I've been purposefully trying to stay mostly in the dark with this game - skipping early access and only taking a peek at a couple of trailers, having seen the very first livestream for it and recognising that it's going to be a game I'll want to play and experience as blindly as I can.
That said, I did catch the end of this latest stream, just to see how the game is looking before the final release in a more raw form.
I don't want to end on a sour note, as the game is ultimately shaping up really nicely, I think, so I'll start with the negatives.
First of all, from the (admittedly, little) footage I saw, the game seems like it needs another pass before release and the date probably should have been pushed back a bit - not brought forward. I was planning to check out some reviews before potentially buying around release, but now I'm really considering holding off a bit, maybe wait to see if we get yet another Enhanced Edition in a year's time. So, it's nice to see raw footage - don't ever change that - but do consider delaying more for future titles. I can't imagine a broader audience seeing this and getting too excited. From overall stability to animations and little glitches here and there, it just doesn't look like it's all quite there yet to me.
Secondly, the writing. It's just... not very appealing to me, I'm sorry to say. I understand it's D&D and the current image D&D is going for seems to be over-the-top adventures with larger-than-life characters, but I'd really appreciate a more understated appraoch, personally. I won't go into spoilers, but I'd have thought that we're past the good vs. evil phase in RPGs and moved onto more nuanced characters and stories, but apparently I'm wrong on that.
Now, the good!
Very excited to experience all the ways you can approach various situations with all the different systems in play. This is something that I already found to be very impressive in D:OS1 and 2, and BG3 seems like the next step forward. And not just exploration and combat, but this time also story choices seem to have an actual impact on the events in the game, which is quite nice. I will admit that the choice system doesn't really look like anything groundbreaking, I feel like Swen might be overselling that aspect a bit, but time will tell.
Aside from some of the technical and animation quirks I mentioned before, the presentation in cutscenes seems very good. Certainly a massive step up from D:OS2 which had... none! Not quite up there with all the big boys in terms of quality, I don't think, but it's still very impressive to see the jump up in production value compared to Larian's last title.
The combat itself looks really fun, as it has from the very start. And with the variety of builds and options available to players, I can see myself itching to replay the game for the gameplay variety alone, not to mention the potential story branching I mentioned above.
And, as excited as I am for the combat, I also couldn't help but notice all the options that were given to the player to help avoid it, which makes me even more interested in the game. While I may not be impressed with the writing, I do appreciate the dedication to providing the player with interesting choices and tying this back into the D&D character mechanics is excellent.
And finally, the game looks to be absolutely massive and brimming with engaging content. The questing appears to be there to provide you with actual fun, memorable experiences and stories. For me, this is very important and it's great to see Larian seemigly continue to deliver on that front.
