As the game mechanics are so much different from it's predecessors, to justify the name you really have to embrace the setting. And not only of BG1, but mostly BG2, which was the last entry and surely more popular. So just a few hints here and there surely would not cut the mustard. So locations, characters, items, stories, quests, lore etc. need to be revisited and retold. Otherwise you can not really call it BG3, if there is little continuation or connection to the previous stories. There is also SoD now, I suppose, although I do not know if any of this is canon.
Right now I feel like a random decent RPG when playing the game. I would put mostly down to the first act, although I have to say, with apparently only three acts and these huge maps, I do not know if we will see a whole lot of things that would remind the players of the places they visited 20 years ago.
