Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - Suggestions & Feedback Why i won't be buying the next Larian title on release.

I’ll admit, when the announcement came last week, I was angry and it took me a few days to cool down.

See, Baldur’s Gate helped me get through a particularly tough point in my life, something I’m still healing from, and I realize now that the hope of an expansion or continuation of the story was really keeping me going more than I’d expected. I’ll get over it of course, but right now? I’m just sad.

I think the way in which we got the news of the cancellation was poor. Swen’s immediate pivot to the next new exciting project, along with the IGN article confirming that an expansion had been started but canceled, left me feeling like Larian really didn’t care about the feelings of the fans who wanted a continuation. A company like Fromsoft would have made those announcements over several days / weeks, taking the time to lessen the blow by showing empathy / understanding that this was going to be disappointing news. The last thing I wanted to be told was how great this next new thing is going to be and how it’s going to blow my previous experience out of the water. It’s a bit tone deaf. Frankly, hearing about how the studio was supposedly elated at the decision to abandon something I loved also sucks!

I hope some lessons can be learned on how to better handle PR in the future.

Now, regarding the game itself. Larian, I enjoyed my experience in spite of you. I bought this game on release. I finished the game by Patch 3. It was rough. I had some major bugs and performance issues, but I found workarounds and pushed through it. Then I got to the ending and…wow. It was legitimately the absolute worst wrap up to a game that I had ever played. Some of it was my choices, but those ending sequences showed such a lack of polish and planning that I can’t believe they were made by the same studio who made Act 1. I felt so let down in fact that I refused to touch the game again until Patch 5. I walked away feeling like I’d wasted hours of my life.

So, Patch 5 roles around, and you know what? The epilogue is pretty good! The prior dock scenes were still kinda bad, but they'd been ironed out a tad. The party? Great. It felt like an apology, or an acknowledgement that what we got wasn’t appropriate for the level of quality that had come before. On top of it, the game starts hinting that there is going to be more! Heck yeah, I was getting excited!

It’s a very different experience getting to see an ending 2 months after you finish something. You don’t get the same kind of catharsis that you would, had you experienced it back to back. I wish I had, because upon seeing that epilogue, all I wanted was one last hurrah adventure with these companions that I’d grown to love so much. To give me one more chance at that catharsis I hadn’t yet felt.

Honestly, I could overlook the months it took to get the epilogue. I could overlook the poor release state of Act 3. I could even overlook having my multiplayer games repeatedly delayed MONTHS due to mac / PC version mismatching. In fact, I still haven’t gotten to experience a proper patch on the day it was released, and I doubt I ever will at this point.

I’ll wrap it up. Larian, you haven’t earned me as a repeat customer. I might consider buying your games when they’ve been on sale for a good year, and all the issues have been patched over, but I’ll lever touch a title of yours on release. I may have loved this game, but I don’t want to have to go through such a rollercoaster of disappointment and mixed emotions again.

Best of luck to you! I hope you enjoy working on this new title you’re excited about.

All of this is on you, not Larian.

I do remember reading somebody saying around Release, that "knowing Larian, I'll start playing a year after release, as it will be a different game by then" or words to that effect.

This may seem like offtopic ...
But i wonder:

How is that relevant?

OP, same

I mean they're allowed to have an opinion and decide how to spend their own money.

(Disclaimer: This is my personal opinion)
Personally, I lost all my faith in Larian the day I saw the interview. I start to ask myself what will happen with the next game? What if they also lose their passion for it and I'm enjoying the game and then they drop it just as they did with BG3? Honestly, I'm not going to buy the next game, I was always interested in trying a D&D game, I loved Larian for DOS2 and I was really hyped for what they come up with next. I was sad when Divinity: Fallen Heroes got cancelled but when I first heard about BG3, I was totally hyped and couldn't wait for it. I played EA asap. Sure, the first downer has been how long EA has taken, but I was fine with it as I knew at the end I would see a fully fleshed out, polished game. And lets be honest, EA was fun, Larian even added stuff based on fan feedback and such, everything seemed like we are on the ride of our gaming life. I was defending Larian several times, for sure. I was expecting the next big thing, something like Skyrim or Witcher 3, a game for a century. I expected Act 2 and Act 3 to be at least the same as Act 1 and that's was easily enough for me.

