Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Sensational game. Just... not Baldur's Gate at all.

First, foremost, and in broad-brush terms: Larian's narrative designers are known for their love for creating unexpected plot and lore twists in their games. Which is fine and cool when you're working on your own universe. But when the subject is a decades-old world with its lore basically set in stone, you can't have and use such creative freedom as they did in BG3, ruining, twisting, and turning Forgotten Realms' lore inside out. Such humongous changes and presumptions done to/over the events of BG1 and BG2 and the basic FR canon are... well, heretical. In my eyes, as well as those of my friends who are no less fans of BG1 and 2 as I am, from a certain point the game stops being an official product supported by Wizards and becomes a fanfic. And from an even further point in the game's plot, it becomes not just a fanfic but something like Repercussions of Evil, if you can remember this masterpiece.

Now, to the details.
Mind you, I'm typing all this without any notes made during my playthrough, so some points and things may escape this text. But I'll try to remember the main parts of what made my mind explode.

- No respect for the events of Baldur's Gate 2 and Throne of Bhaal at all. It's like they never happened.
- Sarevok... level 12 evil dude sitting somewhere under the city? The Sarevok who basically helped the Bhaalspawn aka Gorion's Ward to conquer the Throne of Bhaal? The epic demi-god of level 40, give or take, who could have turned to the good alignment (although this is not necessarily true)? What happened? Who is that fck in the Undercity? Is it a cosplayer wanting to recreate the favorite villain or an evil-evil twin? WTF has happened??!!?
- The Helm of Balduran lying under the city in the secret dragon's lair where no one has been for like centuries? What kind of time paradox happened to it? I clearly remember my Bhallspawn wearing it in BG1 and BG2. Heck, one of the best helmets in the original duology. So, was my 'Spawn wearing a cheap Chinese fake of it?
- The Flail of Ages... Oh, you can't imagine the degree of profanity of the words I said when I saw what kind of piece of shit you turned the best flail and one of the best weapons in BG2 into. I cried, and tears were running on my face. How could you??!!!! THE Flail of Ages, THE weapon of victory, THE best flail in all of D&D. What next, I wonder? A Jedi sword made of rusty metal doing 1d4-2 damage?
- The characters of previous games. Volo is fine, sure, he's comic relief and so on. Okay. But what did you do to...
- ...Jaheira and Minsc? Why do they bear no resemblance to themselves? And I don't mean their appearance, although that also sucks and I wouldn't recognize them should their names not have been written on them. But what happened to their characters? What happened to the strong-minded fighter-druid who endured the loss of her husband and hardened her character while remaining humane? Where's the always-yelling Rashemen dude whose weapon of choice was Lilarcor? Minsc and Lilarcor, best pair ever! Why is he so... OMG, NOT MINSC? And was it that hard to add Boo's iconic "Squeak!" sound into the game?!
- ...Viconia. Oh, don't get me started. If Minsc and Jaheira are just written by someone(s) who couldn't see what or who the original characters are, Viconia's character was so mercilessly destroyed and turned inside out that the game almost lost me at the moment of her reveal. She. Never. Was. That. Cheap. Brainless. Uncompromising. Puny. Sadist. That. You. Depicted. Her. As. And Shar never was her mistress whom Viconia obeyed thoughtlessly. Whoever wrote her narrative part missed everything about the character except for "Oh, she's a drow Shar-worshipper and she's evil". Fck this kind of approach to the characters we have known for more than two decades! I have real friends whom I have known for less time. Eat Viconia's, Jaheira's, and Minsc's narrative parts. Cut them from the game. It's a clear F- for the character recreation attempt. Boo hates you!
- Also, the same question as about Sarevok. So these guys who stood shoulder to shoulder with the Bhaalspawn at the Throne of Bhaal, the level 40-ish demigod EPIC heroes, they are now what - level 8 to 12 nobodies? WTF?????
- Specifically that "Yes, we were friends for some time, but then foes again!" phrase... Just burn that napkin where it was written.
- Robocops walking the streets of Baldur's Gate... oooookay, I guess. Maybe. On the very verge of something allowable. Like, okay, a gondian genius, one per century, could have invented those. But to produce them industrially in such quantities? Like, we're having an industrial revolution on Toril? Seriously?
- The underwater base. That's beyond wild. It basically breaks the whole world. If we have this kind of tech, as well as those Steel Watchers, why are we still waging wars with swords and spears? Explain, please.
- The Emperor is Balduran? Fck me. No. No. No. No. No. You can't just take Ed Greenwood's or anyone else's work and pervert it to such degrees. Never ever was anything like that said in the Forgotten Realms lore. Which your narrative designers have basically raped rectally with a mop turned sideways. At the moment of this "reveal" I decided that I'd finish the game only because I'd already spent almost three hundred hours in it.
My point being? Respect the lore and the events of the games before the one you make. You don't make the game for yourself, you make it for us, the players. And some of us happen to know the series pretty well.

