Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General What makes bg3 so popular? What gave bg3 this mass appeal?

I didn't say that, but the poster I quoted said, that Wyll is stupid and I was pointing out, that he was 17 - we were all stupid at that age and he still managed to save his city and make something of himself, so not really a victim.

The victimisation for me, seems to be much more present in the heads of the audience than in the actual story. I guess, because it is just more convenient to have a big bad to hate. Gale is his own worst enemy, but that's a story that doesn't leave much room for any righteous anger against some villainous figure on his behalf. If you reduce Astarion and Shadowheart's tales to overcoming their oppressors their tales are also much more simple than if you read them as reflections on fear & safety or on the meaning of identity in Shadowheart's case.

Not everyone.

Wyll CHOSE to enter the pact.
Gale CHOSE to be a jackass and ignore Mystra so he could get more power for himself.
Astarion CHOSE to become a Vampire spawn instead of dying.

They only have themselves to blame for the consequences of their choices.

The only people whom have legitimately been wronged by others are:

Karlach was sold by Gortash to Zariel (Leading to her being experimented on with the Infernal Engine heart and forced to be a pawn for Zariel)
Shadowheart was kidnapped and brainwashed by Sharrans (Though, how much of a "Victim" she is when she can be perfectly content continuing as a Sharran...)
Lae'zel is a Gith, brought up with Gith standards which promotes harshness and violence (Though, she's not much of a victim as she has no qualms with continuing with such things)

Besides that, making people out to be "Victims" is a common thing for companions because it gives an easy plotline for a companion story. It's much easier to write about their quest to go and get back at the person who wronged them than to write about someone who is perfectly fine and dandy just doing normal things because nothing bad happened to them (At least for good playthroughs. It's always possible for an evil character to have a personal quest of obtaining power. Like, even if Astarion was always a true vampire he could still have an arc about tracking down Cazador because of his ritual to gain more power)

I've very much not liking the implication that a mistake made in a high stakes, emotional situation justifies 2 centuries of mental abuse, physical abuse, and SA. I'm also not liking the idea that compassion and pity are uncalled for in that situation. I'm not liking that at all.

I know I've been part of it, but I think this digression has gone on long enough to count as derailing the thread.

Folk are very welcome to start another thread if they wish to discuss how far companions/origins' backgrounds excuse the choices they make (a topic that can run and run, given that it's not one that has clear answers in real life either!), but let's draw a line under it here.

Apologies if I was the straw that broke the camel's back for derailing the thread, or if I came across as too aggressive. Perhaps I was reading too much into "They only have themselves to blame."

Back on track: I particularly enjoy the side characters in this game. They're well voice acted, and some even have satisfying, multi-act arcs. I'm particularly fond of Barcus's, Rolan's, and Mayrina's arcs. I think the fact that they can all die in act 1 makes it more satisfying if the player does help them survive and undergo their character development.

As a programmer (not a gaming programmer) I think the main reason why I would probably still be attracted to this game even if I wasnt already a fan of BG1 and BG2 is simply that in this project the programmers and artists clearly have been given the freedom and room to implement a game to its fullest potential.

Not many game programmers get this freedom and I think it shows in the product.

Also Larian managed to archieve this goal without going overboard, like a certain Star Citizen.

One more point could be their good community guidelines. That allowed every streamer to celebrate the game to their fans (and make some ad-money that way) so it got a lot of free publicity.

One point may be that they had a working model to build games — DOS2 — and they translated that to a widely known IP.

I think this is one reason for the success of BG3: all the companions are obviously flawed, and in their romance arcs they can become better. It’s genuine character progression, and you don’t get that if you start out as good.

These flaws also enable Larian to draw out the romance over 150 hours of gameplay.

And they are quick to acknowledge *you* (the player).

Different for others, the delaying part of the romance for Karlach is external: it’s not her character, not some external loyalty or being alien, but just that she is cursed with that burning heart — for which she’s only responsible insofar that she trusted the wrong person.

Bear sex

My main argument was that BG3 has a lot more good elements than nothing but the companions, as it was claimed in this thread by others.

I am certain that some players indeed are exclusively attracted to the companions, but I dont think thats even a sizeable part of the gamers who play the game, let alone the majority or anything like that.