Then we got the release and it brought just disappointment to my doorstep. So many things changed from EA to release (e.g. Omeluums ring), the writing got changed for the worse (characters and main plot), Tav still looked so artificial and moved/stood/used the same facial expressions no matter what gender/body type you picked. I can pick a voice for the Tav and still Tav doesn't talk? The character creator is a joke (and a bad one), the game is oversexualized in many ways, the jokes are sometimes hurtful towards other chars (and subsequently their fans), not really funny and overall immature, sometimes they used Forgotten Realms lore, sometimes they simply ignored it and added homebrew where it was convenient for Larian, the list of bugs could easily compete with the length or LOTR and so on. I never expected the release to be that bad, I was under the impression that Larian can do better (at least from DOS2), especially when it comes to the extreme immaturity in BG3. It felt like a teenager movie at times.

BUT! Everything was still fine for me on release, as I was sure they will totally work on that. Why else would we have the feedback channel on Discord, feedback threads on here and the official feedback form on their website. Lets be real, bugs are normal and I can wait for them to be fixed. Also, each game has plot holes or contradictions and there have been so many good, well written feedbacks to point them out. None of them (or at least the most) were offensive in any way, you could just see how important the game and the content has been for so many players. Just imagine all the time they spent to write all that feedback in hopes of it being fixed or added (if said feedback is written frequent enough).
And til this day, we didn't really see a lot of that added (beside the epilogue, which is something Larian has been working on before the feedback, at least they said so). Instead, we got some mediocre solutions like the Karlach ending or the addition of kiss animations while there were still way more important things to fix.
I'm really sorry for everyone who spent time writing feedback (who might realize now that nothing of that was never even considered being added in the first place, which hurts and is an insult) just to read that while they wrote feedback with passion the team lost their own passion for the game.

Of course I would've liked to see a DLC, but what I was always hoping for the most was a good ending to the game, just a polished version with at least two (good/evil) routes to take that both feel worthy to play (beside Durge), but now it feels like this will never happen.
So, as I said, I lost my faith in Larian. Of course, it's bad if you lose your passion for the game you are working on and even if I hate the fact that the game is being dropped, I still can understand that they didn't want to go any further. It's just the timing and they way they communicated it, that's cruel.

But to end this on a positive note: Hats off to Swen Vincke, he had to decide between acting professional as a company/keeping their reputation or risking the mental (and physical) health of his team and he decided to take the more human path, which is great. Maybe, if some time has passed, they will look back at BG3 and question themselves if the game itself maybe has been a bit too huge and ambitious for them and they do more what they love. In that regard, I wish them the best.


Yeah, totally not. There are way more people than just the OP. Their PR is bad, just throwing out some interview saying how elated the team was to not having to work on BG3 for a longer time while the game itself is still in a state far from being finished or polished and not even releasing a proper news on any of their platforms is just bullcrap. Even more if they praise their next project, feels like just talking bad about their child while the next bun is in the oven.
I never saw anything like this, never have I read about developers feeling elated while the game is still within it's first year of release and very bugged for a lot of people.

I'm not sure how Larian is supposed to slowly break the news, and I don't think Larian broke any etiquette by the manner in which they let folks know they weren't going to do any expansions.

I am sorry that the original poster found the news hurtful, but in fairness, that's not Larian's fault. They don't need to learn a PR lesson about how to break the news.

I will agree that for all Larian is within their rights to stop working on the game, and for all they can announce that how they like and I will even say it's probably good that they announced it relatively early, Swen saying that they're elated to not be working on DLC is kind of in poor taste. Breaking the news slowly over weeks isn't the answer I don't think, but they still could easily have done better. Not releasing a formal announcement on their platforms for example, feels like a misstep.

