his early access.
