Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Time to STOP

I think you're being presumptuous if you think Larian is going to announce their next game that soon. No way they aren't going to have several bits of DLC coming out post-release, including at least one significiant story DLC, probably more.

*rant on*

I think the people are fed up.

The genre is stuck in the 90s and 20 year old technolgical limitations are selled as core mechanics.

Nostalgia is strong, people buy Divinity and Pillars of Eternity, nice games, but gameplay can be a hassle.
Divinity2 and Pillers of Eternity2 have bad sales, to fresh are the memories.

BG3 will never be a new Gold "Standard" for a whole Genre because it looks backwards the whole time.

*rant of*

Hope the game sells good, i like the Studio. Funny the best game for me is Divinity 2 Ego Draconis

DOS2 had great sales. It sold millions of copies.

I am not in agreement that BG3 looks backwards. It is an evolution of the genre - the system its based on - the Divinity Engine - won Universal Acclaim.

BG1 and 2 with its RTWP systems are the deprecated systems. Bg1 was RTWP because that's all they had the budget for. Its a cheap system.

Did Divinity OS2 have bad sales? That's certainly not the impression that I got. I know Deadfire underperformed though.
The CRPG genre does have a habit of looking back, but I think that's for a specific reason. In the 00's, detailed 2D isometric environments gave way to 3D over-the-shoulder environments with the post-Infinity Engine games of Bioware being a prime example, or the shift between Beyond Divinity and Divinity II. I think a large part of the change in environments was rooted in new technology and its appeal, much like surrealist artists taking up the use of photoshop in the 90's simply because it was new technology (discussed in this excellent video ). It is difficult to understate the impact of 3D "open" worlds that came about because of Super Mario 64 (1996), Ocarina of Time (1998), Shenmue (1999), GTA III (2001), and Morrowind (2002). I think a lot of people feel that as a result of the 3D craze of the 00's, something else was lost. There is certainly a nostalgia factor that holds back the CRPG genre in this department, however. But I would say that DOS is less a victim of this nostalgia factor than PoE. Before the CRPG renaissance, all (western, some eastern) RPGs were headed in the direction of what one might call "ARPG-Soup," in that they all had the common features of real time combat (usually with no pause) based on a smaller set of easily accessible abilities that kept combat fast-paced and action-y. The camera was always over the shoulder or first person. The environments always 3D zones, often either open worlds or hub worlds with cinematics. These also featured full voice acting. If the trend towards ARPG soup is a case of convergent evolution, I think the CRPG renaissance is something like backbreeding (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Breeding_back) an old species in the hopes of eventual divergent evolution. While there are certain features of 3D Open World RPGS that I would like incorporated into the genre, I am interested in seeing the kind of features which can be put into this old-new-RPG. I think slower, more tactical combat is part of it. I think terrain and varied effects are part of it. Greater replayability and run-diversity. Hopefully more dialogue-driven storytelling eventually. A return to more roleplaying options in your character with dialogue. De-emphasizing filler encounters and events. A resistance to procedural generation? An emphasis on caution and slowing the player down instead of making paths longer and filling it with random bullshit. We shall see where it goes, but I do think it is time to leave the early 00's and the 90's behind and to look at the 2010's CRPGs and RPGs as the main influences.

If talking about technical things like graphics and engine. BG3 have improved graphics from DOS2. BG3 is at least slightly better graphics then DOS2.
Well and look at me did DOS1 or DOS2 ever bring me to the forums? No have never been DOS fan and because it is Dungeons Dragons and Baldurs Gate 3.

At the same time in the thread I created "What other games to play then BG3"... and I have proved I even like MMO:S.
BG3 engine beats DOS 2 ,but nothing out there that I know of beats UNREAL 5 engine. Cyberpunk Ray tracing? Unreal 5 can do same effects as Ray tracing with new technology and clearly less system requirements. UNREAL 5 engine beats BG3 engine but BG3 is towards end of it production line to change to UNREAL 5 now would be wrong and create long time delay and lets keep the current engine and full release at August 2023. BG3 will have enough good graphics though if speak of best engine I would say Unreal 5 engine is that.