That being said, I do think the focus on this aspect of the OP post is missing out on the larger point being made in it. And I think those points are way harder to dispute. I'm certianly not going to be buying anymore Larian games period. Their style just really is not for me, and as a studio from what I've seen from people talking about them on the forums, etc, they just have a bunch of glaring issues that they don't seem inclined to fix anyway. They do just seem very immature as designers, with little self-discipline in terms of executing on ideas and knowing when to pull back or not.

I agree with this. The word 'elated' struck a sour note and making an official announcement on their own platforms first would have been better PR wise, in my opinion. I think the way this news reached the players definitely helped fuel some of the speculation about Larian and WotC.

Hearing they had started work on DLC and then stopped was a bit of a blow. I'll be honest, I heard there would be no DLC before I bought the game and I was really happy about it. It seemed refreshing that Larian didn't want to milk BG3 for all it was worth. However after playing BG3 and enjoying it, I would have considered shelling out for a sequel.

Considering how enthusiastic Larian seem to be about the new shiny thing they are working on, leaves me worrying that BG3 will be left in its present state: Buggy and feeling unfinished. I was hoping for a Definitive Edition with bugs ironed out and a little cut content reinstated, but now I'm not hopeful of getting that.

I think it would be a good move if Larian used their own platforms (including this one) to reach out and give us a definite yes or no on a definitive edition and also to reassure players that all major issues will be fixed before they move on.

I had great hopes for a DLC, as this is the first RPG that I finished and played through several times since a long time. But it's better that they announce they won't do it now than let us in the dark with a maybe it will come, maybe not... Like Martin's "Winds of Winter". That's life. Uppers and downers.

I appreciate that Larian have no history of making DLC's, but even though their previous games were well received they wern't the blockbuster BG3 has turned out to be so I think it's quite reasonable that people did expect 'something', a definitive edition, some add ons even if not full blown DLC's.

Finding out that they have no plans for such from a third party interview does seem 'off'.

Larian have their own forum (waves) and a discord and really an open letter from Swen in both, maybe posted immediately after his interview would have been a better way to do it. Where he could have expanded a bit on what we can actually expect rather than leave us milling about in the dark.

Of course he might have had issues logging in..........

I might buy the next Larian game or I might not. Having been through a fair bit of the EA for BG3 and seeing how it has all played out post release I certainly will approach the next game with a significant amount of skepticism.

Also hearing how elated the staff were at being done with this title barely 6 months after release I’m sure as hell never going to prepay for any of their products again. My Larian rule going forward will be to always wait for the Definitive Edition.

Honestly after that interview why would anyone front them money again via EA? I’d be worried they’d get burnt out again.

Especially not if its just 60 bucks for EA instead of starting cheaper and increasing the price tag over time like several other games did. So they got the full amount of money plus lot of free testing and feedback and in the end, anyone who helped in EA got nothing (beside access to the game) got nothing on top. Not talking about anything special but just some thank you. Especially after changing the release version that much compared to EA.

I more than got my money's worth between early access and now.

As for future projects, it depends entirely on what the project is. If I find it interesting then I'll be interested.

^This.

I paid for a game and I received a game. Larian owes me nothing.

As far as why no more content, I'm willing to bet that the true story is that Hasbro and Larian could not agree on terms for a renewed license.

Yeah, I do feel like I come from a different timeline or have played a different game when I see how harsh some of the criticisms get here. The ending is quite bad. There are performance issues. Act 3 is bloated and the writing feels more rushed. But it's still a really good game, and with the amount of hours I've put into it and the enjoyment I've gotten from it, I can never feel scammed by Larian. It already made itself worth its money back in Early Access. I don't feel owed nothing, and I don't think them not continuing to work on the game or a future BG4 is personally attacking me, saddened as I am. I want new content and fixes to the worst stuff in the game as much as anyone else, but I don't think they mishandled the announcement and were inconsiderate or something.

To some extent, the comments where people say they are never going to buy a Larian game again strike me as disingenuous and pulling a "Karen", so to speak. When the game starts exaggeratedly being referred to as a piece of trash I can't help but think it's trying to guilt Larian into catering to a specific whim, like one of those really pissed off and overblown google reviews for a random restaurant that took 5 minutes too long to deliver the food.

