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

That we can agree on. At least they're out there actually making RPGs that they want to make, and it doesn't just scream 'corporate' like a lot of AAA games do.

More like they know the publisher that bought them out won't fund it, and they'd rather complete a less ambitious game than get shut down because it takes too much time to build a game like this, especially if there aren't any microtransactions to bleed consumers dry.

They call it live service these days. :-/

Fair enough, as long as you acknowledge this is subjective opinion. For me, games like Dragon Age, Starfield, the Witcher, and most games Obsidian makes are absolutely RPGs, and very good and fun RPGs at that. Unfortunately for me, none of them involve the Forgotten Realms setting.

Sure. With the exception of CDPR, my comments were more about the states of the studios and the games that are being made now rather than what they’ve made in the past.

That got a hearty chuckle! And it really describes so, so many things

you know you people remind me of something.
In these articles the talk is always about the poor indies.

As ive said in my previous post:
1. disingenuous, Larian started as a poor indie dev while Bioware was making Dragon Age Inquistiion and it clearly didnt stop them
2. Indie games arent impacted on this, nobody expects tripple A quality from a 20 euro indie game. Also since they tend to be cheaper, people will not decide between them or BG3, theyll just buy both. At least i do.

What seems to realy be the issue behind this is lets say semi big Companies.
Bioware, but also Obsidian, the failed giants of yesterday.
That and other publisher yoked companies.

theyre afraid of the future because people are beeing shown that you can make a real RPG without concessions. Without loot boxes, without the 200th take on Arkham Asylum combat (yes witcher 3, i mean you too, youre bareley an RPG), without Ubisoft open world checklist maps.

Very much the same was true when Elden Ring came out.

Everyone collectiveley cowered in fear that people would be demanding actual Video Games from them.
You know with a creative spark, with an idea what the game is supposed to be.

This sounds like a 16 year old whining about Activision back in the day, but its true when it comes to modern RPGs.
They dont dare anything. Witcher 3 was hailed as some Masterpiece when in reality it was a Normified Story game with Arkham Asylum combat and checklist open wrold quests. Yes it had good presentation and better cutscenes than lets say skyrim: but it was also less of an RPG than the already watered down Bethesda RPGs are.


And here comes an RPG with Spell slots, dice rolls and Falling Paladins.
they must be thinking this is some sort of Bizarro world. Its all this stuff theyve been told they cant get away with.
The same they felt when elden ring just... didnt do map markers. Or hiding progression behind some generic door that you can easily miss. Or just making quests that the majority of players will never see.
It BAFFLES them.
And it makes them angry because they realize that theyve compromised and will continue to compromise.

EDIT:
For companies like Obsidian, i think its more that they realize that they arent the top dog companies like Larian looks up to anymore.
They realize that they cant hide behind successes from 20+ years ago anymore and that chasing the past gets them nowhere.
We already saw that years ago when Sawyer compared PoE to OS2, the talk that sent Codex into an absolute madness spiral.

So is BioWare or Obsidian the sick man of RPG?

Bioware seems to be more that.

Theyre both old men who think they still got it.
Only bioware just drools and Obsidian makes a loud ruckus.

They both fail for different reasons.

Bioware went full Publisher whipping boy, compromising any creative integrity they might have had to make Ubisoft games that they call "RPG"s.

meanwhile Obsidian is chasing the past, thinking that if they recreate the perfect infinity engine expirience, millions will flock to them for their amazing innovation.
While also having created the dullest fantasy setting imagineable. Which they now... set a first person ... game in?
theres so many strange descisions in that studion.
And then cue to Sawyer going "other studios.. le... innovated? Inconceivable!"

🤘🏻


BioWare. Definitely BioWare. It’s just been one game after another in development hell. Maybe they can grab new talent and turn things around, but I ain’t putting money on it.

I’m interested in seeing where Obsidian goes now that they are no longer independent. On the one hand, maybe they will have bigger budgets to work with, but from what I understand, Microsoft doesn’t have a good track record of supporting their studios. That is why despite being such a massive corporation they haven’t had much in the way of exclusives.

