Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback My final EA review

Over the years Baldur's Gate series has been my go to series to make me feel like I'm in high school again. The nostalgia in these titles, and especially the first one, is real. The importance of these games on a personal level can't be overstated. So I'm afraid that if you are looking for an objective review, you should look elsewhere.

Larian does most things in this game competently. The presentation is top notch, visually it looks stunning and the voice acting is evocative, albeit a bit over the top sometimes. If you want to show off a stunning game on your brand new PC, fire up Baldur's Gate III. The first Chapter in early access has the polish of a finished game after more than 2 years of tinkering.

Unfortunately for an RPG this is a sideshow to the main draws: the story and the mechanics. All this competence does not translate to the writing of the NPC's and the main story.
*spoilers* The story starts with the mistake many new DM's make: it goes too big and completely over the top from the start. It throws mind flayers, intellect devourers, spelljamming vessels, Githyanki and even that kitchen sink at the player. As the player, you are thrown in a story that goes way over your head with a ticking time bomb attached to it. It is just too much to swallow with no build up or backstory for yourself. Remember Baldur's Gate 1? The Prologue told you everything about your character. You were a nobody in Candlekeep. From your interactions with others there, you figured out who you were and were supposed to be. That's the RP part in RPG. The stakes didn't seem to be that high too. There was an iron crisis in the background, but it was mostly about you fleeing impending personal danger. How you would fit into the story would unfold gradually and masterfully. There were no elven semi-vampires accompanying you on the road, it was you and a whole bunch of nobodies whose stories still had to be written.
So for me the entirety of the BG3 is off putting from the get go sadly. And the very very slow turn based combat, lack of immersion and just weird lore/world building decisions does not help at all.
Great if you love the game, I am just burned out and now disappointed knowing that things would most likely not change at all until release.
Its been a fun ride though, time to move on

Your critisism has some merits, I also have problems with being immediately in the middle of everything or the saviour of the world. For example I never could accept being the person in PoE2 (I did not play PoE1) and following a weird god while exploring a Caribbean holiday area. Or being the Dragonborn in Skyrim or a searching farther in Fallout 4.

On the other hand the design is partly the fault of DnD in general. The "heroes" of this universe are very quickly super beings who mainly do the big stuff, sadly. The setting you describe for BG1 sounds bucolic but how can a group of nobodies become semi-gods over the small timeframe a game takes place? Which they do. That's actually nonsense, more nonsense than to be accompanied by a vampiric elf and been confronted with mind flayers at start.
Obviously the mind flayers are not the main threat of the game, at least I hope so. They are overused as "the enemy" and boring, and that's of course also the "fault" of earlier good games which used them. BTW I never had to confront a mind flayer in the game, it's maybe bad design to have them in the tutorial on board of the ship, but it is also bad gameplay if the player tries to fight them (or get Everburn) instead of fleeing from the ship.

It's too early to judge about the story. It could become very good or a total desaster, depending on what is in the background and why you are there and with such companions, and what is to be done. Maybe there are reasons beyond randomness for certain events and setings? Ok, judging from the experience of D:OS2 I haven't the highest hopes or trust in Larian that we get an ingenious story, but let's wait and see. It's certainly easier for me to say that and wait because I don't have nostalic BG feelings and prefer turn based combat absolutely over the messy rtc stuff from the earlier games or competitors.

While the "chosen one" narrative is a cliché, I would consider the "nobody" narrative a cliché too. It is really a matter of taste. My guess is that everyone following you not being a blank slate is deeply tied to the plot in a way we can't fully grasp with only the part of act 1 currently available.

What semi-god are you at the end of BG1 ?

Sure it is a "small timeframe" but after hours (and days/months in game time) you're still far from being able to fight mindflayer and bulette and drows and so on.
Things are brought a lot more slowly and the plot as a whole develop a lot more gradualy.

We don't have the full story yet but in my opinion the plot in BG3 act 1 come to a end a lot too fast. There's no more surprise /reveal after 3 to 4 gameplay hours.
(Especially if you're not playing with the tadpole and don't even have the dreams).



