Obsidian as a studio kind of got a rep as the sequel crew, I guess mainly because of Kotor2 and NWN2. Neverwinter was supposed to be the direct successor to the Baldur's Gate and Icewind Dale games, and it was obviously set in the Realms and you know, Feargus (they even had splash load screens in BG2 that suggested we'd be able to import our BG characters into Neverwinter) but the gameplay and whole thrust of the thing was so vastly different than the Infinity Engine games that you can't even compare them. NWN and NWN2 were both pretty cool, especially for DMs and persistent world builders, but it was missing the critical element of the 'god mode' full party control and it never really delivered on the idea of a modular Baldur's Gate where adventures could be released in an unending series.
I remember on the old NWN boards someone pointing out that a genuine successor to BG needed basically 3 things:
1. Dungeons and Dragons standardized rules 2. The Forgotten Realms setting 3. Tactical combat with full party control for up to 6 PCs
Everything that's come out since has been missing one or the other, and so they fall short. Either they had the ruleset and the setting, but not the tactical combat and full party control. Or, like in the case of the iso renaissance games, they had the full party tactical combat but not the rules or the setting.
I still blame Obsidian for caving on custom portraits precisely at the point in time when digital painting and fantasy concept art was really starting to take off and achieving a level on par with traditional mediums. It still depresses me. They said their modelers would be up to the task, and almost 2 decades later industry wide, we still aren't there in 3d. The best models I've ever seen still can't compete with the portraits in my 2d archives. Even the games with all the sliders and such that promise 'you can make anything you want', still haven't been able to capture the essential spirit of an ace portrait. So all the best illustrators made art for Magic the Gathering instead, which is now the gold standard, when it could just as easily have been Dungeons and Dragons if they didn't pull the rug out from under the thing. It's an old axe to grind, but still hehe
Thats my biggest take away when thinking if what this BG game should have. Deeper and more adopted DnD mechanics, and the setting of the forgotten realms. If Larian does open up the game to a party of 6, that would be pretty cool too but not something as a must in my personal list.
One thing I did notice tho, is that if you make a custom party with 4 player characters. The game will have you have Laezel track alo.g with you party of 4, making it 5. Laezel as number 5 acts like a literally companion in the party. You can access her traits, skills, and inventory too.so who knows. It seems like Larian already does have the grounds to expand party max to more than just 4.
