It did that by being one of the most shallow CRPGs I've seen. 'Mainstream' has never come with more depth or complexity. It has to justify the expense by reaching as broad an audience as possible. So that hope is looking like a money's paw to me.
I am not sure I agree with this assessment but in the end that is subjective. The success of BG3 however is less how it stacks up to older CRPGs and more how it stacks up to other games out now. Comparatively BG3 is a mile deep when you look at Starfield, Elden Ring and other games that are claiming the RPG tag.
'One of'. I don't think there is anything subjective about saying BG3 is on the shallow side of CRPGs, both modern and old. Exactly what it compares to and how has room for interpretation, but not that it is shallow. Part of that is 5e is designed to be very accessible, and the rest is on Larian. And 'it's deep compared to SOME non-CRPGs' is the equivalent of saying 5 inches of water is not shallow because 1 inch deep pools exist. That's not much of defense. Were you hoping for just more 'proper' RPGs or were you hoping for more attention on CRPGs in specific? Because you said the latter, but comparing it to general RPGs out of the blue like that suggests the former.
