Between the speculations on continuity with the
older games questions on how an established character would be integrated into an origin system (
Minsc) and the constant back and forth between the question of player agency and narrative cohesion (
Herosexual NPCs RIP
Dragon age Origins - Next gen RPG and
Will there be a Prologue, before your capture?/
Character Acting, Demeanor and Personallity I feel like I keep seeing relitigated, the same central question: where on the scale between 'total sandbox' character freedom and a totally linear narrative do we want this RPG to peg to?
"Total sandbox" is impossible, and "totally linear" is not on the table, but Larian in an effort to marry these two, gives you the option of play pre-made characters with bespoke storylines and with established histories and personalities, or creating your own custom main character who can be a blank slate for the player to write on.
I think this is a laudable endeavor for Larian to attempt but I'm afraid that in trying to be a jack-of-all-trades it won't be able to give us enough of either type of play-style to really make a good story. I feel this way because that's how I felt about DOS:II, I didn't think playing a custom character was worth it storywise, and I didn't think that any individual origin storyline satisfied me from an RPG, 'choose your adventure' stand point.
I find total sandbox games, like a lot of the Rogue-like games that have been coming out, terribly dull, I come to this genre for the interactive storytelling, "emergent gameplay" doesn't really interest me as much, so I'm inclined to want a narrative with a more established character but
ideally I would like a game that let's me create a custom character that would be able to interact with the world with the same kind of depth as an origin character.