But that's just the part about the lore and the previous games' plots. There are also some things that make BG3 a Divinity game, not a Baldur's Gate one. Check this out:
- Quantity of companions. Technically, there's ten of them. De facto, you can't have more than nine in a single playthrough because Minthara either won't join you or will force you to lose a few other companions. So let's agree on nine at max. And that's the game's maximum, with only six being accessible from the beginning and through more than a half of the game. That's opposed to twenty five (or twenty three, as I'm not sure how to count Xzar and Montaron) in original Baldur's Gate 1 and seventeen in original Baldur's Gate 2. Depending on how you count, BG3 offers two to four times fewer companions than the first two games. And every companion is a character, a personal quest or three, a set of emotions formed towards them, a way of making your next playthrough even more different than the previous ones. Lots of possible companions, some of which you could simply not meet in one playthrough, was a series trademark of a sort. And let me add, lots of non-empty companions but people with character, motivation, attitude, relationships towards each other and so on. Maybe not so much in BG1, but definitely in BG2.
- Fat dudes! There's no fat dudes in BG3, and fat dudes were in both previous games... Damn, fat dudes were almost a trademark as well, like the innkeepers' phrase about an elven arse... which is not in BG3 either. Some elven arses indeed are, but not the trademark voice line. Seriously?
- The main character's importance. As in, who the fck are they? They're a nobody, that's who! While even at the very start of Baldur's Gate 1, basically since that cutscene where Sarevok kills Gorion, a player can feel that there is something important about them. And that feeling of importance grows and grows until not so long later when you learn that you in fact are a Bhaalspawn and have a destiny. You are a majorly important figure. And also you have a lot of enemies. And it all clicks into place. So... who are you in BG3? Nobody. Just a dude/chick with a worm in their eye. Which definitely sucks, but hardly a motivation for saving or ruining the world. Maybe for running to a good eye surgeon, but that's kinda it. And it continues throughout the whole game! The main character is a nobody who's just drifting with the stream. Epic fantasy, you say? Baldur's Gate, you say? Yeah, epic my ass.
- The main character's motivation. See above, looks like none or so unimportant that it's nowhere near BG1 and BG2. At the very least, at the very beginning of BG1, you already had an enemy. A real enemy with a face and so at fault before you that there's no questions to be asked about why are you trying to find him. In BG3? Like, no. Even the so-called main villains are so not of the same caliber AND so not guilty enough before you like Sarevok or Irenicus that they feel like victims more than nemeses. Except maybe for Orin because she's plainly evil.


And then there's some general things that probably could have been changed but it feels like no one thought they should be. Like, why bother if it's fine like it is? Or is it?
- The general graphic design. Why do I feel like I'm playing Divinity: Original Sin: Next or something like that? Seriously, it just screams "Divinity! I am Divinity!"
- The soundtrack. Like the game itself, it's a great soundtrack. But as a soundtrack for a part of Baldur's Gate series it sucks. Because it feels like it was made for DOS2. Heck, there are a few tracks that literally made me think, feel, and realize that I'm playing DOS2 again. I had to forcefully bring my mind back and convince myself that it's Faerun, it's Forgotten Realms, it's Baldur's Gate. Which in fact it's not, but I tried to persuade myself.