I'll buy their next game as long as it's not sci-fi, sure. It's more about the content being to my liking than the company, really.

isn't it like, confirmed that their next project is going to be sci-fi?


also, i've been a fan of larian since divine divinity (the OG one, the hack'n'slash one), and their games were always a fun mess. Never go in expecting a good, finished and fulfilling story, and you won't be disappointed. It's pretty amazing how they've been making games for 20+ years now, and they are pretty much on the same level of making very fun game with very unfinished and awkward feeling story, in which protagonist is a personality void, and npcs range from great to "why, why is this even a character", ahah. You gotta love it, it has certain charm.
No amount of polish and luster can hide bad writing, it's only sad that it had potential to be good, judging by EA.

either way it's all about expectations, i guess.

It seems to be what they're implying, but I'm hoping that's not what it is lol. The only sci-fi adjacent setting I like are cyberpunk-esque ones. I'm so uninterested in space and aliens. The setting not being one I like can really affect the game experience for me. I know people love F:NV, but I was so bored and uninterested all the time because I didn't care for the setting (or the game's style, really) that I just rushed through to the end.

Regarding the writing, personally I think the main story is just okay, does its work for what it is, typical campaign, rushed towards the end. Act 2 is really solid, though. The writing shines more with the companions, or some of the companions, since some of them clearly got preferential treatment (Astarion, SH, Lae'zel). There are some inconsistencies in characterisation here and there that mostly strike me as Larian's (sometimes annoying) philosophy of letting the player do whatever they want to overriding how a character would or should react. But I think there's some really, really solid stuff in there.
Of course there might also be one or two (one. it's just one.) companions that are written really badly because of Larian's penchant for pleasing fans even if it's a stupid idea, if we need to address the bear in the room.

I feel like the main story in BG3 is mostly just an excuse to explore the world and its characters, so I was always okay with, let's say, act 1 (since I really do like act 2). But the way things quickly wrapped up during the final battle in act 3 still leaves a bad taste in my mouth epilogue or not, and I'm huffing copium that it'll be properly fixed and not get a band-aid fix since there are fundamental problems to the ending that can't be fixed by better cinematics or whatever.

funnily enough, i don't think act 2 is that amazing.
Let's just say, I find the whole shadow-cursed land to be extremely goofy from beginning to end. The weird in-universe concept of whole settlement dedicated to Selune, then Shar (right next to a major city, on sword coast that is a melting pot of sorts, where all sorts of religions should mesh together all the time), the whole idea that there's this little town on top of this gargantuan temple (who built it, what for, if sharran worshippers mostly end up just killing each other \ dying anyway, in general, Shar having such bombastic presentation never made sense to me, wasn't she supposed to be this niche\fringe goddess?).

I dunno, it can all be explained away with magic, or "it doesn't matter", but whole setting of Act 2 feels extremely rushed and out of place to me, much like a lot of things in game. Fun on surface, very pretty, very entertaining - but falls apart if you think about it a little too long.

Now, I don't like going cinema sins on my media, so I'm not gonna say it's BAD for it, but I can't help but wonder - how come we have those 3 unique looking bosses related to Kethric, and they are never even remarked upon by your companions? You'd think they are freaky enough at least for NPCs to have a reaction, but they really are those sideshow attractions in a bubble that really feel divorced from the rest of the world... much like many other quests do.

i still enjoy it very much, but there's really a lot throughout the entire game to pick apart in terms of overall writing\story\setting. I dunno! I might be alone in it, it just feels goofy to me, can't shake it off.

You are not alone at all! I found Act 2 to be my favorite because it feels like the act where, despite the setting issues, you have the clearest direction and it's where gameplay and story feels the most in tune rather than fighting against each other like in acts 1 and 3, but the story of it is in fact as all over the place as every other part of the game. The setting of act 2 gets even worse when you consider that apparently there's always been a mindflayer hive under there and nobody noticed. I think that the main plot of the game is just a mess from beginning to end, held together by string where it's held together at all.

