Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Lack of Forgotten Realms Ambiance / Depth

First of all, I'm a fan of both Baldur's Gate and Divinity series and I was very excited about that Larian is the company that makes BG 3.

But, It's not BG 3. Not because of the mechanics, but soul. Let me explain this a bit.

This article consists of

intro: Forgotten Realms Mythos and Game Scenario
1. Story Telling/Scenario
2. Examples and Comparison between BG 2 and 3
3. Content

Before I start, I want to say BG 3 is really promising. And I wrote this because I got still hope that future content and Arcs, at least expansions might be more profound.

Intro: Forgotten Realms is a Mythos and that is the main thing

BG series are legend. Its because of story, profound psychoanalytical and ontological theme and most importantly, MYTHOS. Baldur's Gate series, and generally Forgotten realms lore is actually a myth and the primary function of a myth is to construct a reality scheme about the existence, universe, self, ego, reality, etc. For example, I remember myself thinking like "Ok, let me pass this umberhulks quickly with a cloudkill, then see what creature/phenomena will come afterwards!" So combat in BG series was even just an obstacle sometimes, not the main point of the game. As you know, old school RPG's was not about combat, but the profound fantastic experience, as we can experiencen a very "unreal" reality.

I manage a software company, so I am completely aware that on a project of this scale, It's too hard to see the big picture. I think you did a great job at game mechanics (It can be polish to be smoother, but still great!), story telling, cinematic experience but; what is the story behind the mechanics and story telling? It's a very regular scenario. Goblins threat druids, there are migrant problem, childs in danger and we got heroes. Oh, sure, we got strange things in brain so its complicated? I'm sorry but its not like that. I'm going to delve into this a bit with examples from BG 2.

BG 2 Exp 1: Rielev, Dryads, Bedroom of Ellesime, Dungeon: We start to know about Irenicus, our captor with Rielev. He "awarded" Rielev with an oath to make him immortal for his loyal service. And he "sustained" him. But in the end, he always experimented on different subjects, and he did not want to remember him. Why? Because he fears the truth, he cannot fulfill that wish in a meaningful way (Because he fears the possibility that he cant do it on himself too) so he forgot him. And a promise of immortality, sustained experience of self reduced Rielev in a shadow. Thats what İrenicus do to people. On the contrast, we learn that İrenicus lacks the "self" experience. He tries to creat it again and again (Dryads, aesthetic bedroom, memory of love). Thats how we start to know of our captor! And when we inspect our dungeon we got the impression that: "Oh ok, an advanced mage is trying to solve mysterios about Ego, Life, Death, Essense, and he experimented on things we cannot grasp of. We are very far of understanding our captor". İn dialogue of Imoen and Irenicus, its stressed again: "Torture? sily girl, you just dont understand what am i doing, do you?"

BG 2 Exp 2: Dreams, Psychoanalytic approach, emphasis on experience: I do now want to write an article so long, so i'll try to make it short. Remember the dream İrenicus started with "Life is strength". He tackled the subjects: Life, Pragmatism, Teleology, Power, existence, choice in mere 1.5 minutes. So if your divine self is your Id, murder (in a freudian sense) if you let it consume you to make you immortal (By making you effecting everything, thus make you infinite) is it worth losing your ego? Or what will you become then? The game asks you this questions. What are you? What make you, you? What are you working for, really? The great part is, the game uses and alternate reality, where people like İrenicus can make experiments on the fabric of reality and game tries to drag you into that, different multiverse, reality.

Divinity 2, BG 3: Oh man, I played many of the combats on divinity again and again. It was so fun, profound tactical experience and many things to do. But when we delve about philosophy, reality? It is just flavor. Good flavor i suppose, for it did not disturb me. But it was not Faerun. That world is CONSTRUCTED FOR THE GAME. BUT BG 2 IS CONSTRUCTED FOR US TO EXPERİENCE THE FORGOTTEN REALMS AND ITS MYTHOS. Because the reality in forgotten realms is different from our daily life. Where our daily life existantial problems and ontological things are just philosophy, in Faerun, its a reality in a mythological sense.