I’m not a fan of them making games with first person views though. I generally don’t like first person, and that’s an immediate deal breaker for me.

Current bio and obsidian suck, but they are still AAA game devs with a lot of money backing them. This us undisputable. The point is bg3 is not gonna kill rogs 'as we know it'. Thete will be always another rpg that comes along.

Pathfinder was a hit that came out if nowhere. That was the true spiritual successor of BG (though like bg3 it has flaws too). It had a lot of ambition, and dud well without having larian's money or past success backing it.

I knew nothing about Solasta befire playing it. That's an awesome game and one of the best dnd games ever.

There's always the next one.

Obsidian isnt an AAA dev.
Bioware is... tho they kidn of got demoted.

Thats why Bioware is the sick man of RPGs, they go tthe funding but cant do anything with it.
Obsidian meanwhile, lives in this weird space where theyre the poor mans Owlcat.
they still have their diehard fans but theyre all Infinity Engine enthusiasts and RPG Codex power users.
But ultimatley, Owlcat beats them at their own game which is aping the infinity engine games.

Whats also interrestign about Obsidians company history is that all they ever do is ride on others coattails.
like everything Obsidian is famous for, is actually iterating upon someone elses game.
>black isle
ages ago.
Obsidian since then is most famous for Fallout new Vegas, which is very much the new Fallout Gameplay rather than the old one.
But also NWN2 which, at least with MOTB, i actually enjoyed, they didnt make the original NWN.
And when they try to make their own thing....
its always kind of hollow.

You also forgot KOTOR2, another sequel to a BIO game. So, that is three games that are sequels to others' work. Obsidian is definitely AAA. Their history of titles, who they worked with, and now who owns them makes it so. Owlcat came out of nowhere basically on their own. Well... almost.. since they did make a dnd game.

Obsidian is kind of a weird one. They were often hired to make sequels to AAA games (NWN2, KotoR2, FalloutNV) but were never given the budget or resources they needed from their publishers. Their own projects were definitely in the AA space.

Regardless of what they were, they are now owned by Microsoft, so they are definitely going to be AAA now. MS didn’t buy them to publish moderate successes. If this will turn out well for them or not is to be seen. I’m always rooting for Obsidian, even if I don’t like a lot of their games. But they gave me New Vegas, which I love, so that earned them a lot of good will from me.

from what Obsidian SAID about their new PoE IP game, it doesnt look Tripple A.
they said as much, its got a more restrictive space than lets say skyrim. a game thats 12 years old by now.
They are, at best, in the AA ballpark as you call it.
And if their previous work is anything to go by, its gonna be deep as a puddle.... wide as a puddle.

The biggest problem with Obsidian has always been in the project management side of things. They were never great at managing their schedules back when they were working on sequels. For a long time they just trimmed down the scope of their own games, like with Tyranny or Outer Worlds, rather than find efficiencies. Now with Avowed it seems like they are back to scheduling and planning issues.

It really seems like they just need to hire a couple really good PMs to come in there and help them sort their issues out.

One would think there would be some synergy with Microsoft in that department.

All subjective opinion. I consider Obsidian to be the best RPG studio bar none. And their most recent big RPG, Grounded, has sold over 10 million. CP2077, despite an orchestrated campaign against it, sold 15 million in its first month out. Witcher 4, Dragon Age 4, Starfield, and even Avowed will all sell 10 million plus. Given this is the Larian forum, it makes sense which studio will be the most popular here. But there are a lot of other gamers out there beyond this forum <shrug>.

Grounded has not sold 10 million copies. It has reached 10 million players trying it out on xbox pass. Not the same thing.

https://www.gamespot.com/articles/g...za-sea-of-thieves-and-more/1100-6500594/

I’ve never see Grounded referee to as an RPG before. I haven’t played it, but I always see it referred to as a survival game.

And CP2077 didn’t have an orchestrated campaign against it. It was just released deeply unfinished and not at all what CDPR promised.

I don’t know about Dragon Age 4 bringing in those numbers. The gameplay that was leaked looked really bad.