I also cannot tell you how gratifying it is to hear someone else bring up those mini-bosses. I think you're underselling how strange their presence is, even. Because they aren't just mini-bosses, they're all specifically Kethric's family. Be they children (one of them definitely is) or more distant relations, their presence makes Kethric's whole deal and the themes there weaker. Family is supposed to be everything driving this guy, yet we can kill his three surviving family members and nothing gets said about it at all. The game doesn't even ever ask you to go to them either. No quest directs you to meet them for any reason, you can just avoid them and it's fine. It's like they were leftovers from an earlier draft of the game that were written out, but Larian thought they were cool enough fights to not actually remove them completely. It's bizarre.

I think you are on the money here. They, much like that raven guy who asks you to bring him dead lady's journal, feel like bigger part of the story that was cut - too much unique presentation and flavor to disappear into nothing. If they cut this content, they could just make them random sharran guys, tbh, it'd be a bit less awkward than keeping name "Torm" attached to them.

Same!

If the next game has the things I love about BG3 (cinematic dialogue, party-based, narrative-focused, not 1st person, fun quests and maps, lots of QoL stuff), I’ll definitely get it! I like both fantasy and sci fi, so either is fine with me!

Larian specifically doesn't care about the feelings of fans, unless of course it's an economically significant majority like SH fans who demand a new stool for her and get this. For me, this game was the biggest disappointment, primarily because it was great at first. The first act is great, the second act is good too, the third act is a bit empty and there's already some extremely idiotic dialog in places, but overall it was playable. But to get an unexpected spit in the face in the form of another patch, with the complete destruction of the story and the impossibility of further play...

No, there's no way I'll buy a new Larian game, at best, maybe I'll look at it and other players' reviews only when it's fully ready, has gone through all the patches, definitely there won't be any changes already, as a 100% finished product, in which it's guaranteed there can't be any unexpected meanness. But to be honest, I'm more interested in which studio will take on BG4, whether any other studios will take on the development of BG3 characters, since the rights to them remain with Wizard.

BG3 was a very good game, even too good a game, if it wasn't, it would have been much easier to just spit and forget about it. It was. It isn't.

In the modern day, purchasing ANY game on release seems like more of a gamble than it's worth. So many botch releases, half-finished games and glorified early access "Full releases"...

It's the same idea about why pre-ordering has been dumb since the switch to digital distribution (At least back in the days of physical retail, pre-ordering meant you reserved a copy to ensure you got one before it sold out. With digital distribution there's lliterally infinite copies available)

Even for particularly well regarded games it's still often worth waiting a while for bugs to be patched out and any extra content to be added post-release (Something that Elden Ring did as well as BG3).

Larian specifically, have a history of making Definitive Editions for their games. So there might be a possibility for a DE of BG3 down the road, which would be the ideal time to pick the game up (Though it's not a guarantee that BG3 will have a DE) as the DE has typically been the game with the most polish and extra content.

As for "Early Access", it's one of those things that you need to consider before buying into. EA isn't just "Play the game early" but rather "Play the game mid-development" meaning that you should expect things to change over time and for the final release to be somewhat different.

I personally avoid EA titles because it's not for me. I don't like playing half finished products, nor do I like spending money to be a beta tester (I'll beta test for free, to help find bugs and give feedback on stuff, but paying money to do that? Nah fam).

These days, the only game I'll preorder is an FFXIV expansion. And that's an MMO, so it's never expected to be "finished". Still, I know that there will be bugs, but I also know that the story will be hugely fulfilling and will be playable.

Larian has a tendency to not make direct continuations of their games. Sure DOS1 and DOS2 are related but only in name. They changed a lot of the world and lore from what was established before, and not just small stuff but foundationally lore, and DOS2 contained little to no references to DOS1. When Larian starts a new game they tend to ignore what was done before. Same with BG3. It not really a sequel to BG1 or 2 but its own thing. The only thing each game carries on is the gameplay. So, I feel if they made a BG4 they would do the same that they did with DOS1. Time skip a hundred years and use new characters and new plots. The only reason people didn't complain about that in DOS2 is because DOS1 was very niche.