What other game could have a reason to have a logo designed entirely arround mindflayer ?
In BG2 we only see them for a few hours (1 map dungeon) because we are forced to go in the underdark but they are not really part of the main plot.

I think for myself, all that really matters is the platform, and its potential as a springboard for all kinds of other adventures.

I am interested in he main BG3 storyline, but I am even more interested in what may come after that. I do love a good "starting from nothing and being nobody" plotline that can lead to greatness.

Different artists, and teams may have a chance to create their own stories with their own flavor. Until he final platform releases we won't know what we have.

You should play PoE1 then. Not only is it a great game but it starts off from a very grounded place and the stakes never get to world-threatening level. Plus if you play it it becomes way easier to see why come 2 you're the one who gets tasked with chasing Eothas.

In general with regard to the story of the game I agree with Turnip though. The game goes to hard too soon. It would have been better to start with a slower burn, more mystery. Instead it throws so much at us right away that it makes it hard to fully buy into the low key stuff happening in the beginning of act 1. I think the problem with showing the big stuff at the start is that our PC is the one experiencing it. I think it could have worked if we were seeing purely from another character's perspective. It's like Star Wars, the first one. We open with a pretty frenetic and action-packed openning that presents how big the ultimate conflict of the universe is, but then we move to the perspective of a simple farmboy who doesn't really know about all that. We the audience know what's out there, but our viewpoint character doesn't, which helps to keep them grounded and allows us to feel the impact of their escalation while also letting us the audience feel excited for when they experience the larger world we know is waiting for them. It creates a dramatic tension. BG3 doesn't build that tension because our character has already experienced it, and we don't even get to express our feelings about it all that much. We get to talk about the tadpole somewhat, but our character went to Hell, that should ellicit some reaction.

I don't really agree. I have seen plenty of player groups very hyped by what they saw when starting the game. This immersed them very quickly into the adventure and transmitted the feeling of urgency where a slow opening would have had more difficulty to. I don't feel like a slow opening would have fitted such narrative.

A feeling of urgency which is soon displaced by "don't worry, the tadpole doesn't affect you or your companions on the same way it does everyone else (without explaining why) so feel free to go about your merry business". Which in my humble opinion is not an example of particularly good or immersive writing. Horses for courses though, as they say.

In a sense though, you nailed it with the word 'hype' because I feel the game has an awful lot of that surface level appeal (the cinematics, voiced dialogue etc.) but for some, once you scratch beneath the glossy surface it is a bit lacking.

Sorry to pile in but I think you're being a bit hyperbolic here. No character or companion in BG1 becomes a demi-God. Characters in BG1 reach level 8-10 if I remember correctly?

The only character in the original BG games who evolves into something eventually approaching a Demi-God is our player character but that seems mostly on account of his rather interesting background (didn't want to post spoilers here). The game doesn't not seem to imply taking place over a short time frame either.

😂 I had to look that phrase up!

Don't take it too literally. It's enough that you are able to cast fireball as a nobody after a few days/months. I don't blame either game story system, there are always illogical inconsistencies with leveling systems, not only in DnD or other RPG variants. Take the Total War series, it is usually total nonsense to start in the given timeframes as a small undeveloped faction, it is however necessary to have the fun experience of progressing.



That's indeed a problem. I don't like time limits and was quite worried after EA release about each rest and delay because of the tadpole. When I realised that the tadpole is not such an urgent problem, I was relieved but also baffled. However the game tries to avoid the terrible story fault f.e. Fallout 4 has (FIND your son, but no problem if you first do this and that for a very long time) by giving hints that the tadpole is not a normal tadpole. Generally I'm not a fan of such "urgent duty" stories (btw the tadpole smells like the heavy version of the collar from D:OS2 Act 1), but let's see what is in the background.

You are not a nobody class wise in BG1/2. You have been teached for years at candlekeep. This is why you are a level 1 *class* and not a total nobody. Then you progress slowly when you are using your skills for real (>< training).

In total war 1 turn is 6 months in game time. Buildings usually takes years to be build, units takes months to train and armies move slowly between towns and villages.
It may never be fully "realistic" but at least it is consistent / coherent.

The "in game time" data in BG3 is mostly inexistant and so is our character background so I don't really understand why you raised this point.

