Broadly, I am afraid that the plot will not be up to snuff as we advance. Don't get me wrong, I love so many of the intricacies and variations that we can see with interactions and quests due to how Larian accounts for pretty much every way the player might screw around, but I worry that with all the time they set aside to fix things like the Shadowheart's box thing, or endless cinematic variations on how to resolve/sabotage the Tiefling Bard, Larian's in danger of losing the forest for the trees. Most of the problems I have with the narrative, the characters, the plot....are with the larger scope things. And Larian is promising a lot of larger-scope things. Most of our companions have these big, narrative-warping individual storylines involving gods, chosen etc. Gale being an archmage, an ex-chosen of Mystra, and on first-name basis with Halastar, or Karlach being the personal champion of an archdevil, one who apparently went toe-to-toe with Demon Lords. These are setting-defining movers and shakers. Or how the plot involves not one, but all three of the Dead three, plus the Devils of Avernus, plus Shar, plus Vlaakith, the Netherese, Spelljamming Mindflayers, etc. It's all a bit much, and while the game clearly wants the player to move on to 'fate of the Realms' style upper-level heroics, it's still struggling to find a balance between that and the fact that we are still stomping around the wilderness in what feels like a see saw between low-level heroics saving locals from goblin raiders to fighting an adamantine golem in a lava-filled arena in the depths of the underdark. Meanwhile evil players have been complaining since the launch of EA about the disparity in the quality and quantity of effort put into that content compared to more noble alternatives with no solution in sight. It feels like it lacks cohesive direction with a plot too big for its britches already halfway into Act I and I worry that it will unravel further as the game progresses.
I also have concerns about the effort being put into stuff like the MMO-style reward choice pop-ups, the proliferation of gimmicky and narrow build-focused item sets, the number and variation in companions, the entire character of Minsc, and how this game will fit in with the Original Saga. I'll not pretend otherwise, I'm playing this game in large part because of my love and nostalgia for the originals, and for the setting of the originals. BG III is set in a much changed and much-retconned setting (5e vs 2e) that I do not have nearly as much love for, and I am feeling that BG III is aiming to be a very different type of game, aimed at a different crowd, mostly capitalizing on the name recognition. Maybe it will be good, great even, but I am not as sure that it will feel like a true successor, spiritual or otherwise to the original games.
