Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General To those who played BG2…

As unbiased as you can manage to be, do you think BG3 will be better/worse?

I’m not gonna lie… I generally hate BioWare games.

At this point, it's impossible to judge. The storyline of BG 2 with its extremely high level of detail, even in all side quests, will of course be hard to top. In terms of content, it's as detailed as an anime, in which even the secondary characters are illuminated in the best possible way. During encounters, especially with third parties, you then always had the tension in the back of your mind: how will these characters react when they meet? That's what makes the reencounters so extremely remarkable. It was an absolute satisfaction to see Neb, the disgusting child murderer, or Tazok from BG 1, whom you only met briefly and could never really "get to grips with" in the first part, then really flatten in the second part. The foresight was already good back then, they had already planned such encounters from the first part for the second part, I had the feeling.

The characters and companions were also unique and not too aloof, just strong personalities. Some characters were written in such a wonderfully conservative way that you were happy as a little schoolboy to provoke them in answer options in dialogues, just to hear their statements.

And they hired really excellent German dubbing actors back then. Nowadays that's difficult, I know. But for the immersion, that's a factor that shouldn't be underestimated. Hearing your favorite game in your native language is irreplaceable and top-notch!

These are all core points that I prefer anytime to more modern games. Only super graphics and action cinema will never replace a good storyline or attention to detail for a truly multi-faceted immersion-building gaming experience!

Let's see how BG 3 performs and feels in the end in this regard.

@ Beeber, Imagine Mass Effect series and Dragon age Origin, 20 years ago Bioware was a king of RPGs with their top-notch 2d sprite technology, and real-time Dungeons & Dragons 2.5E.
For me, Larian has picked big shoes to fill, I'm not yet sure if have they succeeded to exceed those godly expectations. Baldur's Gate 3 is a good game already, but can it be better than the
best RPG- series of all time? Only time will tell.

Today's Bioware is only a shadow of its former glory days, bullied creatives out of their company by EA and their greedy monetization practises.

It's something that I have problems to judge without inserting a constellation of caveats.

- There is a significant gap in tech between the two releases, so of course BG3 looks better...
- ...but I was generally speaking more fond of the type of aesthetic BG2 was striving for. Grounded look, no unnecessary cartoony effects and over the top animations, etc.
- I like turn-based combat FAR more than RTWP. The latter was more an acceptable compromise than an ideal to me. And I say this as someone who, all things considered, still values the combat one of the highlights of the old Infinity Engine games.
- I absolutely LOATHE the user interface in BG3 in some areas, especially hotbars, unity selection and movement
- I think games like POE, Solasta and Pathfinder all give glimpses of how an UPDATED BG2 interface would still work better and how the BG3 UI could be improved in many areas.
- despise what nostalgia could suggest some people, the old BG games were never a particularly high hallmark of quality writing and complex story telling, so not particular attachment in that sense...
- ...But I do appreciate that they started "small" rather than going bombastic from the get go with super high-tier scenarios.
- I'm not the biggest fan of the "diorama vibe" that the map is giving in BG3. Everything seems to be 20 meters away from everything else, areas "curl" on themselves, the "world" has a ridiculous compact feeling in it. Ironically the more abstract and technically simple approach used by other titles in the genre, where small areas are connected through a travel map, results far more effective in selling the illusion of scale for the world.
- BG3 is FAR more reactive to the player's input that the old BG games could ever dream to be. The amount of dialogue options, "triggers" tied to the race and class of the player, custom reactions to player's behavior (i.e. getting a different dialogue with NPCs according to from what direction you approach them, having someone acknowledge in dialogue if you pickpocketed an important item from them, etc, etc) is at time astonishing.
- At the same time Larian sometimes has a perplexing lack of middle grounds in its narrative scenarios, where you can (for instance) be offered the "murderhobo" and the "submissive pacifist" options without anything in-between.
- the lack of day/night cycle in BG3 remains a giant bummer and it's frankly an embarrassment for a "spiritual successor" that should be able to boast 20+ years of technological advancement on its side.
- Generally speaking, in this genre four-characters-parties suck unwashed ass.

