Baldur's Gate is a Bioware game. That alone should speak for itself, but...
Baldur's Gate was never meant to be the roleplaying holy grail you seem to remember it as. Even at the time, there were plenty of other video games that were more built for roleplayers. The Might & Magic, and Ultima video game series for example. What made Baldur's Gate special was the quality of storytelling and the well-written prebuilt characters who joined your party.
Baldur's Gate came out in 1998, one year after Ultima Online, which was really the ultimate medieval roleplaying video game at the time.
I fully agree. Bioware's later works were natural evolution of what Bioware wanted to achieve, not delution of it, as I initially saw it as.
Still, Bioware was smart enough to know that if they want to have movie-like-presentation (Mass Effect, Dragon Age2) they have to limit and define the character. Early Bioware design did override player roleplaying choices via chosen-one plot, but they didn't conflict with them. In their games role-playing is mostly the illusion, but that's an illusion that works anyway. Child of Bhaal/Raven/Spirit Monk identity override our own, but it doesn't conflict with it. I played through BG1&2 many times and imagined by PC as very varied characters - and it always works. And "imagined" is the key word here (unlike lets say Fallouts that allowed for much wider in game expression and reactivity) but it worked.
BG3 is in danger of being nothing - not providing interesting narrative or competent direction on its own, and contradicting choices it allows players to make for presentation sake.
Every RPG is about a balance between authored content and allowing players to fill the blanks. Adding a voice to a blank slate character, seems to me like creating an unnecessary conflict between the two. Maybe if the VO is varied and strong enough it could work. I just doubt it will/would be.
