I meant continuity with the games, not the books (which were nowhere near as successful as the games unless I'm mistaken). They hadn't expanded upon returning characters etc. until fairly recently which led to tons of speculation. Commenting the engine is largely pointless because you cannot verify how much of it has been rewritten. As for combat, there's a pinned thread for it so I'm not going to derail this one.
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They never talked about the books in the interviews, they were talking about the games and WOTC.
They asked almost in every interview since last summer if they are going to take the story of the original BG games or if you can import the saved games and they always were very forthcoming about the fact. They usually deflect questions about combat mechanics and stuff but not about the story, the mindflayers, etc.
Abdel Adrian is the canon Baalspawn Hero of Baldurs gate that refused divinity and became duke of Baldur`s gate. That is the canon history of the baalspawn crisis as stated in WOTC`s D&D lore and Player modules in the Sword coast setting like Murder in baldur´s gate, Descent into avernus, etc.
PD: Sources, all of them interviews from august-september 2019. As you can see they never said that they were going to use the previous games as reference and they stated every time that they only use sources from the D&D lore of WoTC.
Mike and Swen strike back in a Podcast for Kotaku
https://kotaku.com/the-ranger-class-is-getting-some-changes-in-d-d-and-ba-1835659585 when they asked them about what ending of BG2-TOB they will pick Swen said they "picked the canon WOTC ending of baalspawn crises " in 24.05 .(Sven or Mike Merle did not even remember the endings of the original games, only the canon ending that was stated for 10 years)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n9VgaaNPVeoMurder in Baldur’s Gate, a 5E D&D playtest module, is a launching point for Larian’s story, and in the events in that adventure result in Bhaal, the God of Murder, returning.
Jon Irenicus, the villain in Baldur’s Gate II, isn’t coming back in the new game. Vincke confirms this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxwCz51nVhAhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju12JNh8gJsBaldur’s Gate III takes place a century after the events of Shadows of Amn. It’s after The Sundering, another event in Faerun that involved the gods, their followers, and the ushering in of a new D&D edition (as the Time of Troubles did in 2E, setting up part of Baldur’s Gate story in the first place, and 4E’s Spellplague).
“It’s about 100 years after the game. We try to avoid giving specific years, because we have some amount of flexibility in our tabletop campaigns,” Mearls said. “Unless the precise year is really important, we don’t usually refer to it.”
It starts outside the city of Baldur’s Gate, Vincke said, and the city does feature in it. Vincke said Larian’s team used Murder in Baldur’s Gate as a launching point. “And then we worked closely with Adam Lee, who’s working on Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus,” he said. “The original reference we used when we were looking at the city was Murder in Baldur’s Gate.”
He terms Descent into Avernus as a prequel “in a certain way. It’s complementary to the story of Baldur’s Gate III, but Baldur’s Gate III is very much its own story, the next chapter of what happens to the city.”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ju12JNh8gJshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zxwCz51nVhA"Vincke said Larian’s team used Murder in Baldur’s Gate as a launching point. “And then we worked closely with Adam Lee, who’s working on Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus,” he said. “The original reference we used when we were looking at the city was Murder in Baldur’s Gate.”
“And then we worked closely with Adam Lee, who’s working on Baldur’s Gate: Descent into Avernus,” he said. “The original reference we used when we were looking at the city was Murder in Baldur’s Gate.”He terms Descent into Avernus as a prequel “in a certain way. It’s complementary to the story of Baldur’s Gate III, but Baldur’s Gate III is very much its own story, the next chapter of what happens to the city.”
Baldur’s Gate III takes place a century after the events of Shadows of Amn. It’s after The Sundering, another event in Faerun that involved the gods, their followers, and the ushering in of a new D&D edition