This only confirms what I knew and posted on here a year ago about Larian being in way over their head and understaffed. Swen all but confirms it here, which is why they did so much hiring for more staff.
Whenever they are "over their heads" will depend on how 1.0 will turn out. It can turn out to be a cautionary tale just as well as a success story.
The game when it was released in October 2020 was not fit or suitable for public consumption, especially at a $60 price point.
Which I don't think is the problem - the very point of releasing pre-alpha build is to get feedback while the game is in development. And I stand behind $60 price point, as Larian was very transparent with what EA is, and there was no incentive to buy into it if you are not interested in participating in this feedback gathering excercise. The more finished the release would be the less potential to steer the direction based on feedback/data.
I laughed at the 5e incarnation remark. BG3 has a lot of Work to do to be a faithful 5e adaption.
"The benchmark incarnation of 5th Edition in a videogame," not "the most faithful adaptation of 5e". It is rather clear by now that Larian doesn't believe D&D to be very good, or at least not a good fit for a PC release. That of course leads to some questions: why work on IP that you seem to hate everything about, and "because D&D is popular" is a poor answer for a company "that is not about the money".
"There are so many steps in between now, so many people that need to look at it," Vincke said. "Cinematic designers, cinematic animators, the casting director, lighting, VFX, SFX. So you don't just add a line like that anymore. You're very aware of your cinematic budget, the cost, and the waterfall that follows from it. We've had to reinvent ourselves, how we work… so that we can still iterate."
Sooo ...
Thats the excuse for having such limiting dialogue options?
That "it involves many people and much work to add another"?
If so its poor one.
And also dont tell me that in between all those 400 people nobody thinks that curent options are lacking some basic choices. :-/
At the same time current cinematics still lack in quality. So which path should Larian follow? Focus on polishing "smaller" amount of content to provide a passable "cinematic" experience, so they can try to stand amongside Mass Effect and Witcher3, or try to cram as many choices for the player as possible, aiming to create janky cult classic? I expect the final result to be somewhere in the middle - not terribly good cinematics with still impressive amount of choices but doesn't quite succeed in covering choices player's might expect or want. Again: Dragon Age = not a terribly good RPG, not a terribly good cinematic experience, but scratches somewhat both itches.
Or just be done with it and make BG3 a tale tale game and remove all combat and RPG elements. I mean right? thats what everyone here who loves BG3 just wants, to make a boner inducing character and to see everyone naked dancing around a bondfire romancing and arguing for eternity.
Yeah, but Larian wants all the cakes and eat them too. It is a game with robust multiplayer support but also dedicated singleplayer content. A top down, highly customisable adventure, but with pre-made, directed cinematics. It is adaptation of nerdy D&D property that triest to satisfy D&D, D:OS2 and non RPG players. In other words Larian tries to cram many conflicting goals into one game, and to their credit trying to do justice to all. It's one thing to create a product with wide appeal - it is another to create product that will try to be various different products at the same time.
EDIT:
And furthermore, the artcile itself was completely empty of any meaningful information. It was a pure fluff-piece where Vincke gets to pat himself and his team on the back about how awesome they are. Shame on PC Gamer for allowing themselves to be used for Larian PR.
That's gaming media in the nutshell, no? Then again, as Niara point out, it is difficult to talk about what the game will be before it is finished. Anything said until the game is close to release is nothing more then selling hopes and dreams of what may one day be.