The most frustrating thing is when a game gets changed (not even changed, but specifically ruined) six months after release.
I can understand that EA is a game in the middle of development, and by playing EA you just want to make some small contribution and help the developers, yes, it's voluntary beta testing. But the official release is the finished game. It can have bugs that will be fixed later, they can introduce additional content, improve something... Improve, not ruin the story by turning a familiar and beloved game world into outright crap. "Changes" that insult players, common sense, and basic concepts of scenario logic - this speaks volumes, including the lack of any quality control by management. Swen said he wanted to make games that he himself would enjoy playing, when I read this I really wanted to offer him to play in my shoes after patch 6 and ask him how he liked it, did he like it a lot? Unless of course he is referring to an audience of only his own gender and making the choices he himself would make.

I don't think I'll ever buy any Larian games at all again, whether they're completed or not, especially when I found out Stephen Rooney left Larian.
I'm waiting for Avowed from Obsidian, especially after their promise that there will be no morality in their game. And there won't be romances either. I never thought I'd be happy that there would be no romances in the game, I thought they were an important part of the story, giving realism to what was going on and making the main character a living and feeling person. But after Larian perversions, when they try to shove bear/Illithidian or whatever fuck at every corner, and when I just ignore it and treat my favorite character sincerely, then it turns out that "I like to degrade myself" and get a concrete spit in the face, obviously for too serious and realistic approach to this cheap brothel, I'll be directly happy to buy a game where exactly and guaranteed there won't be THIS.

I would buy a new Larian game, providing the setting and 'the hook' intrigue me enough.
It would have to be something spectacular or unusual for me to be attracted to a Sci Fi game though, generally I am not overfond of those (exception being Fallout 4 but that's post apocalypse and not really all that sci fi in most aspects of it - more 1950's than futuristic).

Irrespective of what type of game it is I think its likely I will wait 6 months or so, and monitor patches before purchase.
Somewhat annoyed at how the game I was playing at release changed so much after patch 6 and that some of the original writers were moved to other projects when BG3 was still being worked on (as in some fundamental story beat changes, not talking about qol changes and bug fixes).
Obviously Stephen Rooney leaving has affected that as well. His writing was a cut above the usual and he will be missed in Larians future projects but I wish him well in whatever he chooses to do in the future.

I wish Larian well also.
I hope any new game, whether I buy it or not will have the excellent voice acting and cinematics that this one did and will be a success for them. Conversely I hope to not see leaving the final part of any new game underpolished and unfinished until several patches after release. There will be much more attention on any future project and it's unlikely to get a free pass from the critics in the future. Here's hoping

This, I think, is the main mistake Larian makes in regards to the game's story. Only the original author truly understands the concept of his character, his behavior and reactions, another person will start to change the character, it is good if it will be a talented person who wants to preserve and add to the story, who does not seek to shove at any cost some of their own desires as to how events should develop. Even so, the original author must control the process and have the final say. Otherwise, as in the case of BG3, we have a mess of a high-class script and a third-rate novel. If a game is a AAA game, it should have not only graphics and gameplay of the appropriate level, but also a story.

Ehh... I'll hold my reservations for now.

The Outer Worlds did the whole "Look ma, no romances!" thing and I felt that the companions ended feeling flat and boring because there was much less interaction with them besides their story mission...

That said, isn't Avowed supposed to be the "Skyrim-alike" set in the Pillars universe? Romances were never a big part of Skyrim (Nor was its companions, besides that vampire gal in the DLC) so perhaps the lack of romances won't be as jarring as in TOW where it felt much more like your typical Bioware style "Collect-the-companions" game.

I guess we'll have to see.

Personally I'm on the side of hoping more games do romances so that people can work on making them better as opposed to avoiding them completely so they never evolve past DA:O's terrible "Get approval > Awful and cringy sex scene" system. I want to see more dynamic systems, with better interactivity with partners, more realistic friendships, rivalries and autonomy (Less, "Collect all the companions and they stay with you forever no matter what, even if you leave them in camp 24/7")

Avowed promised two levels of friendship - friendship and "deep friendship", that is, some kind of spiritual closeness with companions will be, and different levels of disclosure of companions for the player. That's curious, too. And they promised companion interaction between the companions themselves and the relationships between them. That seems curious and really worth a look.


