Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3 calendar

So what is BG3's approach to time/months/years? Does Larian think this is a pointless gimmick ?
Playing POE Deadfire right now, the time cycles, weather atmosphere is so spot on...

So useless you mean

I'm sorry if I come across as a dick but I honestly think this day night cycle system is useless (at best), unless you do something interesting with it. And most games (Baldur's Gate and Poe included) don't do anything with it. In Baldur's Gate's case the only thing it does is making everything black and forcing you to search for an inn if you're in a town, derailing your progress for nothing.

The only game series that ever did anything interesting with it is (surprisingly) the elder scrolls who gave you the vampire mechanics. Other than that I don't see any reason to bring this mechanic back only for the sake of having it.

Well...apart from a great atmosphere this gives to the whole game...in BG2:

Nigh-time had certain NPCs show up for quest lines.
Some location could only get access during night.
Certain creatures came out at night.
Certain items/abilities could only be activated at night.
Some dialogues changed during night.
You had time limit for certain quests.
It took time to get to locations, feels like traveling. Again atmosphere building.

Holy shit, I disagree with every single word in this post. Including the final praise to TES.

Night cycles offer many opportunities for race/class specific characters. A theif for example is hardy going to sneak about breaking into homes in the city of waterdeep at noon. Given the choice a party of 4 is not going to charge into a heavily garrisoned goblin camp at noon. Apart from hundreds of things I could go on and on about from game mechanics to race/class advantages it adds greatly to the atmosphere as already stated.