Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General How does BG3 compare to BG2?

I can not say I share the analogy. I played all Fallouts when they came out, and in 2008 I felt right at home. Sure, it changed from 2D to 3D, from 3rd to 1st person and combat was real-time instead of turn-based. Yet I immediately saw that this was a Fallout game, just from the look.
And then everywhere you saw references, characters and general lore connecting you to the world you played ten years before. Even character building was still very close or at least familiar to me. Plus Bethesda managed to add their own spin on things with environmental storytelling that felt like it was the same in the original games.

Now I played BG2 ten times or so know the location of every item special to me, can remember a lot of characters and the events unfolding, even some rather obscure things. Gameplay-wise I was never much invested in BG2, I mostly just fireballed and dual-wielded my way through it. However jumping into BG3 I never felt at home. I do see things that both games have in common, maybe even some parts of world-building, but this would also apply to Infinity and even more to PoE. I have not seen a character, item, location or even atmosphere that puts me back to Atkathla, or Irenicus' Dungeon, for example. I've seen a reference to space hamsters.
Gameplay mechanics also do not feel very similar or even inspired by BG, which does not mean one does it better, but I recently got Divinity 2 and here I immediately recognized the look, the combat and the gameplay mechanics.