And dont fool yourself that people you meet in forums are representative for the people who play a game. For example steam statistics show that only like 3 percent have finished the game on ironman mode. The people who actually bother to read and write in the forum of this game have probably a much higher rate than that.

(Personally I'm not really interested in the ironman mode ... maybe one day, I dont know, but so far I'm happy to play on hard)

Good elements =/= stand out elements.

Many RPG's have plenty of good elements. I can name many good elements for games like DoS2, PoE2, Rogue Trader, WotR, Solasta, Tyranny etc.

But simply having good elements is not the cause of BG3's massive popularity - Whereby it defied the genre niche and became mainstream. A feat that has only been achieved by select few games (Like ME2, Witcher 3, DAO, ER)

In terms of what BG3 has done that is stand out - By which I mean, is impactful enough to the average joe that they decide to pick up a game for a genre that they don't normally play. It has been the companions.

Like, not in terms of companion writing. The companions aren't groundbreakingly deep and engaging. But in terms of their sexual appeal. All across the internet, there's people lusting over Shadowheart, Karlach and Astarion. The statistics from Larian themselves show that these 3 are by far the most popular companions in the game too.

Yes, the game has other elements that are good. Which would be why actual RPG fans actually liked the game as well as why non-RPG gamers might actually stick around. But these other good elements aren't going to be attracting many non-RPG gamers to the game in the first placce.

With it also not being unique in this. Those other games that became mainstream? They also featured sexy companions/LI's. Morrigan and Alistair in DAO, Triss and Yennefer in W3, Miranda (I've also seen a fair bit of lust over Thane and Jack too) in ME2, Melina, Ranni, Marika and Malenia in ER...

Which seems to suggest that the main commonality between all these games that did the same mainstream breakthrough, is the primary reason for their larger success over other games in the genre.

I doubt that. People making fan posts on social media are not a representative group of casual players, these are usually the most dedicated (or obssesed) fans. If you engage only with them it might leave the impression this is how it is for most players. Most players are casual gamers, and don't bother obsessing over a game to this extent. I am an older player and don't even have social media where I could make 'fan posts', btw.

Larian likes to post their statistics, but that is just a count of how often players do something in the game. This tells you nothing about why the bought they game in the first place either. I've bought BG3 because I am an old fan of the original series and I like turn based combat. I have tried the romances, because why not, but it would not be (and never was) the deciding factor in buying a game for me.

I think the main reason for BG3 popularity is the one Larian named themselves, their co-op model. This gets the players to invite others, who might not even have heard about the game before. So even if someone has no social media, does not read gaming news or watch yt, or whatever is popular nowadays, they might have heard about BG3 from other people.

Most of my game purchases are made because of recommendations from others. There is just too much sponsored content on social media to follow any trends there.

Not really. Casual players use social media too, and they will post all sorts of nonsense they find interesting.

It's not indicative of playerbases at all, but it's at least something. Something that happens to line up with other factors, like other games that happened to have the same success and share a similar quality as well as the very well known fact of "Sex sells" which is why it has been a marketing strategy since time immemorial.


No, but it shows a trend. A trend that the most gushed over characters in the game are literally the most popular ones by players of the game.

There's only so many trends that line up you can pass off as mere coincidence before you have to start considering that it might actually suggest something.


And you're here on the forums. Meaning that 1) You're an RPG player and 2) You're a fan enough to engage in discussion of said game.

Thus, you are not a non-RPG gamer and thus are not representative of said group of non-RPG gamers. Meaning that just because YOU personally didn't' buy the game because of romances, doesn't mean that NO-ONE at all did.


I doubt that. Many games have co-op systems and are very good games yet have not had massive success like BG3 did.

In addition, I'm skeptical that people would suddenly pick up a game from a genre they don't normally play simply because of co-op. In addition, not all the similar breakout success games had co-op (Only ER does) meaning co-op itself isn't a defining factor of success.


But many games get recommendations. Basically all good games get recommended to others. Yet not all recommended games achieve critical success and enter mainstream playability.

Also, MANY people follow social media and trends. That's why sponsored content on social media exists, because it works. If it didn't work, they wouldn't bother with it... The average joe schmo is not all that discerning when it comes to social media and trends (I mean... Just look at all the brainrot that goes viral. Even dumb things like the tidepod challenge which was so popular that some confectionary brand even made special edition tidepod shaped chocolates to cash in on it...)

