Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Does BG3 give the old "BG feeling" ?

I agree that BG3 feels more like DAO + DoS2 than the IE Baldur's Gate games. However, I'm hopeful there will be some cool tie ins to BG1 within the city.

I do agree with the feeling of vastness, curious could it have been do to the fog of war?

Agreed. I've said it many times before. BG3 has always felt like a theme park. You go on rides, and have fun, but it's still a park, and doesn't ever really feel real.

While I have played RPGs (including BG1) before, it was BG2 that started my love for computer RPGs.
So, I played a lot of it and after an adjustment-phase (which I always need) I did enjoy BG3 immensely.


But to answer your question, it completely depends on what Baldurs Gate is for you.
BG3 is, in my opinion, one of the possible ..evolutions of BG2.
It has not really that much in common with BG1, at least not directly.

So, where it the characters and their personality - through biographies, selection sounds and banter system - BG to you? Then, yes it is a true sequel.

Do you remember the way battles where designed and fought when you hear "Baldurs Gate"? Then BG3 is different, since both rules and battle system differ.

Do you think Baldurs Gate is the story of the Bhaalspawns? This is harder, but I would say it is not a sequel on face value.
The issues with story connections are that we do not know them yet, since we are pretty in the dark about the story.


I, myself, loathed the battles in BG2, liked the story and loved the npcs. Especially the romance (something new for me). I also think Aerie is, personality wise, underrated and the best of the four original romances - and I will die on that hill!

Anyways, this is the reason that, for me, this is the game I have waited 20 years for. But others find it is spitting on Baldurs Gate legacy.

I do, however, wonder if those who prefer BG1 over BG2 like BG3 less - since it is further removed from it. But I am not sure there is a correlation.

I'll try to not repeat too much of what others have said.

The Divinity games bored me to tears, and i never lasted more than a dozen hours in either. Like many others here, I've cloked hundreds and hundreds of hours in BG3 EA because this game is so engaging, and there are so many ways to play it.

It is the closest any computer game that I've seen has come to the experience of table top:

There's a DM (some think of her as a narrator, but at least in my head, she's the DM)

Many folks play table top with friends who really aren't taking anything too seriously, and you have those options in this game (seriously, talk to literally every animal you encounter). Some folks don't like that aspect, and you can very easily play this game super seriously if you like.

Almost every situation has multiple ways to resolve that really depend on what you're roleplaying as your character. Fight, talk it out, shoot a rope to drop any number of various hanging objects onto them. Sneak up and push them off the high wall they're stupidly standing atop without watching their backs. Some folks are frustrated with some aspects of of these things, but key is that you always have a number of options available. I think Larian did a great job with that, giving the kind of options a creative tabletop player might look for.

If you're concerned it will have too much of what you didn't like from DoS, I think you'll be pleasantly surprised

Does it feel like Baldur's Gate 1&2? Not really, not to me. At the same time while it looks more like D:OS2 than BG2 it doesn't play like D:OS2 either. In fact, it's very much its own thing and not really like anything else out there. What I will say is that it does draw clear connections to the previous games so it doesn't feel divorced from Baldur's Gate 1 or 2, even though it feels different. You can get two of the same companions as in the previous games, and there's evidence of at least one more returning companion making an appearance of one kind or another.

What I will say is that it feels as immersive as its predecessors, despite the changes. It really does draw you in in the same way.

No. But I don't really care, this is more of an... alternate universe sequel to the originals than a continuation of them, in my mind.

It's a really hard question. It's been 20 years.

Short anwser: no.

Longer one: We grew old(er), our tastes changed, so did our perception of things. We played dozens, maybe hundreds of other games in the meantime, we probably feel like there is little we didn't see yet. And when most of us played BG1/2 it was all new, fresh, groundbreaking. It's easy to look at old games through rose-tinted glasses but I rarely get any kinds of feelings when replaying old titles nowdays. A pang of nostalgia, but that's it. I once held Neverwinter Nights on the pedestal reserved for "Baldur's Gate spiritual successor", but it ain't it.

I am terribly excited for BG3 though. I'm practically jumping off the walls excited when I think it's only a few days more. And it makes me feel strange seeing as I now have a son the age I had been back in 2000. People tell me I should now act my age

Will it be like playing BG2 again? No, because I'm not a starstruck teen anymore, but it will be an amazing adventure, I'm sure of it.

I’m actually doing something similar. I don’t like the way WotC has handled the Bhaalspawn event post Throne of Bhaal (Murder in Baldur’s Gate was not to my liking), so I just consider this a completely separate, alternate canon.

From what I know the official WotC stance on cannon is that game cannon is separate from book cannon. Wich of course is just a convenient lie to try and not get people mad because they keep developing games and books in tandem and feeding of each other like BG3 was developed alongside Baldur's Gate: Descent into Avernus...

The game doesn’t feel like Baldur’s Gate at all - not in tone, not in writing, not in characters, not in tone, not in focus and priorities.

There is more of D:OS in it (on account of the same engine, and similar studio sensibilities) but it is also distinctively not a D:OS3.

Definitely the first thing I would recommend is to decouple BG3 from previous titles - outside some very broad generalities (there is a party, and companions, you can play singleplayer and in coop) this is a very different thing. I am a bit worried how I will react once the city itself and familiar faces will start popping up - I might go mad like Durlag.

For me, it feels like the better parts of BG2 and ToB. I loved those games and they are probably in my top 3 most played series, so I'm not writing any of this lightly.

IE was good for its time, but battles got hectic really quickly and if you were trying to play smart, you were pausing every half second anyway, at which point it may as well have been turn-based. The combat in BG3 feels focused and like a thoughtful tactical battle than a frantic melee of fireballs and web spells.

