In terms of what BG3 does the most successfully that no other game does: co-operative narrative gameplay.
Here is an example from my game.
Me and three friends, all table top gamers. I’ve played extensively but my friends are going in blind. Thus, I try not to meta play too much and let my friends figure out what’s going on.
We were infiltrating the wizard tower in the underdark. Everyone was low on resources, so this was the last thing we would do before a long rest.
I’m playing a wizard. I had my familiar guide the rogue up to the front door, but he took too much damage along the way and got stuck inside the first level.
But with the turrets swiveled away, I was able to move my wizard to the back of the outer courtyard and then use feather fall to wizard my way to the backdoor. I cast knock to get inside and power down the defenses.
My friends all begin independently scrambling over the tower looting everything. One friend goes right for the top floor and triggers the fight. We were in no position to win that engagement, so I ran up and cast feather fall on my friends (the barbarian had also run up to try and assist only to get immediately brought down to 1 HP).
What ensued was a madcap dash down the tower as we were pursued by constructs, everybody taking a different route to try and avoid getting killed. We barely got out but finally did manage to evade our pursuers.
This was some of the most fun I’ve had in any online game, ever. The joy of chaos and somebody fucking up and then everyone needing to deal with it is very true to D&D. All of us had a fantastic time, even though we achieved nothing. It was great.
This isn’t the only thing I love about the game, but this is one area where nobody is even attempting what Larian is doing. I think a lot of people don’t appreciate how much inconspicuous design work is being demonstrated getting a game like this to work with 4 players. I have a lot of friends who work in AAA gaming, and BG3 is all they can talk about. They all wish they could work on a project like this.
This anecdote is also a great example of non-linear decision making. Most games give you linear decisions. If you play a Dragon Age title, the game asks you to make decisions- pick destinations, pick a class, pick a dialogue option, but in between those decisions the experience of playing the game is relatively straightforward.
In BG3 I was able to sneak up behind a major boss character with my monk, bypass the initial cutscene and stunning strike the boss, then just pound on him with everybody until he ignominiously died like a chump.
The game didn’t ask me to do this. There was no prompt. I just did it spontaneously. This is a major reason why BG3 has been such a success. This level of fidelity and production values is usually antithetical to BG3’s level of freedom. It ain’t perfect, but most people playing the game are enjoying the experience.
I mean....being able to initiate combat with enemies on your own terms isn't exactly new. This isn't really an innovation in the genre, so I have a hard time thinking that it's the reason for Larian's success. But you do point out something else: Multiplayer. Most cRPGs are designed as single player experiences. I haven't played multiplayer yet, but everything is more fun with friends (and it's likely more challenging, too.)
I wonder what the stats are for how many people are playing multiplayer. Becuase this sort of goes back to what I said before, about the allocation of resources. If other designers conclude that multiplayer is the route to take, and the single-player experience suffers as a result, I'd be pretty sad about that.
