Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does BG3 give the old "BG feeling" ?

For me it was the many areas that were completely separated and had a travel time to get to, with a chance for random encounters. Inside the areas there was a bit more air as well.

A few things on top of my head that brings some of the previous Baldur's Gate games vibe:

-The spell icons.
-The gorgeous world map.
-The items...Now according to recent reports of the full game the itemization is amazing. Thats what I loved about all the Baldur's Gate games, the unique items and their lore.
-Character creation (though great still a bit lacking...would love more "kits").
-Relation to D&D
-Some setting elements and characters.
-Lots of romance options

And the not so Baldur's Gate vibe:

-The UI and control scheme <----------My biggest gripe...
-Number of companions during gameplay and in total.
-DOS2 3D engine with cinematics
-Turn base gameplay
-No day/night, no time, no weather <---------My second biggest gripe...NO EXCUSE for such a game.
-Colorful comedy vibe mixed with blood and guts (Larian aesthetics)
-Lots of over the top sexual options.

I never played a D: OS game, this is in fact my first Larian game. I love BG1&2 and Dragon Age and am really amazed by BG3. You get a lot of spells, that were in the old games - most of the DnD spells are in. I would say the game reminds me a lot of DAO and it has already in EA more impactful decisions than some finished games I play.

All the companions are very well written and the interactions with them is objectively better than BG ones; it's not just a conversation randomly popping up at timed intervals or in spesific situations/when sleeping, though there is that too. Of course whether we like them is a different matter. And non-companion characters are to a large degree very well done too imo.

The DA:O comparison is on point when I think about it, definitely for the conversations at least, with the narrator added for good measure.

And yes, I think you should be able to love BG3 regardless of not being a D:OS fan. If you haven't played those a lot you won't be doing subconcious comparisons nearly as much as a lot of us do.

The spells should be familiar, they're good old D&D stuff (or newer, depending on what your last D&D game was) for the most part, though there may be some mechanical changes that feel new. For instance the awesome Magic Missiles now lets you target where each missile goes, so you could put all 5 on one guy or spread them across targets. Silence is a persistent area of effect rather than an instant effect debuff. Area manipulation using fire/water/poison etc. like in D:OS certainly exists still but it's not necessarily part of every fight and you don't need to rely on it.

You don't necessarily have to add more space.
Reorganizing the act 1 areas on top of eventually rework them a bit could already have been enough.
In exemple the act1 map as a whole doesn't necessarily have to be ""a square"" and the swamp could have been a "buffer zone" between the grove and the blighted village.

It could also have been a part of the forest so we would have a "real" forest rather than a forest and a swamp that are neither a forest nor a swamp because of their size.

The fast travel system does not have to be teleportation portals that doesn't really make sense in the world.


Definitely. I never have been a huge fan of DoS and I'm in love with BG3 even if some design choices of Larian are really wierd to me.

Don't be afraid of surfaces effects... it has nothing to do wirh DoS. Some spells will create a few surfaces but not so much. You will find DnD 5e spells... a lot were already in BG1/2 even if most have changed a bit.

Hey, that's not what I said at *all*!

It is a sequel. It is, it's just not about Gorion's Ward. Some of Charname's best friends are there to help you out, though. Bhaal has something to do with it, too -although nobody knows exactly what. A lot of people argue that your teammates are evil bastards, but I beg to differ. They're not Captain America, but none are truly evil. They have their own motivations. Aside from that, the best party combinations in classic BG - if you could pull it off - had a mix of alignments in them. Korgan in the front, Keldorn in the back. Edwin taking out the big bads, Aerie keeping the smallfry at bay. This game offers more of that. The characters are the main point here.


I don't really care much for the DOS games, honestly. I didn't care for the tone and the setting. Haven't finished either of them. I have more time in BG3 Early Access than I have in both DOS games combined. The only true similarities is that it uses the environment heavily. That includes barrels of grease and water; but more so light and darkness and verticality.

Look. The Pathfinder Games, Pillars of Eternity - those are carbon copies of how-the-game-is-played-and-presented. It's not that. In the slightest. But contrary to what some will say, it's certainly not DOS3 either.

You mean, like Fireball or Cloudkill? Classic BG relied heavily on elemental damage types. Anyway.
You can be effective in this game without resorting to elemental damage entirely. There are exploding barrels, and you can freeze or electrify water - but that's about it. Spells you liked in Classic BG, are in this, too. Grease, Mirror Image, Polymorph, Glyph of Warding, Magic Missile, Charm etc; but it's the updated version of D&D so you'll see new ones too. And, it being a 3D game, you can fly, or feather-fall, turn into a bird and fly and more. Summon your mage hand to quietly unlocka door from a distance - It's quite expansive. But there's no nonsense like 'hide in a barrel and walk around like one'

Edit: Oh, and my personal favorite spell: Speak with Animals. Holy crap, that is fun. All the animals in the game have something to say; some more than others. But, it's also a good showcase of reactivity. You can speak with a bunch of Giant Spiders as a ranger and get some of the coolest voice acting and writing ever - Or talk to them with your Llolth-sworn Drow and they'll immediately bend the knee eightfold.

There might be more direct plot connection later down the line, but that’s the best way of thinking of it. Call it “reimagining” of the series, rather than the continuation.