And that is the i think, most important part. If you inspect the phenomena in BG 2: its a burst of content THAT IS FOCUSED ON PROFOUND LORE EXPERIENCE. NOT FLAVOR. What i meant is: In BG 3 there is stereotypical hero advanture of any regular game. But, characters and monster are from DND universe. And thats it. I cannot experience what Silvanus is. What he represents (We did in BG, we UNDERSTOOD what Amaunator is, what is the importance of life, its contrast to "shadow begins, what is the function of Helm and it represents by keeping chaos, madness and evil at bay, we saw a cult of mass hysteria (Cult of the unseeing eye) started by a creature from a "crazed" reality (far realms). ) BG 2 was bursting with Forgotten realms lore and phenomena. Instead, we got a statue of an animal, and if we insert the correct rune, gate opens? Man, come on! Is this shooter FPS with "open the red gate with red card" concept? Think about the mad mage at watchers keep, liches that even forgotten theirselves, planar prison, PERSONALITY of demons, contrast of many different cultures. I EXPERİENCED A DIFFERENT REALITY, FAERUN PROFOUNDLY, in BG 2. But BG 3 is a 5e DND game with fine combat mechanics, also got forgotten realms flavor, its just flavor and monster types (Can you tell me what would be different if there were no elves, goblins, druids, in the game but just bad guys, good guys, mobs? Answer is: nothing)

I mean, BG 2 opens with prophecies, philosophy... Where are these things? I repeat, main thing in Forgotten realms is not the mechanics. We played different tabletop rules as community always, but main focus on the Fantasy roleplay, dont forget that please.


You might think that "Ok, we know these stuff but that would make the scenario really complex and we need to sell it to average players". But then why is this game BG 3? People that loved and played BG 2 is generally RPG players who adores profound RP experience. Your storytelling is the BEST! But story and itself is too weak.

Good thing is, mechanis is hard to change, content is not! So i still got hope!

This was very well put into words, I can't say I disagree with any of it.

Cult of the Absolute can be analagous to the Cult of the Unseeing Eye, let that arc develop. The quest with the Paladins of Tyr who were corrupted by Zariel screams what you are describing. If you read all the books you pick up they are building up Shar vs Selune pretty significantly besides the Avernus story line, seems like more will happen there perhaps even with a good side redemption storyline for Shadowheart (i am looking at you the book in the first dungeon that described the priestess of Shar who was forgotten). There was some serious ontological stuff if you look, but it doesnt necessarily smack you in the face like BG 1 and 2 or PST. You have the Zhents and the Flaming Fists and other things that play out their place in the realms rather well. It did not feel as overwhelmingly Faerun as 1 and 2 but it felt like Faerun to me.

I see what you're getting at and I do agree; granted we've only seen Act 1. It is somewhat worrying that none of this is present over the course of what - for all we know - is actually the entirety of Act 1 sans polish/additional cutscenes. The game is pretty fun, but it lacks "Forgotten Realms" feeling to it all almost as if it could be any D&D setting at the moment.

One thing I hope they change is the amount of serious literature versus funny non-lore stuff...it’s obvious Shar and Selune are going to play a pretty big part and I’ve found a handful of books describing short encounters by their worshippers but nothing deep about their differences. Light good - dark bad is boring and honestly lazy when you have so much material and back story available.

Maybe have the non Shar loving companions comment more on the desecration in the goblin camp. Treat the gods with respect and not just a variable to be filled on their character sheet. It feels like instead of worship they are thinking in belief...these gods exist in Faerun, it isn’t a matter of who believes what, they are real ‘beings’ and not to be scoffed at.

Great post, OP. As a die-hard FR fan and FR lore junkie, I agree with you on the missing FR atmosphere/tone.

