So my thoughts after some consideration. I would agree that BG3 is an anomaly in some ways, most especially because its a CRPG being made at a AAA budget with all that a CRPG is typically expected to have. I also think that calling it the new standard is kind of... wrong in idea. It raises the bar, but talking about standards, that's like saying Shakespeare became the standard for literature. He was the best in what he was trying to do, but not only does that not mean everyone else should immediately be derided for not making that the new average, but other people tried to do other things that can't be well judged against Shakespeare.
Even then, BG3 raises the bar only in SOME areas. Like, in terms of graphics the two new God of War games blow it out of the water. Engagement with the characters? I never played any of the games but even watching a let's play I was riveted by the level of emotion conveyed even in the beginning, that's a bar BG3 isn't even in sight of. We should recognise that that's that's game studio firing on all cylinders doing what it does best, same goes for BG3 and Larian.
Gaming isn't a linear thing. Games are varied and weird things. The standard of BG3 can't be applied to all games, same as the standard of God of War can't be applied to all games. Look at Hades. Another absolutely stellar game, a basically perfect version of itself. But trying to compare it to BG3 is fruitless because at a base level they really have very little to do with each other beyond being well balanced and polished, bit even then those design and polish principles are wildly different from each other. When we talk about what standard BG3 sets, what does that actually MEAN in practice? Even looking at another rpg, The Witcher 3, I think if they tried to make it more like BG3 it would have ended up being a worse game because the kind of rpg it was trying to be was, at its core, a different beast in terms of rpgs.