All things considered I'm not sure it's fair to judge BG3 in its entirety before seeing what the final, complete game will have to offer.
So far I can only say that I have some perplexities about some puzzling design choices made up to this point, but I don't have particular doubts the final game will be at least a high profile title in the genre, if not necessarily the all-time favorite it could have the potential to become with some adjustments.

Really hard to say "better or worse" considering that we are 20 years later and that BG3 has taken a very different direction.
But in my opinion the best strenght of BG2 is the worst thing in BG3 : immersion in the world and the story.

There are a lot too much fancy things in BG3 for me to be correctly immersed.
The map is very small, the visual effects and the animations are often over the top, a lot of mechanics are inappropriate even for such a world (dipping, jumping, surfaces,...), the time is frozen and so is the life, the party members never talk together, instant teleportation is suggested at every corner, we are sleeping nowhere on the map,...

If there is a slider between immersion and gameplay, I'd say that Larian has gone a lot too far in the gameplay side for my taste without compromises that tends towards immersion / coherence.

I have no doubt : BG3 will be an awesome game and Larian has done an incredible job on many points. But I'm mostly sure I won't remember BG3 as I remember BG1 and BG2.
And it makes me really sad !

Like others mentioned, it is hard to compare those two, with only knowing a small part of BG3 so far. As long as we don't have the full game, it is hard to compare.
I do think that BG3 will be a good game. I might not be as hyped as with BG2, but I was younger and easier to impress back then.

I only played BG1. To me, BG3 is only mediocre comparing to BG1 due to the poor resources management and poor adventure pacing.

As for Bioware games, DAO is great, Mass Effect 1&2 are great. The rest of DA and the rest of ME are just terrible if not horrible. But it was not the fault of Bioware or any specific manager of Bioware. It was caused by unrestricted capitalism.

The reason why the free-market economy defeated the planned economy in 20c, was because at the production department of a social economy entity, the production decision making strategy was made differently and the free-market one won due to it was more capable to generate more varieties to cover the most consumer types. In either economy model, production decision making means risk and the consequence of such risk. This risk is that there is a chance that the consumer department doesn't like what the production department produced.

For the free-market economy practice, the decision was made by each private company and the consequence of possible loses were carried by every private company depends on each their own investment, just like the indie studios in today's gaming industry.

Meanwhile, for the planned economy practice, decision was made by some bureaucrats while the consequence of possible loses was carried by all citizen of that country, just like big game developer company's CEO and the board.

Will an indie studio develop a survival game with so many hardcore mechanics that would piss off 100% of casual gamers while pleased 50% of survival game fans? Yes, if the owner of that indie studio wants to do it.

Will a big game developer company with spread ownership of its stock shares develop that mentioned type of survival game? No. Because the board will want the final product to please that 100% of casual gamers and because even 1% of casual gamers is still in much greater number than 100% of survival game fans. The board usually don't care about the game itself, and they probably don't play survival game themselves at all. And if the CEO insisted to make that hardcore type of survival game, the board will just fire the CEO and hire a new one that don't. And this, is the fundamental reason why big game companies or legendary game studios lose their original fan base.

Even if ignoring BG3 unfinished state, I found it impossible to compare the two considering they are different games, with different appeals.

I don't expect to enjoy BG3 to the same extend that I enjoyed BG2 or other BioWare and BioWare-like RPGs. It just doesn't focus on stuff I like. And even if I enjoy it a lot, it is unlikely to be in the same ways I enjoyed BG2. For example I don't like jRPGs, but I enjoyed Persona5 a lot - if you ask me how I rate it against BG2, though I would be at a loss.

I have some concerns about BG3 player experience - I find user interface and overall lack of snapness really off putting. I feel I wrestle with the interface more than get things done. But that is my main specific point of concern for now.

To me BG3 is much better! I am sure BG2 was great for its time, but many things feel dated in it now for me. In BG3 I love the cinematic dialogue, map design, full voice acting for npcs, amount of content for companions, pacing, turn-based combat, fast travel, and lack of random encounters.

BG2 was and still is great, not going to lie. At least in what I expected from it. It's easy to look at it through rose-colored glasses, but the strength of Black Isle/Bioware games were the companions and NPCs. The background story was a generic hero journey, that much I realized all those years after, but the companions we took on our adventure made the game diferent each time.