Yeah, that would be perfect. I'd really like realistic and deep relationships in the game, with emotions and dialogues, without the sex frenzy like in BG3. BG3 somehow a priori assumes that the player will want to have a relationship with two companions in the first chapter, it's impossible to even announce to the other companions that Tav is already in a relationship.

I wasn't a huge fan of act 2; while it had some very interesting stuff in it with the different Thorm siblings etc., I found it lacking in variety; I enjoyed it the first time around but found it felt like more of a depressing chore the second time. Acts 1 and 3 are much better in terms of variety, and as maxyd says the more you think about it the weirder it feels within the setting.

According to the loading screen/concept art the shadow cursed lands lie between the Emerald Grove and Baldur's Gate, but that puts them north of the river on the main road to Elturel; the lore says the lands have been cursed for something like 50+ years, there's no way the leaders of Baldur's Gate and Elturel would have allowed such a major trade route (and the river itself) to be threatened for so long without mobilising in force to clear it.

But for me the bigger problem is that it's act 2; while I enjoyed it well enough the first time I played, it felt like more of a chore on a second run because I knew I had to get through it before I could do the parts I really wanted to do. Acts 1 and 3 have a lot more variety and freedom (though not narratively, as they're both constantly telling you to do the main quest right now at every opportunity).

I'd much prefer the game had got us to the city sooner (it's called Baldur's Gate 3 after all) and then been structured with more individual quests. For example, if the Dead Three avatars had met at the goblin camp, with a requirement for us to be there no matter what (either having defeated them, or successfully attacked the Emerald Grove) where we learn of their existence and the elder brain. We could have then arrived at the city knowing we need to find out who these three are and how to defeat them, but without quite so much of an imperative (save Gortash's inauguration, the Absolute army and the earthquakes for after we've started moving against the Dead Three avatars), leaving us free to do side quests in the city, only venturing out to the shadow cursed lands when we're ready to deal with Thorm. I'd also have maybe transplanted some of the Thorm siblings into the city to make the shadow cursed lands smaller, made the whole Thaniel thing a side quest that lets you go back later if you want to etc. rather than lumping so much together into act 2 with the hard cut (can't go back) into act 3.

There's definitely ways they could have structured BG3 differently to make it a lot easier to replay; I hope they learn from the experience and try to create more of a hub structure in future games, as I much prefer to gain freedom to roam and complete side quests in any order as soon as possible. While it makes sense for a main quest to push you at times, it shouldn't escalate too quickly or it starts to make you feel like you're wasting time doing anything else.


In terms of when is best to buy the next game; I actually had the smoothest experience with BG3 playing from day one. I encountered no major bugs, the worst thing that happened to me was during one of the finale fights I had three harper allies trapped in a test area rolled into initiative (which made the fight super slow switching to them and back), but nothing that really caused a problem. By contrast my later playthroughs have been very unstable, especially the one I've been doing co-op – I understand multiplayer is challenging, but after so many patches it still feels like the game is hanging together by a thread at times).

I understand how you feel OP, like yourself, I'm very disappointed they decided to pack it in and move on.

That said, WOTC are not easy to work with, they have a reputation for being douchebags and it's one they've earned, there's no doubt in my mind that they were being pushy towards Larian regardless of what Swen has said, they almost certainly wanted to capitalize on the success in the same way EA did with Dragon Age Origins, which resulted in a rushed out game in DA2. I feel that Larian couldn't be bothered with poking and proding and just called it a day on Baldurs Gate.

And I'm sorry to hear about the difficult time in your life, I truly hope it does improve for you, but for me BG3 wasn't a good game because it was DND, it was a good game because Larian made it, try giving Divinity Original Sin 2 a try. As long as their next game isn't something like fallen heroes which sounds basically like XCOM meets Divinity then I'll be buying their next game.