People are right that the older games felt more 'open' and closer to a Skyrim than BG3. But if we're being honest, that's because there was a lot of empty space on the maps then a smattering of kobolds or a bear, then more empty space. BG3 keeps the empty space to a minimum, and when it does have it, it is purposeful. Empty space gives you room for battle prep, or may be a puzzle that you don't realize is there yet.

BG3 has the relationship building and character moments that BG2 did (and animates them).

In that same vein, I feel more attached to the characters, both party members and other NPCs. BG3 brings them to life in a way that wasn't possible 20 years ago. They didn't even have different faces for the characters moods, which is a staple of VNs built on far simpler code nowadays. The writing did a lot of heavy lifting, and it was solid and made me care about Aerie, Jahiera, or Viconia on my various playthroughs. Minsc's voice lines made me smile and I still hear them in my head. BG3 brought Gale to life though, spending the moment learning magic with him was touching and intimate in a way that the IE could never accomplish.

It has better character building and progression, there are choices to make here that are more meaningful than a handful of points to spread through the Bard/Thief skills or putting one more + next to a weapon.

There are a lot of cool items, which is a carry over from BG2, but so far they are more 'interesting'. By that I mean, there aren't just robes of fire/cold/lightning or good/neutral/evil. ToB and to a lesser degree BG2 did a good job of opening up lots of variety once you hit higher levels, but BG3 does it at level 2. Things aren't just +1 and Acid damage as you stack heads on your flail. They are 'if you crit, get a spell slot back' or 'builds lightning charges' which can be spent on a variety of different complimentary item abilities that synergize.

I could go on, but for me, No BG3 does not feel like BG1 + BG2. It feels better.

Bg2 did not have empty spaces. And, no way are Bg3 items gonna be better than bg2 items. I'm not gonna hold my breathe on that one. Bg3 companions won't be even.50% as good as bg2 companions. And, well see it how they do Minsc and Jaheira.

I expect bg3 to be fun in its own right much like the Dos games, bit unless I'm pleasantly surprised it will not come close to being as legendary as bg2. Pretty no much rpg is capable of that. BG2 and FO2 are the pinnacle of crpgs. NWN with its entire package is part of the Holy Trio Of CRPGs.

I'll be satisfied if BG3 enters my top 10.

Overall, I'd agree with this. But that doesn't mean it's better in everything. Those aspects of BG3 that make the world feel smaller, for instance. Everything is close together *and* you can fast-travel from anywhere on top of it. You don't have to do it of course, but the fact that you can makes the world feel smaller. And OK, BG1 may had gone a little too far in the other direction, but in BG2's Underdark, for instance, you felt the isolation because the place was big, you didn't know the way out and there was no way to get around the situation except for seeing it through. I wish there was some custom difficulty option where we could switch off fast-travel from anywhere.

Meanwhile, DOS2 switches off fast-travel at one point....right before a rather difficult fight. Which is exactly where I would *not* want it to be switched off. I hope BG3 doesn't follow the same pattern.

I mean...If a game from 2023 can't do MANY things better than a game from 1998...

Huge fan of the old games here and this sums up things pretty well imo. But no matter if fans consider it as a "true" successor or not, BG3 is a masterpiece no rpg lovers should miss.

There are many things I don't like or find wierd in BG3... but looking at the big picture this game offer an experience we have never seen before.

After 3 years of complaints / detailed feedback and suggestions A LOT of things are still far from being perfect (or even good) in my opinion... but I have to admit that BG3 will probably be the best RPG of the decade to me.

Now I really hope that Larian will focus on creating world that feels alive / "real" for their next games (unexpected encounters, day and night cycle, map design, less gamey fast travel system, coherence between the different layers). IMO that would lead their next games to "best rpg of all time".

This is the missing ingredient from a perfect RPG.

Larian's RPG's biggest flaw is that it constantly reminds you that it's (just) a video game. The goal should be to make the player forget and just get immersed. E.g. theme park maps are very convenient, but they break the 4th wall when the game is so aware of the players convenience that it has illogical distances.

Yeah, playing BG1&2 even now, I have easier time getting engaged with story and choices than I did with EA of BG3. I do hold to a hope that 1.0 will be at least bit better in that regard.

I think that is just a matter of taste and access to free time.

I would much rather spend my time in meaningful interactions than clicking empty space for 2 minutes to get from the druid teleporter all the way to the tiefling merchant. Especially since the draw distance is a factor that doesn't allow me to click my ending location and just alt-tab away until they get there.

Adding more space than there already doesn't appeal to me at all. And removing fast travel sounds insane to me.

Wow, thank you all for the feedback.

So basically you are all telling me I need to see this game as a seperate game that only takes place in the same world. That makes me a bit sad, not gonna lie, but that's what I already thought it would be.

The thing is, as some of you already said: In BG I got attached to the characters. In DO:S not at all. I don't care about them and that is sad, because it is a RPG after all. I want to get to attached to the characters, to their stories. That is one of the most important things for me.

I also think the world in BG felt more alive, like you would enter a city or a village and a random guy comes to you and tells you to come with him and you kind of have no choice but to follow him and just things like this.

Some of you said that BG3 is a bit like DA:O, which is also one of my favourite games ever (at it's time it felt like a BG sequel in a different world). When I saw content on youtube and a bit of the cutscenes, it actually reminded me of DA as well. So that's a good thing.

So do you think it's possible to love BG3, if you haven't loved D:OS 1+2, even if it's so similar?
Is the combat also just about the elements (fire, poison, etc.) or are we getting also spells, that were in the old BG games?