So yes, I believe BG3 will be as good if not better in that regard - one of the few that really matter to me

BG2 multiplayer isn't even comparable to BG3 Multiplayer and frankly the majority of the play I am going to experience is going to be with that.

Bg2 had a vestigial multiplayer that forced players to stay together at all times in the same map. Lots of limitations.

Otherwise I agree with Tuco on a lot of things. I liked that bg2 had a day night cycle, and more "white space" between areas. They found a smart way to make that stuff work. I don't think we will see that in Bg3 probably.

Huh, I always thought random encounters were sort of built-in to the D&D experience? Nearly of the AD&D adventure modules led off with a section on how to handle random encounters. The old BG games did sort of fall into the cookie-cutter style of random encounters, especially in BG II where you ran into the same exact group every single time. That was not so good. I would have preferred some sort of random group generator, exactly the same way a Dungeon Master would roll up a group for a random encounter depending on the local setting ... mountain, coastline, cave, forest, graveyard, hamlet, hippodrome, etc.

Random encounters as we know them have aged poorly.
As someone really waiting for unexpected danger/encounters in such adventures, I can only admit that I'm bored in Solasta / WoTR.

I had the best idea ever for dungeons : a few groups of ennemies tagged as "sentinel". All sentinel groups alive add (let's say) 5 to 10% chance to have an encounter with one of the group when you sleep in the dungeon. Ofc if you kill them they dissapear from the dungeon.

I also had the best idea ever for the main camps : unexpected events. Short events that may trigger randomly when you rest that may lead to combats or not depending the players choices !

To be honest it's so different in so many aspects( 20 years of technology advancement aside -> Ressource management was at least tackled in BG2 for instance even if barely) I don't think there is even any point of saying if it's better or worse.

TLDR: @OP you mentioned you were never fond of Bioware games well.... the bioware game in all of BG3 is still to be found, it's really a Larian game in all possible aspects with D&d on top of it and BG2 in all of this is really an inspiration at best.
At least mechanics wise. Story wise I think here and there Bhaal and the story from BG2 will play a role.


I have to agree too that the writing style in BG2 wasn't necessarily perfect but Bioware back then in that departement did quite good in my opinion while Larian in some situations tends to use companion characters as a tool for exposition scenes way too often. Mostly dialogues with companions while way less present in the game felt a bit more organic as far as i'm concerned. BG3 did get way better in that regard between the 1st EA release and my last playthrough on patch #8 so I remain hopefull.

Worth noting I experienced BG2 for the first time....in polish. And polish voice acting for BG2 is simply a master piece. All actors were on complete crack, they did an insane job. And it helped a lot to create an unforgetable experience for the time. I'm replaying BG2 now with mods in english and I have to say BG3 voice actors are way better than what Bioware did in the english version back then.

In the end BG2 was simply gigantic( physically, like it was more than 100 hours of gameplay) for it's time. BG3 is aiming to be at least that long if not more( they mentioned it's going to be 3 times larger than DOS2 which would point at 150 hours of gameplay if you go relatively slow and don't just pass all dialogues and rush the main quest).

I don't think it's fair for two products separated by 20 years to call one better than the other one.

BG2 , nostalgia aside, earned it's place mostly by being either insanely large content-wise or pretending it's large in some areas( like for instance the size of the map.BG2 really isn't that big at all).
If anything, BG3 is going to be just as big and it has to do something that other games never did before and while for instance swarm AI is a very good example of an improvement we are missing D/N cycle which to some( like me ) feels like a huge drawback even if it's just a detail in the end.

BG3 will no doubt be a decent game in its own right but I can't foresee it carrying the legacy of BG2.

In my humble opinion BG3 can't hold a candle to BG2 in terms of cohesion, immersion and overall tone. It deviates in several ways from what made the predecessor so memorable and Larian's self interest in getting their hands on the IP is very evident.

It's really hard to compare the two, the gulf of differences is so vast.

BG III has much higher production values-and it shows in many ways where it stands head and shoulders above its predecessor, but in others it feels weirdly unpolished and janky. But fundamentally-quality aside, they seem to me like very different games to me. The Pathfinder games are more comparable to BG II than BGIII. BG III feels more like a fusion of DOS2 and NWN2, honestly.

