I regret they chose to name this game "Baldurs Gate III", it gives an impression that it is a sequel to BG1 and BG2. It is not really that. When I saw the announcement I thought "Oh, Cool. They are doing another D&D game in the Baldurs Gate area." and not "Wow my Bhaalspawn is coming back." I hate that they give these games 1 and 2, etc. It should have been called: Dungeons and Dragons: Forgotten Realms - Rise of the Illithid or something.
Does the game feel like it is in the Forgotten Realms? To me, yeah so far so good. Does it look Realms like? Underdark was awesome. IS the area we crash in well described? Not that I can find. From what I know we are somewhere along the north side of the Chionthar between Elturel and Baldurs Gate. Map shows it being green, hills and plains looking with some scattered vertical relief. Does the starting area look like that? Yeah pretty much. So it looks like forgotten realms. What about the gear we have found, does that resemble artwork for the realms? Pretty much and swords look like swords and not WOW huge things, so that is cool.
Is there lore for the area/setting to be found? Yes. I have several books that talk about gods, etc. all set within the forgotten realms. The crypt we go into at the beginning was a church of Jergal. So the lore is there, and it looks like the realms. As we are in the first act, levels 1-4, have we met any famous people yet? I met Volo so far.
So that leaves us with what is it about BG1 and BG2 that are absolutely VITAL to making a game feel like the realms? What do you HAVE to put in your tabletop sessions to make sure your players know they are in the Realms? Because when I have read the sourcebooks there is little to no mention of them. (memory not that good, I do not remember any mention, but could be some). No do not get me wrong, those games are awesome. They got me into playing computer games. I enjoyed BG2 more than BG1, but loved both. Irenicus was an awesome villain. I did not care for IWD as there was no party banter and the voices in my head refused to play along and entertain me with ad lib banter. Neverwinter Nights was awesome, I spent untold hours playing both the OCs and Persistant worlds, mostly hard core rule servers. NWN2 is also a favorite game of mine, along with all of its expansions. BUT to say that I would HAVE to put stuff from ANY of those games into a Tabletop game to make it feel like the realms is ludicrous. So why then does a new game have to?
Now for the setting of this game. I believe it is somewhere around 1492ish. Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 took place over 130 years ago. Any human involved is gone, in 130 years much of what happened would be totally unreliable information, passed on from those who knew over and over until it has changed almost beyond what it was. Some could say the Bhaalspawn was a demon sent from beyond to punish the unfaithful, appearing on High Harvest to take bad children to the underworld. Others may say how the Bhaalspawn came to deliver the faithful from the corrupt Cyric, etc. It has become myth by now.
Unpopular opinion incoming, but nothing. BG/2 did a fairly decent job of wrapping up their stories, and what wasn't was covered elsewhere in the timeline. At this point, 100 years later, and given we're not actually in Baldur's Gate, or Athkatla at the time, there's not much that could tie it directly to either one. We're not playing the same character, for obvious reasons, nor are we supplementing that with making one of the surviving NPCs from those games the protagonist here, so that level of attachment isn't there either. What we don't know is "Who's on the table for later". I mean, I met Minsc and Boo in the Neverwinter MMO. But even with their addition, Neverwinter looked a whole lot different than it did in NWN. Then there's those games, which I'm not sure where they fell in the timeline, not to mention the console games between then and now. So a whole lot has changed over that century.
In the end, I'm left with what lore we do get, which isn't a trivial amount, considering we're barely scratching the surface of the game, and the overall environments. I'm not disappointed. What trepidations I do have will be addressed after release, and I get a chance to play the entire game, instead of basing my opinion on it's overall feel on a third of it.
