It is absolutely a competitor to BG3 in the sense that both are games that are basically black holes with people's free time and it's going to be massively popular among a very similar target audience.
Yeah, this is the one I doubt. One is an action RPG with a strong focus on exploration and that open-world sandbox feel, the other is a tactical RPG with a strong focus on Story and Characters. Their similarity is that they are both in the same, overly broad genre of RPGs. Which should have way more subgenre.
Originally Posted by Tuco
Larian did the wise thing moving their PC release date out of the way because they would have been slaughtered otherwise. And to be clear, it's not even a matter of which game will be more popular (spoiler: it's Starfield). They would cannibalize each other regardless of which comes on top (still Starfield, by the way).
If this would be TES6, I would fully agree. But with Starfield I am not so sure. It is a new IP and a SciFi one on top of it - and Fantasy tends to outperform Science Fiction most of the times. I think it may actually be a bit closer. Especially with the head start and the successful media campaign of BG3. Starfield may still win, but not by a landslide, at least in my opinion.
I think Tuco is right on this. While genre and mechanics may differ, both games are immersive, vicarious experiences at a mega project scale so as to fully immerse their consumers in an RPG experience. They are time and attention sinks that offer the “other life” of adventure and discovery. There is absolutely a mutual cannibalism component here, and Larian made the sound decision to scale back the release date to get a jump on the PC playerbase, social media cycle, and overall level of commitment.
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