Now do I like BG III more than BG II? It's a difficult question to approach given the above, but I'd have to say....no....and a large part of that just comes down to the foundation of the game, only tangentially related to anything Larian is doing.

BG II was written when 2e was transitioning to 3e-what I have heard many (I'm one of them) folk describe as the 'golden era' of the Forgotten Realms as a setting. BG III is set in the Post-Spellplague era, when WoTC treats the lore of its settings as essentially disposable, where retcons and the advancing timeline have rendered the setting recognizable only on a surface level. Obviously I prefer the former, but I think that even those that prefer the latter would admit that the Forgotten Realms of the old games is a different animal. I have a great amount of nostalgia for this era of the Forgotten Realms, and BG II is a huge part of that.

Now for Larian's part, they are-under their own admission- leveraging that nostalgia. IIRC Swen himself admitted the big reason why they were making a BG sequel in the setting instead of an unrelated game was the name recognition/nostalgia factor. But IMHO Larian was already starting at a mandatory handicap by having to use the inferior 5e iteration of the setting (YMMV), and they have shown several times in EA that they are willing to play fast and loose with the already shaky 5e setting & lore. Since I'm playing this game in no small part because of my love of a setting that cannot and will not be replicated in BG III, I don't think the nostalgia/fanservice/etc hits the same way as intended. If anything, it makes me feel slightly apprehensive and uncomfortable.

There's also the question of if a sequel ever really needed to be made. The original (cancelled) BG III was going to feature a new protagonist and unconnected story because the story of the original saga was considered 'done', but fast-forward to today and we have 'Murder in Baldur's Gate' which brought back Bhaal- a fundamental piece of background for the setting of BG III, since we know Bhaal is going to be a major part of the plot. In doing so, MIBG invalidated the choices of the players of the original saga, both in the ultimate sense (because Bhaal came back and the Bhaalspawn is dead), and by robbing players of the agency to even imagine their own Bhaalspawn in bringing back Abdel Adrian, the infamous protagonist of the novelizations-making him the canon protagonist before killing him off out of hand at the end of it all. The legacy of the protagonist of the old saga is pathetic and forgettable and overshadowed by their companions. I don't know how Larian intends to address that in a game that's a sequel without double underlining the unfortunate legacy (or lack thereof) of the original BG protagonist.

This is aside from the general qualities of BG III itself, which have both its ups and its downs in regard to the original saga IMO.

BG3 will be more popular, no doubt there, it'll sell millions more than BG2 did, but whether or not it's better is subjective. Gaming was very different back when BG2 released. 24 years makes a massive difference. BG2 had a budget of what, something like 5 million? And BG3 is probably going to be 100 million? It's hard to compare those objectively.

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.

I'm going to go against the rules here because I haven't played BG2 nor BG1, the latter came out when I was 3 and only knew of it's existance when BG3 was announced because of Larian.

Now, there is something that usually puzzles me about people here complaining and it's related to the reason why BG3 is being developed by Larian. I'm pretty sure Baldur's Gate IP is not as renown nowadays as some people seem to imply, Larian would probably get more clients by just doing D:OS3, but what it IS really well known today is DnD, specially 5e, and that's what they are doing.

The reason Larian is doing this game is because of their success in D:OS2, so they've been given the keys to manage this "new DnD videogame experience", that happens to be Baldur's Gate.

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I make this reply because they are not doing, nor trying to do a BG2 successor gameplay wise, they utilize the lore of course, the setting, but the gameplay is half dnd 5e, half Divinity, and that's what WotC probably asked them to do...

So my advice here is, judge this game based on what it strives to be, if you are going to judge it based on your opinion of how a BG2 successor should be, you are probably better off not even trying it.

And whether it is now, of after full release, it's just odd to compare games with a 24 years gap in between, totally different gaming landscapes, tech, user experience and demographics

It's hard for me to compare the combat between the two, they're both janky in their own ways, sometimes that's fun, sometimes frustrating. The story, I can't really comment on BG3's story while stewing in it's expositionary phase for these long years. I think the highs of Baldur's Gate II will be higher, the lows lower; Baldur's Gate 3 will be more consistent, but less interesting. That isn't a bad thing because there will likely be so much more of BG3 that maintaining consistency compared to Baldur's Gate II will be a feat itself.