Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Could BG3'S ambition kill the RPG as we know it

https://tech4gamers.com/baldurs-gate-3-anomaly/

I read it. There ya go. Discuss lol

As always, you should strive to account for any mitigating factors when comparing two things.

If a AAA developer creates a RPG based on a popular franchise and isn't creating a new engine from scratch, then yes I *should* expect it to match the quality of BG3. If Larian could do it, why can't they?

If some indie studio with 12 employees creates a RPG of any kind as their first game, then obviously no I shouldn't expect to match the cinematic/graphical/length/number-of-features as BG3.

I don’t think it’s quite that simple. Several major studios have attempted to follow the looter shooter train only to be met with disdain from players for making inferior copies of better games. I think it takes a lot of experience in order to make a game like BG3. Larian have worked their way up to this point learning lots of lessons on the way, and there is a lot going on behind the scenes we aren’t privy to. If EA or Activision or whomever went to one of their studios and said “copy BG3” there is a good chance we will end up with more Anthem, Suicide Squad, Avengers, Godfall situations.

Let's be real here for a second here, most modern RPGs in recent years have been pretty sorry and shallow excuses for RPGs than real RPGs. If BG3 leads to a revolution where each and every single RPG going forward will has as many D&D mechanics and stories with as many branching paths and reactivity where the player can be whoever he wants to be then I welcome the death of the sorry and shallow RPGs.

Even if studios aren’t copying BG3 exactly, I would love to see a trend in narrative focused RPGs the way we see lots of Dark Souls inspired games. I don’t expect that to happen, but it would be badass.

Not at all, just the expectation that AAA RPGs should be on this level in production.
Indie games unless you are a children with zero awareness you shouldn't expect the same production value.

if it floops of course but more people playing is what keeps rpg alive

I mean bear sex mad it skyrocket of
Exactly, even fallout 4 was more looter shooter than rpg.

Skyrim was just about the last good popular rpg, but even then it had pretty awful dialogue as is tradition with Bethesda games.

Weird, we were commenting on that twitter chain days ago in other places but I really didn't expect to see it become an article. Then again maybe I should have, given the current standards for gaming journalism.

Anyway, the whole thing reads basically as "Please, lower your expectations."

I mean, he may even make some good point about how not many studios could do what Larian is doing, but the over-defensive attitude he's going for is annoying in itself.

Not to mention that the whole verbal deluge seems to imply that Larian somehow happened to find itself in a privileged position, with a fanbase, a good engine, a budget and a license... Except none of these things is there by accident and they had to build their way up there.

What about studios like Bioware and (to a lesser degree) Obsidian, then? Competitors that started WAY ahead of Larian and managed to squander all their initial advantage?

Larian has kind of a perfect storm of factors going into this.

1) They have a couple of large-scale RPG games prior to this, giving them experience.

2) They have a bespoke game engine specifically designed for this kind of game.

3a) They have a small studio structure, which (for better or worse) means that there is a unified vision of what the game should feel like and be, decided by passionate people.

3b) Despite this structure, they have 400 employees all working on the same game.

3c) There is no corporate overseer. There is no outside publisher. No one is calling the shots or trying to manipulate them into utilizing trendy features or chasing some white whale player demographic.

4) They've employed what amounts to an open beta that lasted for years, giving them a huge amount of data on player behaviors that they can use to fine-tune the game.

No EA or Activision or Take Two will be able to do a game like this, because they lack these fundamental elements. Not only can they not do a RPG like this, they can't pull off a game of this size and complexity of any genre!

5) To top it all off, this RPG happens to be an IP that is experiencing a surge in popularity and pop culture recognition

I'm not saying that BG3 can't fail, but literally no mega-corporation could make BG3 better.

Oh, I've heard "every choice you make will affect the world around you", and buzzwords like "unprecedented reactivity" before. I'll put it to the test on August 3rd. Until then, i'm keeping my expectations in check.

I'd say that without even going too far , Act 1 already has a level of reactivity that is far from common in RPGs in general and basically unheard on anything on this level of production value.

But even going for "old school" you'd probably have to look at stuff like Arcanum or Fallout 2 for something that comes even close.

Its few and far between these days. But it's been done before, like with New Vegas.