Well you give me some hope that I could enjoy the game. I think I'll just decide on release day wether I feel like purchasing it or not. Thank you for all the responses

One thing to be aware of is that if you order the PC version before release day, you get a free upgrade to Digital Deluxe Edition, which includes some special in-game items, a digital art book and some other goodies. You can find details if you scroll down in the FAQ here. Personally, I don't think the additions are good enough to warrant buying the game early if you think you might not enjoy it, but just wanted to make sure you're aware that buying post release would mean you missed out on the free upgrade. I don't know how much more Digital Deluxe will cost than the standard edition from 3 Aug.

If you want BG feeling play the Pathfinder games.
BG3 is a Larian game with all the Larian nonsense, just with a bigger budget

I played through the DOS games, and you are correct that they did a poor job of storytelling, and the character "relationships" were hollow.

There is an hour long video of just interactions with one character that won't spoil a ton as it is from an earlier build from a couple years back. You can see how the conversations play out. I wouldn't watch a ton of it if you don't want some basic spoilers for the first 15% of the game.

The 31 minute mark is the scene I mentioned earlier. If you start there, you can see a bit of it and the follow up. This was from before they brought in the team of cinematic experts, who only made things better in the most recent couple of patches.

Youtube.com/watch?v=5_arobX0F2A

After I played Bg3 I couldn't play DOS1 or 2 anymore because BG3 is so much better.

However, and I am sure you know this - quite a few characters are coming back from Bg1 and possibly quite a bit more that you may not know about.

It's quite possible we may see a certain
Have you tried playing Bg1 and 2 recently?

You can't go home again, as the saying goes.

I really tried, though. Wanted to play BG1EE up to BG2EE ToB - especially considering that I never played the EE of ToB.
But I just can't really get into it. Partly because having the story and most of walkthroughs memorized, partly because I dislike the mechanic side.
Even the character generation, which I found awesome 20 years ago, feel overly restrictive. Especially playing evil is so meh.

I am the person that likes to play a character that is at least partially similiar to me, so certain stuff like the over-importance of Dexterity is annoying.


But, like I said earlier, BG is a very different thing to different persons. So someone who might still enjoy BG a lot today, might just not be interested in the options that BG3 offers over BG1&2. So to them it is still fun to play and has lost nothing of its radiance.

OP, you mentioned earlier that it's important to you to be able to care about the characters. I think I can say with confidence that you most likely will.

I'm sure browsing the forums you've seen any number of discussions of aspects of the companions. Everybody's opinion of which companions they prefer and for what reason differ of course, but the only "the companions are all terribly written" takes I've seen have come from folks who aren't actually playing in EA.

First impressions are the most important for me.
I do not want to be told, "wait wait 20 hours in he will be GREAT!"

The first impressions I get from nearly ALL BG3's companions are bad. I did not play the game past 3 hours, not to spoil myself, but thats my limit to judge such a thing.
Having more companion options would of been great, but oh well we are stuck with this lot.
Unfortunaly, unlike past Baldurs gate games, mods cannot change that fact.

Notable exeption, "newly written" Wyl and the Bear guy (hopefully...) Still not sure who the fourth member will be...but my main gaming party will probably be :
ME, Jaheira, Mynsc and Wyl.

No. Which isn't to say it's a bad game, necessarily...I fully expect it to be really, really good. But playing EA has evoked certain feelings...as another poster put it 'you can't go home again'. BG III, by Larian's own admission in the newest interview *IS NOT* a sequel to BG I+II. It uses the city, and the events of the first two games sorta 'set the stage' for the setting, but it isn't really a continuation. I don't really get the feeling it wants to be a 'spiritual successor' either. Everything about the game just feels so radically different, I struggle to find a common touchstone in the game to remind me of the old game. It feels like it has more DOS2 DNA than BG if anything.

To be honest, I bounced off of 4e and 5e *hard*. As settings, as rulesystems, just WoTC's general design philosophy, to be honest. BG III reminds me *constantly* that I'm playing a Larian game, that I'm playing a 5e D&D game, and honestly I think it does a very poor job of reconciling the differences between those aspects and what came before.

For a game which basically only exists because of nostalgia and name recognition of a foundational and iconic series that concluded nearly a quarter-century ago, I'm not feeling what was great about the OG saga echoed in BGIII.

There's just too many elements, the setting, the way Larian plays extremely loose with the lore, the jank, design decisions that constantly break immersion (giant rolling dice in the middle of the screen, the 'MMO quest reward' pop-up boxes, etc), The use of spectacle, novelty and gonzo elements of the setting, the whole origins system, the main plot, etc. Even the stuff I love, there's just so much going on that feels so very counter to the original saga, it's basically impossible for me to put them in the same boat.

BG III feels to me like the 'Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance' games for the PS2: I might love them, but they feel like fundamentally different animals.

Fair enough. I myself was more lucky since I found some of them more ..pleasant. But I heard that Shadowheart hat a more rude introduction before I joined EA. I personally find Gale highly dislikeable, don't like his tendency to assume he is the smartest in the room, but I the teeth-clenched teamwork dynamic works with him - for myself. Lae'zel is someone I neither like nor trust. Astarion is met with distrust and is one of the few characters I can not see myself sparing on a non-evil playthrough.

Wyll and Karlach where decent introductions - well Karlachs first reaction is understandable since she is bleeding.

So yeah, long story short - I was lucky that I had a better first impression, but I totally understand your point.
And about the 20 hours thing, I actually agree.
Astarion, for example,
Probably why I doubt I will ever try Dark Urge (even on an evil playthrough), the entire character seems so unpleasent and like an abomination that I do not want to see that story - even if it ends in a full heartwarming redemption story at the end!




(I hope the quote works, the forum is giving me trouble.)

I mean... unless you are playing a sub-optimal wizard build, he is almost certainly the smartest one in the room.