Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General New interview with Sven by Gamespot

Huh... Let me guess: at some point late in the game you will have to battle/compete among your own party to decide who will be the one really chosen and that person will get the chance to ascend, or something like that. You will have the option to submit and surrender all your power to some other being, or kill said being and take all said power for yourself, or kill said being and also relinquish said power, making sure there will never be another "chosen one" ever again.

(Does this game also start on a beach, by any chance?)

Also, fire everywhere.

That just proves his point, and that of many others: at the end of the day, most of us play games to have fun. We don't play games because "oh but this story makes so much sense" or "oh but it's ultra realistic that you have a smaller but DEEPER and DYNAMIC cast". It's fun to have a large roster of adequately written companions even if they are "generic", because we'd have options to choose from. It is fun to have options.

You can certainly sit there and hope that BG3 will turn out to be another PST - in terms of both style and writing quality. "It worked" for PST, yes, but why? Because that game was never about combat. It's about dialogues, philosophy, story, and it has a superb story. Does BG3 look like it's trying to be another PST - not about combat and going to have PST-level writing? No, it looks like it's going to be another Larian game instead.

Here's another thing, what if you dislike certain companions? Oh these NPCs are sooo DYNAMIC and DEEP but you know what I hate their personality, so can I choose other NPCs to fill my party? Oh wait but I don't have much of a choice, do I, because there are only a handful of them. In fact, it's only reasonable that you have at least two options for each major class, so if you need someone to fill a certain role, you have at least two NPCs to choose from - 2 tanks, 2 rogues, 2 archers, 2 mages, 2 clerics, 2 whatever. This explains why BG2's big roster serves it really well - you almost always have options regardless of what kind of role you're trying to fill.

PS: this is not even talking about other rp factors like alignment yet. If I want to roleplay a good/evil character, I would want to take along NPCs such that it would make sense for those NPCs to follow my character. As I understand it, this game is trying to create companions that have personality, meaning that they should react to the things you do. So what if 3 or 4 of them dislike what you do? You're screwed big time if you don't have other companions to fill your party. On the other hand, if every NPC would be willing to follow you around no matter what kind of character you are, no matter what you do, then... that sucks.

Huh... Let me guess: at some point late in the game you will have to battle/compete among your own party to decide who will be the one really chosen and that person will get the chance to ascend, or something like that. You will have the option to submit and surrender all your power to some other being, or kill said being and take all said power for yourself, or kill said being and also relinquish said power, making sure there will never be another "chosen one" ever again.

(Does this game also start on a beach, by any chance?)

Also, fire everywhere.

What is especially astonishing for me is that Larian themselves (Swen and other senior devs), unprompted, went out of their way back when the game was first announced to emphasize repeatedly that this is a D&D game and not a D:OS gave with a D&D skin and that they understand that D&D is very different from D:OS and so this game should not be anything like D:OS2. They said this. So why the disconnect?

Back then the man was going on and on about how much he loved Ultima VII, BG2, how their set of features and their complexity made them what they were, and how his dream was to build "the big RPG to dwarf them all".
Something clearly changed over time.

What is especially astonishing for me is that Larian themselves (Swen and other senior devs), unprompted, went out of their way back when the game was first announced to emphasize repeatedly that this is a D&D game and not a D:OS gave with a D&D skin and that they understand that D&D is very different from D:OS and so this game should not be anything like D:OS2. They said this. So why the disconnect?

I remember reading Swen Vincke's personal blog for years, way before they had their first "hit" with DOS1.
I'm talking about this one: http://www.lar.net/

Back then the man was going on and on about how much he loved Ultima VII, BG2, how their set of features and their complexity made them what they were, and how his dream was to build "the big RPG to dwarf them all".
Something clearly changed over time. Aside for the fact that he stopped posting there in 2015, in recent times he went often back to dismiss most of the "awesome features" he used to praise (like day/night cycle and the detailed NPC scheduling of Ultima VII) like something absolutely pointless and not worth bothering with.

One can point to things in U7 and BG2 that BG3 doesn’t have, but I am sure there is stuff BG3 has that is lacking in the other two. Larian has its own template to build and develop and that’s a good thing. Whenever it’s a good template for BG IP is another matter.

They also repeatedly claimed that they understand what BG is and that BG3 will be a "proper sequel". Well.


That makes me really sad. I didn't know Larian before BG3 announcement and was immediately sold on the company when I saw that these people are passionate nerds and not some soulless suits... and yet, here we are, with BG3 being neither a good Baldur's Gate game nor a good D&D game. What went wrong? Hubris, as you say? My impression is that Larian have their own "vision" of what BG3 should be that is "superior" to being faithful to the original saga and D&D. It's not that they lack the ability (as far as I can tell), they're not even trying. That or they still haven't taken a step back and looked at their game at a wider perspective.


That is my problem right there. If you take like 80% of characteristic features of BG1&2 and replace them with something else... should you call the resulting game BG3? I would be much less critical if this was a new IP. Or even a spin-off, like the original Dark Alliance games. (Though, to be fair, many of the problems I have with BG3 I'd also consider problems in "Faerun Adventure: Illithid Menace" or whatever original IP.)

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