Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Getting with the times.

While I suppose BGIII is open word in the strict definition of the term, the design philosophy feels very different from Assassin’s Creed or Skyrim or Breath of the Wild. Breath of the Wild uses Disney World’s ‘weenie’ philosophy—distinct architecture/landscape that acts as a visual cue to guide player to areas of interest. While Skyrim is more reliant on quest markers to guide the player, although really what they want is for the player to just wander wherever and stumble across something without ever realizing it was there in the first place.

The closest comparison I can think of for BGIII design is fromsoft games, which use a hub world with various paths leading to points of interest. In BGIII you’re naturally guided to the Druid’s Grove and then the Blighted Village, which acts as the central hub you pass through to access every other portion of Act I. There are also various shortcuts that can be discovered to access different areas in the game. This might change once the two pathways closed off in EA open up, however, idk.

Also, in, say, botw, time is not a factor when it comes to completing events. Zelda will always be waiting with ganandorf at the end of the game no matter if you play for 100 hours or 10. The main quest lines can be done in any order with no true change to their approach. Meanwhile, if you wait too long, Arabella dies in the grove. The grove can eventually enact the Rite of Thorns and close itself off. Which is probably the strongest argument for a day/night cycle, imo, because it telegraphs the passage of time to the player in a clear way. That or some sort of calendar that tracks the passing of time outside your journal (I think the way time is handled in BGIII is a huge problem, although a day/night cycle isn’t the only way to solve it).

And yes: the original Baldur’s Gate was meant to be an adaptation of the DnD rule set to a video game format. I have a lot of fun with DoS2. And if I want more of DoS2 I’ll play it again. But BGIII isn’t DoS2 and is trying to establish itself within the DND rule set. Camping should be tweaked but I don’t think the concept of long resting itself is the problem, but instead the implementation.