I just recently realized that my past assumption that we "obviously will spend a lot of time in BG" is not exactly a given and I'm mildly terrorized by it. To be clear, I'm sure we'll get there... But at some point I remembered that you can find posters/letters talking about how the city would be currently quarantined or something like that.
What I'm starting to question is if it will be a city we explore and interact with extensively or if Larian will "pull an Arx" and give us a semi-abandoned city, that is basically a sieged warzone and where only few sparse oasis (or battle arenas) will be accessible to the player. Not that I would expect the ENTIRE city to be there and reproduced 1:1, anyway, but the scenario describe above would be a fair bummer, compared to, say, having few selected quartiers of the city that you can explore in detail.
I am now beginning to realize thanks to your post that in all of the Larian games I've played, the largest cities in each game were ALL under some kind of siege.
- Divinity 2: The city of Aleroth, which I think is possibly the largest city Larian had designed thus far, to the point where the game's expansion took place solely within it. I remember the expansion being my favorite part of the game. But it was 100% under siege and you were looking for ways to defend the city and break the siege throughout said expansion. You weren't allowed into the city proper before the expansion began, even though you could visit it rather early on in the base game.
- DOS1: The city of Cyseal at the beginning of the game, of which you arrive while the city is under siege from goblins and undead. You do break said siege rather quickly though.
- DOS2: Arx. I'm sure I don't need to describe this. I feel like the game's narrative would have been A LOT stronger if you were able to visit Arx before heading off to the Nameless Isles. There would be major impact in returning to find the city transformed under the siege.
Really hoping BG3 bucks that trend, to be honest. Or they could pull a surprise and have us visit multiple cities, but that's a pretty tall order and shouldn't be expected for obvious development resources reasons.
