Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why BG3 character potraits feel bland

BG3 portraits feel bland because they are passport photos, not portraits. It breaks down to:

- Every face is shot from a direct angle with identical framing.
- Every shot has the same lighting and background.
- No one has any facial expression or emotion of any kind. These faces are completely dead.
- There is no context with props, postures, clothing or backgrounds.

Using such pointless passport pics is a massive missed opportunity to make the game feel alive and give it personality. But this, a.k.a immersion a.k.a making the world and it's characters feel real, has never been Larian's forte. They're probably really happy with how clean and stylish their portrait row looks.

This is also a UX issue. The portraits are so indistinguishable from each other that it becomes harder to quickly find and select the character you're looking for.