Edit: That aside, I've been playing a multi-player narratively driven RPG with voice acting and cutscenes for the past 16 years, and would not call Larian's multiplayer 'novel' or 'bold' in any real respect.
Which one? Not much of a multiplayer tbh, never been. I'm also not a HUGE cinematics fan nor do I need full VO. However, the way BG3 (or to a lesser extent DOS2) branch out from the go, as well as all the systemic interactions and open quest design... can't see that anybody has tried that before. Even in singleplayer, I've had a few sequences where I was puzzled how they managed that withouth the game glitching out or breaking (which on the occasion, I've also seen happening).
In particular since "narratively driven RPG" has become pretty much synonymous with the Bioware experience the moment they pushed that way: A pretty linear interactive movie with some branching COYA (dialogue) choices here and there, the model also adopted by CD Projekt, as they're really their former peers. Narrative-driven and multiplayer is even more tricky, as players may want to push that narrative in different directions (to the point where one player at any moment may just want to kill the guy the party's talking to). Narrative driven and cinematic and multiplayer doubly so. Narrative-driven, multi-player, cinematic AND a game branching out, even with every individual quest, well... there was this discussion early this year for reason.
https://www.pcgamer.com/were-runnin...-lead-quest-designer-on-big-budget-rpgs/As for awards, I don't care for them. What will be more interesting is:
- If a game is still being talked about in a couple years from now.
- Whether it had a positive influence on an industry (which, if you ask me, the big budget RPG space has been in dire need of for decades).