One thing that doesn't get mentioned much comparing BG1 and BG2 to BG3, is how quickly 3d animation tends to become very dated in the look. Unless a game is heavily stylized in the overall art direction, it's virtually guaranteed to look pretty awful in the very near future. Given BG3's heavy reliance on 3d cinematics and animation to carry the overall experience, I really wonder how well it will hold up in the long term? I mean for a game that aims for 'realism' in the aesthetic, some of it already looks kinda old, and I think the best one can hope for is maybe 5 or 6 years before the 3d modelling becomes so notably behind the times that it's hard to even watch/play anymore. Just like 'realistic' CGI in films, there's a real limit there to the staying power before it just starts looking like Lawn Mower Man or something right?
Of course right now for BG3 everyone is still very much in awe of the visual appeal, and it probably seems wildly cutting edge. But then I think back to BG1/2 and how the cutscene animated movies in those games are now absolutely abysmal. At the time that stuff seemed amazing, and perhaps had everyone wishing "why can't the rest of the game look more like this?" but it ends up being the worst looking part of the game a short while later, and the one part of it that can't really be salvaged. By contrast the 2d sprites of BG1/2 that constitute the actual gameplay there still hold up quite well. All the paper dolls and avatars and environments, the in-game cutscenes which utilize those assets rather than outside animation too, they're still pretty decent. They were necessarily heavily abstracted using the avatars available, so they still look pretty good in relative terms. They're still serviceable, and have an internal aesthetic continuity despite being pretty ancient. Not so for the animated cinematic stuff.
Comparing BG1 to 3d games like NWN1, NWN2, Dragon Age etc, the 2d BG1 game still has a lot of aesthetic charm, whereas those 3d games all look pretty horrid now. It makes me wonder, even if BG3 could match the replay and the hundreds of hours of content that we saw in BG1/2, even if they got it all right in terms of the lvl1 feel, would I even be able to return to it every couple years and still enjoy it the way I did with those earlier BG entries? Or will it just look so whack compared to other 3d games floating around by then, that I can't even play it without a remaster? How many years out before the opening movie in BG3 looks as bad to modern eyes as this one does to us now...?
BG1 opening movie cinematic
I love it, doubtless, but you know what I mean hehe.
And now it's not just a little 2 minute intro cinematic anymore, or a brief 30 second thing when we first get to the Friendly Arm Inn like it was in 1998. Now it's like half the entire experience of the game done in cinema. Obviously the horse has already left the barn on this one, but I think BG3 is way over-reliant on this stuff to set up what the game actually is. When I think back to BG1/2 it's not the cutscenes that I remember, but in BG3 they're basically the entire thing, the whole story is delivered that way now. I just can't imagine it ever achieving the same kind of longevity, where even big budget Hollywood films that rely heavily on realistic cgi animation from a few years ago already look campy by current standards.
I think they should really try to stake out a look that recalls not live action but rather cartooning in it's essence. BG3 already has a bit of this going on, particularly with the Goblins, but as they continue to refine it, I think they might be better off going a direction like that rather than towards the ultra real. The way they are now dropping roto-animated stuff on Netflix daily that looks like Unreal cinema, I think stuff like BG3 is just not going to seem all that impressive pretty soon, whereas if they can make it look a bit more like a classic cartoon perhaps it would retain a bit of the charm in a different sort of way? I'm not terribly happy with how much the game just feels like watching a movie, and I wish they could get away from that somehow. BG1/2 felt more like a kind of puppet show or shadow theater play that sort leaned into that sensibility, whereas BG3 is much more like a box office live action film. It just gives me pause, cause I don't think it will have the same kind of shelf life and impact going totally that direction.
BG 2's intro movie holds up a bit better, because of the way it's composed in montage, but still pretty rough.
ToB did something pretty similar... Though nothing inside the gameplay actually looked like these intros.
Clearly BG3 looks pretty badass stacked next to those... it's the whole reason I bought the game early if I'm honest, but I wonder how it will age?
Opening Chase Promo
ps. Full + Hell just since it was mentioned in the OP. It's pretty masterful. Didn't notice that the other promo one ended with the dragon flame. Although admittedly a clutch cut, I definitely liked the full flick in hellscape with the Imps flying around that monolithic III at the end. The opener did feel pretty BG to me, certainly set the bar hella high! hehe
