Larian Studios

I tend to be careful about my purchases of games. I don’t usually purchase early access (a relatively new industry trend). It is not about the money, I have plenty of that to purchase whatever strikes my fancy. It is about the time I spend—I love rpgs and I tend to spend hundreds (or even thousands) of hours on each game (playing, modding, etc.).

I loved the old BG titles. I also enjoyed Larian’s past games (though none of them merited more than one playthrough for me). Therefore, I waited for BG3 with great anticipation! Upon release, I began reading forums, like this one, Steam, etc. in order to determine whether I wanted to invest my most precious resource—TIME—in this title. Sadly, it appears this game is not worthy of such an investment *by me*. I realize that trading under the Baldur’s Gate moniker has provide this title with early market success, but my research and player reaction vetting has lead me to conclude this is a niche game that, ultimately, is designed to appeal to a limited audience.

I realize the Steam Forums are much maligned around these parts, and they are somewhat toxic, but many of the forum participants there offer insightful commentary. A post on Steam that, for me, best sums up the issues with this game is as follows:



As the Steam poster said, “Don’t dogpile me”… I realize folks on this forum mostly won’t care about my purchasing decisions, but I have a vague hope that Sven and/or others from Larian will take note of what appears to be a somewhat widely shared crtique of an otherwise (by most reports) good game.

Peace.

Hem

Everyone is of course completely free to make their own decision about whether the game is for them or not.

Some people love the companions, some people hate them, the majority seem to be somewhere in the middle - including me, though I'm sure I'm much further towards the positive than many. And there's always the option of the custom party workaround or hirelings if companions are the only thing bothering someone about the game (which the poster you quote doesn't seem to be aware of). Personally, given they were never going to please everyone, and chances are that pleasing the folk who aren't currently happy would mean that many people currently happy with the companions would become unhappy, I don't think Larian have done a bad job at all.

But if you've decided that what you've heard about companions from reading other people's views is a dealbreaker, and the rest of what you heard about the game wasn't appealing enough to counterbalance it, chances are you've made the right call for you.

Funny enough, I'm most dissapointed in the overall combat rules, dnd implementation, and the lame dos leftovers like gimmicky barrelmancy which hurts gameplay. Combat is fun, but nowhere near as fun as dnd combat should be.

I had low expectations about companions, but some of them have really impressed me. One ir two, depending how later chapters go (just about finished ch1), might have a chance to reach my top 10.

I do agree with the lack of dwarves. Both in party, and randomly npcs. Tieflings, drow, and githshit are spammed but hardly a dwarf to be seen. I am aware that duergar mske an appearance but still. Tieflings should not be more common than dwarves in the Realms.

Basically what Queen said. People are different and I wouldn't the opinion of one user stir you away from the game. Maybe watch some Let's Plays, see the companions in action and then decide. You do you of course, but I would built my opinion on more than one review.

This game has problems, as any game has. But taste differs. For me it is the partly annoying party movement management (chain use, sometimes low reactivity for clicks on portraits) and the difficulty settings (Balanced is too easy for me, Tactician is sometimes very tedious, I don't know what to play) I don't like the most.

If you want bland boring stereotype companions like the person you cited, the game may not be for you. You can get bland boring hirelings instead of companions (I have a hireling fighter in my party, as one companion left because of what we did). Maybe that will help?

Otherwise I don't fully understand you. I'm also able to buy me any game I want and I don't want to waste my time with games I don't like. But you should try the games yourself. I bought for example Red Dead Redemption 2, Elden Ring and a lot of other games where I was curious while also reserved, and threw them from the harddrive soon, because they are garbage for me. Other games I tried surprised me very positively (Jagged Alliance 3 the last example). I would try BG3.

I like using the companions for their quests sure, but beyond that I want a full custom group option, and mercenaries just don't offer that, cant change their race, appearance or background.

A lot of role play stuff I've done in similar games is like a full party of only one race, can't do that here.

This!

They way the combat rules were tweaked really messed it up. To have the D&D feeling changes are neccessary. Shove, Jump and missing "ready action" beeing the most important parts. If that would bechanged i could even live with the barrelmancy and surface spam larian seems to like so much.

including giving every NPC some "whatever"-arrows to make it work.

This is just the beginning of the game. Which is clear to everyone.
Maybe it will be the same, maybe better, but this is just the beginning. It couldn't get any worse, because there is what we have now.