I am on these forums because they are very small and get little traffic and so you can have a normal discussion. I used to be also on reddit but that was before they got so many bots pretending to make posts there. If you look at social media, then it might seem like big numbers, because nowadays these overinflated by said bots.

I have been playing crpgs for over twenty years, and romances are not a new invention. I think people enjoy these as additions to a well made game, not the conclusion and centerpoint of one. Romance and sex games would be more popular otherwise. Imo most people play games for the gameplay itself, and being able to play with others adds to that.

Romances can indeed be fun, but so far I only liked one in all games - Aerie in BG2.

I probably would have liked Viconia in BG2, too. From what little I've seen BG2 evil parties are really funny. But I have never figured out how to play BG2 in an evil way that really worked. I really dont want to run around killing random peasants just to keep the reputation low whenever it gets too high, and thats the only way I found to make it work at all.

I already dont like the Bastila romance in Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic because its merely seven dialogues. How is that even a romance ? Its extremely subdued. Playing evil in KotOR is kind of trivial, just whenever you did something good in the regular game you would do the opposite instead in the evil game. You still get the exact same romance though, and still the exact same girl.

Not representative, but a datapoint:

I came to BG3 because I loved Divinity 2 and that one awesome Game Music Video from early access gave me the hint that BG3 was coming by Larian.

I got drawn in by playing a dragonborn, was held by a mix of strong characters, great voices, beautiful romance, sex (yes, that too), and Alfira.

My enthusiasm was stoked by the mix of hard decisions, freedom in movement (I didn’t actually travel the underdark in my first playthrough), beautiful backstories , and the storytelling for a mature audience that did not mince words.

I was completely taken in by the character progression and intense love story of Lae’zel .

There are so many points where the game could have lost me (and in part 3 it almost did), but it managed to keep my enthusiasm burning throughout the game — and that’s why I’m here now. So it was almost always good, and some parts were awesome.

Maybe one more point is that the opening scene already scared away many possible haters: those who willingly play a game where a worm claws its way into your eye won’t be taken aback by the later writing. And this was in the cinematic trailer on the store page, so you’d also not get disgruntled buyers.

I think you guys are overlooking the biggest factor of all: it is a D&D game. By multiple accounts there are now around 15 million people worldwide playing 5e D&D. For years and years after the release of the final expansion for NwN2, the legions of D&D fans were, on every single RPG gaming forum, bemoning and griping about the lack of a *quality* D&D videogame. All through much of the 3.5e years, and all of the 4e and 5e years, we got extremely few D&D videogames being greenlit by WotC, and those very few games were all universally crap. So when finally we get a D&D videogame, and it is in the highly popular 5e of D&D, and it certainly meets any D&D fan's minimal threshold for what is a *good* videogame, then those 15 million D&D fanatics are going to jump on to that bandwagon wholesale. You add in at least 1-2 million additional buyers who are *not* D&D fans, for example people who are fans of Larian and/or the D:OS games and/or RPG fans generally, then you end up with huge sales numbers. The key, though, is that you are starting out with a built-in fanbase of 15 million, a fanbase that is literally desperate for and crying out for a decent D&D videogame, and where satisfying the craving of that fanbase does not take a whole lot. That's BG3.

This, btw, is also why someone else trying to replicate BG3 sales numbers won't work out for them, because BG3 was in a very unique position. Even those legions of D&D fans are not going to jump on to a future D&D videogame the way they did BG3, because they have now received their "good D&D videogame" fix. So another gane like BG3 won't move that needle much at all. I suspect Larian/Vincke understood this, and that was a big part of their decision to move on to something else entirely different. They have gotten all they can possibly get out of making that big D&D videogame the D&D fans have been pining after for years.

Kingmaker, WotR and Solasta are quality DnD games. Arguably even better DnD games than BG3 (Especially since they are more true to actual DnD rules compared to Larian and their excessive homebrew)

So... Why didn't they become as successful as BG3 if the main factor was simply "Being a DnD game"?


Ironically, most DnD players I've heard, are often pining for 3.5e over 5e or at the very least, bemoaning 5e due to it's "Simplicity".