Such an epic opening could not be a problem in my opinion but as Gray Ghost said : only if it was another character's point of view and if the story slowly makes you understand why this is linked to your character (main character development).
Another solution could be to make everything coming next even more epic but in the end it would be nauseating.

Our character(s) development in act 1 is way too short (to inexistant). The only thing we learn is that as a few other chosen characters in the world : we are not going turn into mindflayer... and you learn that very soon.

This is very true, a DnD character just can't be a nobody default since a level 1 character is already more powerful that the vast majority of the common folk. Even at that level, you have a background that explain why you can cast spells or handle weapons.

I would love for this background to be featured more in BG3, right now it barely matter what you chose except for a small bonus in checks and some rare dialogue when you pick Baldurian.

Amen to the above post. Anything that adds flavour, backstory wtc. to flesh out a custom PC is a must.

It is, if you start looking similarities they are very real.

1) Both start on a ship, captured
2) You have something important to remove.
3) The ship gets destroyed by an outside force
4) Instead of dying you're "saved" by a mysterious presence
5) you recruit your companions on the beach
6) You arrived in a Ghetto

See?

What worries me most, is that storywise could happen the same as DOS2, started good and interesting in the first acts and then it would probably go down the drain mid act and ending.

-"The story starts with the mistake many new DM's make: it goes too big and completely over the top from the start. It throws mind flayers, intellect devourers, spelljamming vessels, Githyanki and even that kitchen sink at the player. As the player, you are thrown in a story that goes way over your head with a ticking time bomb attached to it. It is just too much to swallow with no build up or backstory for yourself."

That's exactly how I see it as well, the story is way "too much" and it really gives me "on rails" / "themepark" feeling no matter what I try on the map. The story felt like as if I was playing DnD with my friends in middle school. Storywise, I feel like there are far too many similarities to DOS2. Gale feels like Fane without being an undead. It's almost like Larian thought "hey DOS2 was a great success, let's just apply the same story formula into Forgotton Realms setting".

Character races / backgrounds: I always play high elf, and love high fantasy, and diversity but even for Forgotten Realms the characters are "way too much". Vampire high elf, half elf priestess of Shar, Githyanki, another Fane copy (Gale) from DOS2, and so on.. we are not in Astral Plane or Seldarine where everyone's related to elves.

Map: Feels too much like a themepark, nothing like in BG 1&2, Icewind Dale, NWN, Dragon Age, etc. It's just like DOS2; once you're done with a few playthroughs it loses its charm; because at that point the player is aware of all the "gotcha" traps, I really tried to shake this feeling away but couldn't do it as of my 2nd playthrough.

Another thing that bothers me is how maps are laid out; it's like a maze full of things going on. Almost feels like an MMO quest hub with all the quest markers filling the minimap, everywhere. Exploration shouldn't mean players should run into dozens of things with each step.


Combat: I know this is a DnD game, been playing DnD easily over 20 years; but here combat feels slllloooooowww.... and very very annoying. I think combat is the weakest part of the game. There are times I feel like I should just cheese the fights, which ties into my first point - the story. From a level 1 DnD player you can't help but ask yourself: "hey shouldn't mindflayers appear maybe a liiiittle bit later?" The story wouldn't surprise me if it forced players to deal with a black dragon in Underdark in Chapter 1.. I found myself saving the game all the time, because some dice rolls are plain PITA and make the game PITA in return. Yes, I ended up save scumming several times just to experience what it's like to play a character that can at least wipe his a$$, at least for once!

Getting to higher ground due to combat mechanics is .. sooo DOS2. I get it; it's nice but it somewhat devolves combat into "check your surroundings, get to high ground, miss, miss, critical miss, load to try the same strategy as game is obviously telling you to burn the oil barrels next to enemy NPCs"

Cutscenes: Do we really need them for every single thing? I mean; I don't have to see NPCs nodding after I ask them to see their wares. From a player's perspective, it gives me that "hmokthxbye" feeling everytime I see awkward cutscenes.


Once the game comes out, I will start and finish it (hoping combat won't be as painful) but I can't see this being as replayable as BG 1&2, NWN series, etc.