Only MMO:s use Unreal 5? No lots of upcoming single player games will use the very powerful Unreal 5 engine and even the next Witcher whenever that will be released will use Unreal 5 engine at least that is the current plan.
"Both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher series were developed on an in-house game engine called RED Engine. Starting with The Witcher 4, CD Projekt RED will switch to Unreal Engine 5, collaborating with Epic Games."

RPGs (even rather forward looking ones like D:OS1&2 and Disco Elysium) tend to look back, as RPGs haven't been made since 2000s, and they are nieche titles developed on fraction of budget your average AAA release gets.

I also find it is hilarious to claim that RPGs are stuck in the past, while OP asks for the same game that has seen multiple releases per year for over 10 years now.

This is also true.
I think we can see the impact of GTA IV (2008), Minecraft (2009-11), Red Dead Redemption (2010), Skyrim (2011), Borderlands 2 (2012), GTA V (2013), and The Witcher 3 (2015) on gaming as a whole. If you look at these pages https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_games and https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_best-selling_video_game_franchises all of the above titles are on it. Open or semi-open world crafting ARPG sandboxes have taken over the genre as a whole. So much so that previously successful video game franchises which were not originally open world ARPG sandboxes adapted their features, like Assassin's Creed and Halo. Even former shooter powerhouses like Call of Duty have given way to Battle Royale shooters which emphasize structures, survival, and world traversal over shooting in an arena. Even Breath of the Wild did away with most of its dungeons in exchange for more open world activity.

First of all, they already made the games you ask for(Divinity II) i think they made 3 games in that series. (really good games btw).

Second, if a company (Larian Studeos) have a huge success with one type of games (Turn based in this case), and people are SCREAMING for more, why the frack would you risk throwing all this away, when you know there is a HUGE market and you are litterly the king of making those games?

Third - What fizzwick said

Well, I also not in favour of milking an IP or never branching out creatively. However, there were major changes in structure between D:OS1&D:OS2, and while a lot was transferred from D:OS2 to BG3 it is still a fresh title with new ruleset and many new features. Larian definitely doesn’t strike me as a studio making safe bets. I am also not opposed to them trying something different. But another open world action game? If they have a great concept for one, sure. But I would hate for them to go all Bioware and loose their identity chasing popular trends.

What (new) direction would you (or anyone else) prefer Larian to take the RPG?
I think they've invested a lot in turn-based immersive sim. I'd like more exploration and some light sandbox features. But there are other ways to go too. Grand Strategy, dating sim (joking), larger scale Coop, dungeon crawler...?

When I said different, I meant different. Like creative assembly doing Alien Isolation.

Anything I am going to suggest would be a worse choice financially than whay they are doing now, as I prefer focused titles, over massive games that do everything but nothing outstandingly well. I would be happy if they took any individual element of their current titles (story driven game/coop multiplayer/turn based tactical combat/systemic sandbox) and build a game around one of them, really focusing on making it as good as it gets.

Though I really believe it is for the best if devs can make something they are passionate about. Obsidian has done Pentiment and Grounded, which is definitely not what I would wish from the studio at any point, but both seem like great titles (Pentiment I can vouch for, Grounded I just gave a go recently, and honestly first impressions have been surprisingly positive considering it's a survival crafting game).

Even Witcher 3 (2015) is old now.

What is best graphics and engine now? UNREAL 5 engine !!!

Well and my nickname when did I start to use it?? It is from UNREAL multiplayer time!! Well and personally I like very much Terminator 1 and 2 the first two movies made:

"Both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher series were developed on an in-house game engine called RED Engine. Starting with The Witcher 4, CD Projekt RED will switch to Unreal Engine 5, collaborating with Epic Games."" That is NEW INFO from December 2022 they said that!!! Nothing out there beat UNREAL 5!!! Unreal 5 excellent graphics and ok system requirements!!! It is the best graphics . Oh you still need like ok/good gaming computer yes, but excellent graphics and very done system requirements!