Larian games have their annoying quirks, I doubt their next game will be any different :

-An amazing chapter 1 followed by a steady crash down hill for the next game chapters.
-No main hero, its all about the companions.
-No time, no day/night, no weather, no urgency this leads to a lack in immersion and atmosphere in all their games. TOTAL opposite to Obsidian games.
-Disney fun with sex and blood everywhere aesthetics.
-Very weird UI party controls. Floaty cartoony movement.
-Glowing eyes. They love glowing eyes. Heroes, villains, spells, critters...
-Boat load of overpowered easily obtainable items that overrides every gameplay systems/classes.
-Particularly easy to cheese.

I am really burned out of their style of doing things.

I say this as someone who has had literal breakdowns where something about this game was the straw that broke the camel's back: The idea they should burn themselves out and work with a company they don't agree with morally to make fans happy is honestly incredibly self-centered. They should work with a company that don't agree with on a moral level so people can play more of a game they like? They should not only burn themselves out, but do so without ever even mentioning it publicly?

Do you seriously think that artists and creators shouldn't ever acknowledge the burnout that comes from working on the same project for so long? Or how they don't like the restrictions that were put on them? Or talk about being excited to work on something new? Or express how they're hoping to outdo themselves on their next project? How is that tone deaf? And how does any of that actually affect you more than it affects the actual devs?

Like seriously, I get how very literally something like this can be a lifeline. But the developers are real people with real feelings and real lives. It's ridiculous to expecti them to not only burn themselves out to continue making a game you like, but to also get upset that they don't take your feelings into consideration when talking about their experiences.

Imagine you worked at Walmart and were treated like crap, and decided to get a job at target that comes with a nice raise instead. Would you seriously pretend you weren't excited when telling a customer you see daily you won't be working there anymore? How would you feel if they then got insulted and complained to your manager because they don't want to go to Target to see you? Would you feel like it was tone deaf?

Who here has advocated for any of this?

Also SV said their decision had nothing to do with WOTC.

People are disappointed and expressing that. It’s a discussion forum so some discussions will be critical in nature.

I am sad that the people who worked on these characters are burnt out on working on them. The characters don't feel finished in-game due to act 3 so why are people burnt out when it's not finished? Did act 1 take up most of their time so they ran out of time in act 3? It is so weird how I'm excited for a playthrough in act 1 but then when I get to act 3 it just feels like a chore and I'm disappointed at how quiet or unreactive the companions are to major things that happen in act 3, especially for Dark Urge.

Dark Urge in act 3 feels unfinished when it comes to companion reactions... and we might not get to see it finished because of burn out. Feels bad man.

Burn out doesn't require completion of task to occur.

The game was in development for 6 years, then after release they spent even more time working on it with the patches.

Working on the same game for 6+ years can become tiring, especially if you as a team keep having to overcome hurdles due to working around the D&D ruleset which is more restrictive than your own IP's you've previously worked on.


Pretty much.

Act 1 was developed along with Early Access. Meaning 3+ years out of the total 6 was spent on Act 1.

Then they remembered there's 2 more Acts in the game...

It's a recurring theme for Larian's development. Work excessively on Act 1 with help of Early Access feedback... Then remember the rest of the game exists and crank out whatever they can in the remaining development time.

Honestly, it's probably a factor in their burn out too. When you hyper fixate on Act 1, spending lots of time and resources meticulously crafting it... Then you look at Act 2 and Act 3 and think "Aww hell naw, I'm not doing all that work 2 more times..."

Why I won't be buying the next Larian game in a nutshell: Their project management is horrifically bad.

6 years not to mention COVID occurring as well which probably made 6 years seem like 10. I’ve a little more empathy for them now than when this was first announced. It is what it is.

This whole thread seems to be a bit over-dramatic.

I have spent hundreds of hours playing this game, earning all the trophies, and while I'm not proud of it, the game even made me cry a few times.

There were times when the game was buggy, laggy, or straight-up unable to save. There were weeks when I couldn't play the game because it was unplayable by my standards.

But even with all its flaws, Larian has gained me as a return customer.

The first thing I learned about the studio is that they don't do DLCs and love changing things up post-release. It's okay if it's not someone's vibe.

I am more than excited to see them working on something they are truly passionate about, and will be pre-ordering their next product.