Really great post and constructive Criticism, I agree completely, I like the game, a lot. Still missing its soul or what would make it memorial, specially when it comes to the FR. It is still not there in the department of "I can play the FR campaign I always dreamed of"

I guess I'm going to go against the trend here, but I personally think the game does FR better than BG1/BG2 did.

Reading the OP, I just see someone who doesn't like what part of FR the game is going after and how the lore is presented. The mindflayer tadpole is "strange things in brain", but a creature from the far realms is super awesome in BG2 somehow. Compares Amaunathor which gets a full dungeon with a shadow dragon info-dumping to receiving a rune to open a vault?

Why don't you talk about Auntie Ethel?
About the temple of Jergal?
About the temple of Selûne?
About what the Dark Justicars did?
About what is going on in the Underdark?
About the Black Network agents?

About Gale having a relationship with a god?
About Shadowheart acting like a proper Shar worshipper?
About being able to lose yourself to the tadpole to gain power which work quite similar to the Slayer stuff in BG2, dream included (but you need to use it).

And that doesn't cover everything in the EA.

regarding Gale's relationship with a god

@Macadami Well said

I don't think BG3 lacks soul either, the story feels amazing for me and with the fun combat I'm enjoying BG3 way more than BG1 and BG2.

I don't want too much backstory brought into the start of the game, because that will bog down the whole introduction and make it all boring. OP let the story present itself, see if it lacks soul when you see the rest of the story.

I don't want the story ruined because people are saying there is not enough lore dump at the start of the game >.<.

Bioware did a great job in making you feel like you were part of a much greater world. And while more focused on combat than plot Icewind Dale did as well. This one does feel more generic... You make a great point that this one feels more like the setting was created for the sake of the game.

Just old people being old here next thread please

Baldurs Gate is not morrowind...

I also totally agree.

A feeling, atmosphere and tone is not only about what you read or hear in the game...
I think Larian actually failed to give us a consistent FR adventure even if many things about the lore are in the game.

It looks like they took what they want from D&D/FR and implement them in their vision of a story and their vision of gameplay.
It actually looks like a custom game based on D&D in a custom world based on the FR...

D&D and the FR deserve more than being tools in which you pick things everywhere to mix them to create your custom experience. They should be the base material of BG3.

Just look at the bestiary and the area in which the game leads us to understand what I'm talking about. It's not consistent in regards of the FR (LVL 1-4 => Hell+Underdark+Bulette+Mindflayer+OP goblins and Gnolls + other creature/location they found cool to have in their game).

I played Baldurs gate 1 when it came out, but I dont have rose tinted glasses.

I like bg3 better than bg1 and 2.

nevertheless I would like to have more mysterious books / dialogue and things to discover aswell.

I'm not certain how "young" you are, but a good story is very much part of a good game. If you want mindless hack and slash, that is on you, and you can go find that in Halo, or whatever the FPS of the second is. To make an unconstructive comment like this solely for the point of being "insulting" (if you can call it that. To quote Sharwin and every girl you ever dated "Is that the best you can do?")...please do go to the next thread, you insignificant, pathetic little boy, because the adults are talking here and we don't need to hear your whining, whimpering, temper-tantrum backside here. You will be ignored from this point forward.

That said, I'm basically walking into this game from nothing. I didn't play either of the first two BG games, and the last D&D game I played was NWN2 (a few decades ago). The descriptions I read about this game said it's set 100 years after the events of BG2, so if you are into those story lines and arcs, I think you should expect those to be, at best, fading way into the background and, at worse, completely eliminated. For example, and maybe it's just that I don't know FG very well, but I thought Shar was the "evil" one and "Selune" was the good one...now, I have no clue which is which. That is to be expected 100 years later. Consider what has changed with regards to how humans see things over the past 100 years:

1- We went from most major societies having a firm belief in some type of God to about half of "civilized" society is "spiritual". and probably about 15% fully atheist.
2- Alternate sexuality was discussed in very hushed tones, if at all, to this game actually integrating it in.
3- Computers didn't exist 100 years ago. Just the theory of computing, but an actual computer did not. Now, look how we're talking.

