I agree that it’s too early to be certain, though I do think BG3 is likely to be a better game to play in 2023. But I also think that, with two decades’ worth of video game development to build on in addition to standing on the shoulders of BG1&2 themselves, it damn well should be.
I played the first two BG games when they came out and have tended to run through them at least every year or so since. And much as I love them, and believe they set a standard that’s hard to beat in many ways, they’re not perfect and there are certainly areas where BG3 could improve on them if it lives up to its promise. Comparing it with BG2 specifically (excluding the ToB expansion):
- The main plot of BG2 is pretty slight and only tangentially related to the character arc of the protagonist. The bulk of the game is spent running around doing unrelated quests until we can give some NPC what they want in order to get us where we need to go. I’m glad that BG3 appears to be focusing more tightly on discovering and dealing with a main threat, more like BG1 whose central storyline I rate more highly though I think BG2 is a better game overall.
- It doesn’t matter that BG2’s main plot is thin when there’s so much other fun stuff, and relatively few tedious fetch-quests. BG3 seems also to be trying to give us a variety of memorable stories, large and small, and while it remains to be seen whether it succeeds, I think the indications aren’t bad. I’m particularly impressed with the way so many potentially generic enemies have different characters and stories. There were some hints of that in BG2 but Larian are going all in on trying to make every character and encounter meaningful.
- BG2 was a huge step forward when it came to richness of companion content and interaction, but it was uneven. Jaheira had way more story, for example, than most other companions. Plus romance options were skewed to heterosexual males of some races. BG3 has the opportunity to have multiple companions with stories as rich as BG2 Jaheira’s, and to have a choice of satisfying romance arcs for any players/characters that want them. So far, I’m finding the BG3 companions mostly engaging, but they’re not as diverse as I’d like (where are the shorter races?), the party dynamic isn’t quite coming off and a lot is going to come down to how they develop in the full game, but I remain hopeful.
- Too often successful combat at normal difficulty in BG2 involved having your party just do their default weapon attack against one enemy at a time, or chucking in a couple of fireballs from just out of sight. And then kiting around with your weaker characters when they attracted aggro. I find BG3 combat far more engaging, with a lot more reason to understand and experiment with different spells, special abilities and tactics.
- BG2 was of course based on D&D, but often kept this under the bonnet. BG3 wears its D&D colours much more openly, I feel, and while this in some ways leads to a more stylised experience that’s not everyone’s cup of tea, I’m totally here for it. And as someone who has only played computer RPGs, BG3 has got me thinking about the experience of PnP D&D and even watching some streamed TTRPG sessions in a way other cRPGs never have.
- While we could choose race and class, we didn’t have any real choice about the pre-game history of our BG1&2 protagonist, and it doesn’t make much story sense to think of them other than as a young adult (and even some races raise questions given the protagonist’s parentage is at least half fixed). BG3 is giving us a lot more options, and though each origin character individually looks as though they’re going to be less flexible than Gorion’s Ward, collectively and when added to the ability to create a pretty much blank slate custom character we have so much more choice. As has been discussed elsewhere, Larian will have their work cut out to bring custom characters in particular convincingly to life, but I for one am glad they’re trying.
- BG3 does way more than BG2 in terms of letting us roleplay our class and background and use our skills in dialogue and as we explore. Then there’s the ability to make use of non-combat spells like Speak with Dead and Disguise Self in BG3 that I’m loving. And the mechanics around stealing/crime and paladin oathbreaking that don’t work anything near perfectly yet, but BG2 didn’t even try to do anything so ambitious.
- BG2 didn’t have a huge amount in the way of meaningful choices that could change the world in different ways (or perhaps I just end up picking the same options too often!). It’s too early to tell, but if we see increasing ripples from what we do in BG3 as we progress through the story that are noticeably different on replaying then that could be an improvement. Given a few characters we meet in EA will potentially be in Baldur’s Gate (or not) and might have different opinions of us based on our actions, it feels as though there’s potential here. (Plus of course BG2 didn’t reflect choices made in BG1 so if BG3 has expansions or a sequel that lets us take our characters through to level 20 there’s a big opportunity for improvement there!)
- Obviously BG3 looks much better, which can help immersion. Though it can also lead to less willingness to use our imagination and increased expectations of realism, so despite the advantage of more advanced technology Larian may need to do more in some ways than BioWare to get the same level of engagement.
There’s also of course a long list of things BG2 does well that the bit of BG3 we’ve seen doesn’t give us the opportunity to compare. For example, getting to explore Athkatla was amazing, and I hope we’ll get a similar feel from Baldur’s Gate once we reach it. There were also some NPCs that we could build ongoing relationships with, and hopefully BG3 will also have this (and do it better). BG3 will also hopefully give us access to some sort of home base later in the game, as BG2 did reasonably successfully.
TL;DR I don’t know yet whether I’m going to think BG3 is better than BG2, but I think I will if it continues to focus on things I see as strengths in areas where I felt BG2 had room for improvement.