However I think it ok that BG3 will not have best UNREAL 5 engine. If Larian would buy now UNREAL 5 gor BG3 then this game will not be done in August 2013 and instead much later. At least BG3 is slightly better graphics then DOS2.

@Terminator "Best" might mean different things for different studios though. Definitely more companies these days opt to use existing engines (Unreal, Unity etc.) over their own, and while creating your own engine is a massive investment, I wonder what the benefits are.

With cRPGs being a very nieche genre, the question I think needs answering is, it Unreal would be a good fit for an RPG. One can't forget about BioWare and frostbite engine, which while great for First-Person Shooter, lacked some basic functionality required to build an RPG.

I also can't help but notice that games that tend to have robust mod support also tend to be build on custom engines.

Being a top down game, BG3 would never be an eye candy like first or third person game. The game just isn't build around dazzling players with visuals like let's say God of War.

I would be very interested in hearing what benefit studio like Larian has in building their own engine, over using a another one.

Mostly being able to reuse code and APIs specific to the turn based CRPG genre instead of having to create those from scratch on a generic engine. The "best" engine for a company will always be the one which will be the most profitable in the long term. That is why Bethesda keep reusing Gamebryo even for future release like Starfield, if it ain't broke, don't fix it.

Cyberpunk Ray tracing? Unreal 5 can do same effects as Ray tracing with new technology and clearly less system requirements. UNREAL 5 engine beats BG3 engine but BG3 is towards end of it production line to change to UNREAL 5 now would be wrong and create long time delay and lets keep the current engine and full release at August 2023. BG3 will have enough good graphics though if speak of best engine I would say Unreal 5 engine is that.

Only MMO:s use Unreal 5? No lots of upcoming single player games will use the very powerful Unreal 5 engine and even the next Witcher whenever that will be released will use Unreal 5 engine at least that is the current plan.
"Both Cyberpunk 2077 and The Witcher series were developed on an in-house game engine called RED Engine. Starting with The Witcher 4, CD Projekt RED will switch to Unreal Engine 5, collaborating with Epic Games."

Even Dungeons Dragons MMO will use Unreal 5:
Dungeons Dragons MMO (Neverwinter ONLINE exist, but it is outdated) with Unreal 5 graphics. Developed in USA.
Release date?: Unknown Guess 2025-2028. Even the name is unknown for this MMO.

However how to to use UNREAL 5 if have like BG1 or BG2 I do not know. However it is the best graphics you can do and system ok ok system requirements.

Why would so many really many buy UNREAL 5 for much money? Because it is best. I do not say UNREAL 4 was best even before long time before UNREAL 5, but UNREAL 5 is much better then UNREAL 4. Unreal 4 was perhaps good, but UNREAL 5 is excellent better then UNREAL 4 and more then only better graphics.

More and more buy UNREAL 5 because it is NOT only better graphics. It is powerful system requirements is ok even you would have really big battle. I do know at least 5 big budget AAA fantasy MMO that will use UNREAL 5 the first one will come during 2023 that fantasy MMO is Throne of Liberty aka Lineage 3 MMO full release during 2023. That is actually the very first UNREAL 5 engine fantasy MMO that will be full release.

Other games that are not fantasy MMO that would be a very long list of games that will use UNREAL 5 however example solo fantasy game Witcher 4 will use Unreal 5.

Unreal 5 is of course an engine and graphics. Of course artist make could create different worlds with that engine and you could argue some Unreal 5 games will have better looking world then as another Unreal 5 game world. One reason WOW MMO was successful because it was not realistic graphics the people liked the art the Style they did WOW MMO. If you go on saying which painting is best in an art gallery oh well I refuse to argue with that and there is also subjective taste.

Unreal 5 is for gaming PC and the very best consoles.
In fact EPIC has already have show where they showed Unreal 5 engine on Playstation 5. Well and game developers have used it for PC games. Unreal 5 is not for older consoles like Playstation 4. Well and best Xbox should run Unreal 5 engine at least I believe so.

