Tbf, the (sex & violence!!!1) trailer for Origins was complete cringe, and it didn't get any less so with age. Rock, Paper, Shotgun ridiculed early E3 presentation too --
and it seemed they weren't the only ones laughing in the audience.Still, Bioware has always been Load/Black album era Meh-tallica. At best, it's a decent introduction to the good stuff, often made by somebody else. At worst, it's that stuff industry-processed into something for people who don't actually quite LIKE that stuff. And some incarnation of Bob Rock had been with them from the very beginning, ensuring that they'd always chase the lowest common deniminator, whatever the price. Remember that even Baldur's Gate only came to be when Interplay suggested doing a party-based D&D game rather than the MMORPG/RTSish game they were pitching to them -- two of the biggest trends you could chase mid 1990s. I mean, Origins was pitched as a "back to the roots" kind of project barely an European Football Championship after BG had shipped. That's their story in a nutshell.
So if gameplay shown makes this the first time that you're confused about a Bioware title -- welcome to the club after twenty odd years. That's been in their DNA all along: "We want Call Of Duty's / Fortnite's / Whatever's Currently Popular audience now!" The reason that BG3 at all exists is precisely, bingo, Bioware. And not in a "good" way.