That's just for starters. I would expect the same of a game set 100 years after the previous title. When I read that, the thought that came to mind was "Larian is doing a complete reset" of the storyline. Granted, it's not a complete reset, but I think OP should realize that the "soul" sought is different than the one this game is presenting. Come at BG3 from that point of view: 100 years later and things are definitely going to be different.

So I'm going to play BG to Nashkell, and then write a review about how "incomplete" it feels. Maybe I should stop at the Friendly Arm Inn?

What does "feel like FR" mean? Let's be clear here, I played all of BG, all of IWD, all of NWN, and all of NWN 2. I played the Neverwinter MMO. I also played DDO, but initially it had no FR content, that didn't come until much later. So when I sit down for a session here, what is it that I'm supposed to believe makes it FR?

What we do have is an extraplanar creature using us as a means of reproduction. Hi tadpole. How similar is this to being the bhaalspawn? Ok, so the perceived end result is that we won't become a God. However, that doesn't remove the connotation that a creature from another plane of existence is using us to reproduce. The end result of Bhaal's plan was to be reborn, after all. I wonder how many table top sessions around the world have wound up with wilder story lines than even what we're going to get here? So what I see are a lot of subjective judgements based on one act of a game that's not even in true beta yet. This is about as close to alpha as you can get, and still release something. How much of what we're playing now is going to change once we get out of EA?

Some obvious things that have already been pointed out:

How much reading are people doing? There's a lot of lore presented in books, and I have a backpack that is absolutely full of them. Some are just love letters, or other types of correspondence, but there are a lot of books that aren't story flagged, but do contain lore about both the current situation in the Realm, and FR in general. I'm starting to get a ME Andromeda pre-release vibe here, where "it's not Shepard, so it's not ME" was the prevalent argument. The old BSN had "Warden Wednesday" for both Dragon Age 2 and Inquisition, and those games were "not Dragon Age, because Warden". I have to wonder if "it's not FR, because no Bhaalspawn"?

The Bhaalspawn is a tiny part of the Forgotten Realms, Forgotten Realms has hundreds of novels on top of all the D&D materials. Also, BG1/BG2 were not about becoming gods. That's Throne of Bhaal ignoring the Bhaal's prophecy from BG1 to make a copy of Highlanders.

The Baldur's Gate content moved beyond the original games into official pnp modules the last of which was Descent to Avernus and that module is referenced a lot in the EA.

Please do. There are many, myself included, that would be more than happy to tear this apart at the seams and bury it permanently.


I suggest you start here : https://www.amazon.com/Forgotten-Ca...mp;qid=1603203613&s=books&sr=1-2


Become a God? How about not the spawn of a god, not involved in a 4d chess conspiracy by a God, not having people hunt you down to take your god powers for themselves, having your entire life and home destroyed by these said people. Why don't you talk about how the tadpoles are not working the way they are, the nautiloids are not working the way they are, the illithid are not working the way they are, the ullitharid are not working the way they are or the incredible suspension of disbelief you have to make for the excuse presented for this, or how the tadpoles are manifesting powers they shouldn't have, or how you should never have been able to survive this experience, or how the universe ignores the fact that you have a living tadpole in your brain that isn't killing you which would be the subject of instant desire for many major players including figures such as Vlaakith CLVII or the entirety of Thay?

Why don't we talk about Gale who is in love with Mystra or how any magician would be aware that in FR any mortal that Mystra considers worth trusting would be a Chosen of Mystra and that despite his obsession with her he is content to travel with an open Sharite(shadowheart) so shortly after the spellplague? I can go on if you want.

I'm not entirely sure what you are asking here or how it's relevant so I'd like to ask you to rephrase it more eloquently.