I agree 120%!

I think we need to assess Larian's true strengths and goals in the last ten years. In the last decade we have had:
-Divinity: Dragon Commander (2013), an RPG political simulator with turn-based and real-time strategy features, featuring coop and competitive. Immersive decision-making focused.
-Divinity: Original Sin (2014-2015), an isometric RPG with immersive sim-like features and turn-based combat, along with coop. Emphasizes elemental effects and terrain in combat. Also had high level of interactivity with clutter.
-Divinity: Original Sin 2 (2017-2018), an isometric RPG like the previous game, but with a more serious and focused story and more in-depth characters. More decision-making and immersive sim-like traits, along with new means of traversal. Brought in a degree of non-linearity relative to preceding games. Introduced pre-made Origin Characters with unique storylines.
-Divinity: Fallen Heroes (2019) (Hiatus, unreleased), unknown, likely a mix of DOS2 and Dragon Commander?
-Baldur's Gate 3 (2023), an isometric-lite RPG like DOS2, but with cinematics, more character-driven storytelling and deeper characters, 5e-like ruleset, more dialogue roleplaying, and much more traversal and exploration than preceding games.

Clearly, Larian's area of expertise includes strategy (typically turn-based), RPG (typically in decision-making, but other forms of roleplaying are emerging in characters and customization after DOS2), top-down or mostly top-down view, and immersive sim-like qualities.

Recently, we have seen Larian put a greater emphasis on gameplay and build customization, character-driven storytelling and cinematics, dialogue (and corresponding trees), traversal and exploration, and more serious (deeper? focused?) story (at the expense of Larian quirky humor).

I think asking Larian to throw away strategic elements from their games is a no-go. That's just not the kind of game Larian ought to be making. Larian does not make fast-paced, action-oriented, visceral combat games. And there are A LOT of other studios doing that in the RPG space ANYWAY. Larian tends to slow combat down a little to provoke decision-making from the player, as opposed to fast-paced impulse activity. The "high" level of difficulty in Fort Joy and the various difficulty options helps to cement the idea that you are supposed to think through your moves to some extent (not excessively, but you get the point). I like the direction Larian is taking with story-telling. I like the direction Larian is taking with strategic combat. I like the direction Larian is taking with dialogue, characters, and decision-making. I like the immersive sim. I even like the greater exploration and traversal options that have developed relative to previous games. What I would like to see more of would be something like interwoven consequences of previous decisions and how they affect each other. A lot of our decisions feel like they happen in a vacuum, with one self-contained consequence, and it would be nice if they coalesced in many different world-states to drive home that our approaches in an immersive-sim really do matter at every level. One decision does not a consequence make. Similarly, I would like more sprawling exploration options along with strategic decision-making on how to approach them (as we've seen in some parts of BG3). I wish Larian gave us more of the horror they are hinting at in the Hag's Lair and the Illithid Ship, along with other kinds of horror, like cosmic, psychological, or existential horror (has anyone played Soma?). I like the cinematics and I like that they haven't replaced or altered gameplay (as in some Bioware games or other story-driven "RPGs").

Larian makes strategic, choice-driven RPGs. I don't see that changing anytime soon. I just wish the choices mattered more and had greater context to make us care about them. What would others like to see Larian produce? I think strategic, choice-driven RPG casts quite a large net. But it's not a Skyrim-like (nor should it be?).

I didnt like D:OS1, so i skipped 2. But i really love BG3, so something have changed, to the better..
Bioware was great until EA came in.

Um.... is this a troll post? Spells slots has been in Dungeons and Dragons for a long time... maybe since it's inception? I know it was around when I started playing 3rd edition in the early 1990s and still exists today in 5e. It's a staple of Dungeons and Dragons. It seems to me that you just don't like the mechanics of D&D.

DOS2 is way more similar to BG3 than it is to DOS1. If you enjoy BG3 you would probably enjoy DOS2.