Warlocke, I couldn't agree with you more,

I missed out in the beginning on DS1 @ 2, when I first set my eyes on DS3 my first thought was

I want them to do a dnd game. FromSoftware is IMO AAAA Game maker Elden Ring, Sekiro. I would love for them to implement a dnd game on their engine. Ill give them money now lol

I would think EA and Activision should be able to. I remember them in my 20's making games Activison anyway. I would think they saved some money or invested it anyway EA should have big bucs from the Madden franchise.

No one can often expect another game to meet the expectations and scope of another, especially if the latter is iconoclastic. But people should certainly try. This article reads like a defense of mediocrity, because that's what we've been spoon fed for the last 5 years, minimum value products that often try to chase silly trends, putting out minimum value with a deluge of DLC, lootboxes, and other gimmicks to bilk as many people as possible while cutting down on as much production costs, production quality, and imagination as possible to boost their bottom line.

I'm not saying that this isn't a business, it is. But a lot of media has been lackluster at best, and garbage at most.

Elden Ring showed that you can take a game's formula, refine it, expand the scope, keep the fundamentals tight and make a ton of money. I remember when it came out and people at Ubisoft and other dev studios were criticizing it, "where are the question marks on the map" they say, "where is the cluttered UI and the laundry list of pointless tasks?" they say, "how could something that didn't follow our formula, that we basically copied verbatim from Witcher 3 be as successful as this?" "Inconceivable!"

When we are in an era of media that refuses to innovative, relying instead of nostalgia and remakes ad nauseam, it's important to remember that games, movies, books, are supposed to be, at their core, art. And in art, you innovate, or try to, not just iterate. Hell, I'm not overly criticizing Larian here, but even the contract they won with WOTC was completely predicated on taking advantage of nostalgia, but what I think Larian DID do, is they took this project and instead of doing a Sword Coast Legends with it, really tried to take the ball and move it forward, pouring passion and talent into it in an attempt to make something extraordinary. And, at the end of the day, that's what all forms of art should be doing. Will they always succeed? No, but you should try. If you build it, they will come. A lesson, I think, that many publishers, developers, would be wise to remember given the last two years of utter mediocrity in the AAA sector, buggy messes, broken features, over-promising and under-delivering. That's where we are now.

So yeah sure, the article is right about one thing but not for the reason they think, BG3 is an anomaly, because rather than just a cash grab, they are genuinely trying to do something innovative, new, expansive, and interesting.

I’m not sure FromSoftware could do it, and I say that as an old school Armored Core enthusiast who has loved FS since the 90s. All of their games have this very hands off approach to storytelling. Its very intentional and is used effectively, but also tends to be emotionally distant and reserved. I don’t think that would lend itself to a highly narrative experience, but maybe they could do it. I just haven’t seen that from them and am not sure if they’d even want to try.

I’m not expecting much from BioWare, Bethesda and even Obsidian anymore, and so much of the AAA gaming space has been gobbled up by large publishers, so I’m really appreciating BG3 for what it is trying to do, and from my experience with EA, doing successfully.

I hear what your saying, You really have to search out the lore in the game, its on tomes and weapons, Armor, few, very few npc's However I could see a dnd game being done. NOt one in the tradition sense that we have seen from all the BG games Neverwinter games. Just one character with a torch and a sword in a dnd world with deep lore and monsters. Meh im dreaming but yea love Fromsoftware and their art.

It's not about the money. It's about the people, the motivation, and the tools.

A megacorp like EA would want to make it using Unreal or whatever the latest popular engine is. They'd want loot boxes. They'd abhor a bear sex scene. They'd want the studio to make it a metroidvania action RPG because Jedi Survivor did well. They'd want cross-promotional tie-ins to one of their other popular series. And they would 100% not let early access go on for years. The CEO would be utterly impatient on behalf of the shareholders. The studio head would have to fight corporate bitterly for every much-needed delay or budget increase. So on and so on.

If I was a billionair

I would hire FS to recreate Hell Gate Keep in the Forgotten Realms.

Deep dive all the way to the underdark. Of course I would need to be on the team as a consultant. I think a stand alone game like that could be done well. The lore is there for you to research and find. You pick the Quest up from a Beautiful female dragon , who takes the form of a lovely Elf maiden, find the artifact return it. Pretty simple plot,

The fun comes in the adventure, the plot doesn't have to be to deep for me anyway. I love the imagination and creating worlds and dungeons, I haven't created in years.