Larian Studios Forums Divinity General Discussion Seems like lots of people want a darker or more evil game, but is that an accurate sampling?

To preface this, I have well over 2000 hours in BG3 alone, 5.5 runs. I've played pretty much every top tier CRPG available.
I just don't enjoy evil runs. I play video games because life is dark and challenging enough; I want to lose myself in a space where I can look forward to a happy ending, or at the very least a bittersweet one. Misery and relentless darkness just hold no joy. I like being the scrappy hero who romances Morrigan and Shadowheart, who gets a kick out of redemption arcs and not abusing the weak.
We see in forums and social media people asking all of the time for darker games or more evil play-throughs, or more misleading and anxiety ridden choices. From the proliferation of these posts, it is easy to think that it is a majority of players asking for this, but my suspicion is that it is far from the truth.
People who loved BG3 or DOS2 don't complain about the game being not dark enough, they talk about what they liked; the particular facets that made them happy, and usually those aspects are the ones that make the game fun, or rewarding, or uplifting. Indeed, most of the Embrace Durge runs I have read regret or at the very least struggled with the choices and consequences of said choices. I don't believe I have read a single person reporting they would do another Embrace Durge or evil run because their last run just wasn't dark enough, or they really enjoyed it. Most of the posts I have read are the opposite; the poster or commenters say their run was not enjoyable, with the clear implication they would not do it again.
People who post about wanting darker runs or more evil choices are complaining. People who are happy with BG3, who think Larian did an exemplary job balancing darkness and light, aren't going to tend to post complaints. They are going to post congratulatory and positive experiences, which are far less memorable *because people doing good things and enjoying doing good things is common*. We are the majority. People who want evil games are, in my suspicion, merely a very vocal minority, and I'd be willing to bet a small minority as well.
I just hope Larian uses what people actually played; the roles, the 'alignments', the romances, the alliances, as the basis for balancing Divinity, rather than listening to the squeaky wheels. BG3 is about as dark as I would want any game to get, in all honesty.
If people want more fleshed out evil run options, fine, but just don't make the entire world darker and more miserable for the majority of us who want games that let us experience joy and an aspect of being a hero in a real life where being a hero is ever more challenging and rare.
I would be willing to bet that for every player who makes more than one dark run, there are 100 who are absolutely doing Embrace Hero runs.
In short, Larian, I hope we can look forward to saving the weak, winning over the girl (or guy), and feeling like the hero for the all too short hours we are able to spend in the worlds you create for us.

Neither do I. But that's because most "Evil Runs" are done terribly.

There's no nuance or any tangible believability. It's just "Haha, be a jerk and murder everyone because you're a stupid jerk who's a jerk and stupid"


Ironically, Grimdark settings play into this.

Happy endings and redemption arcs hit harder when the world they're taking place in is dark and overbearing.

Meaning these things happening are exceptional, not the de facto result.

This is one of the main draws to Grimdark. The world sucks. Everything is horrible. Yet, if you try hard enough, you can find that glimmer of hope and push on for a good ending.

It's not just Hello Kitty where everything is nice and comforting and nothing bad can ever happen. So anything good happening doesn't feel rewarding.


Debatable.

Grimdark gets a pretty big following as a genre. Like, the entire Warhammer IP is based on it and that's one of the largest in the world. Not to mention popular IP's such as Witcher or Game of Thrones.

Also, a lot of people asking for these things are frustrated in the complete lack of representation. Both in terms of IP's that include these themes, but also games within a series trending away from them (For example, Dragon Age: Origins was Grimdark. But as the series went on it left it behind more and more)


I've seen people who loved DOS2 complain about it not being dark enough.

Though DOS2 is plenty dark in of itself. There's quite a lot of awful things happening in that game. I mean, you start off in a camp of slaves. With a crazy torture chamber underground (That features countless body parts strewn about the place, as well as a mound of them on the other side of its sewage pipe) guarded by a bunch of people who have been mutilated and lobotomised. Even as you go to leave the island, you face sentries of people mutilated so horrifically they shoot death lasers out of their face at you.

Even after that, when you start learning Sourcery, the whole thing is you rip the soul out of people to fuel it.

Baldur's Gate (And D&D as a whole) isn't quite as dark as Divinity. It has its moments, especially with plenty of racism and otherworldly horrors. But generally it's more chill given its basis being in providing a generic fantasy setting for people to make their own stories in. Unlike other TTRPG's that do create a Grimdark setting (Like Vampire: The Masquerade, Cyberpunk, Blades in the Dark, Witcher, Dark Heresy etc)


The issue with this is that many people didn't play "Evil" route in BG3 because BG3's evil route was so bad.

Which is the problem with this sort of data, it's heavily influenced by confirmation bias.

The good route was more fleshed out and supported, ergo, more people played it.

Even then, having actual "Evil" routes makes for better "Good" routes. As decisions about trying to be a hero are less obvious and straightforward. There will be more nuance in how you choose what to do because it will not just be half-arsed comically evil option vs blatantly beneficial heroic option. You'll have more shades of grey where things aren't so clear cut as well as things like "Evil" options that are legitimately enticing without being obviously wrong.

That said, Larian themselves advocate doing stuff because they want the stuff there rather than focusing only on popularity. This is why they like to add non-Human/Elf races despite Human/Elf being by far the most popular choices.


The thing is... Divinity already IS a dark and miserable world.

That's how it has been portrayed across its games. Especially Original Sin, which very much revolves around the Grimdark aspects of the setting.

People advocating for the new Divinity to be dark are wanting more of what has been established, rather than the brighter and more hopeful nature of BG3. Or the watering down that many other series are afflicted by because modern studios are too afraid to maintain the Grimdark settings that made their worlds interesting.

This doesn't mean you can't be a hero and every ending has to be bad (A la Cyberpunk 2077). It just means that the overall world is one where hardship and suffering is commonplace. You can still rise up to be a hero and make a difference, with such actions having far more impact due to the dark nature of the setting.

I totally agree. Video games is be far most enjoyment and entertainment for me. Yes, darkness in games and movies can make pretty engaging stories, but if made without any humor or light in the tunnel most people just think it is depressing. Even an "all-black" world like Vampire: Bloodlines (original) have a lot of humor to balance it. For many it is a big difference between playing a righteous hero in a dark world and an evil menace that tortures and kills innocent kids and animals. But of course, the setting is important, whack-a-mole had a rather gruesome concept but was a big hit. More realistic depictions may be different. I remember in BG3, mass kill goblins in isometric view is just fine, but some of the (more realistic rendered) cutscenes (Dame Aylin in particular) always give me shivers of discomfort.

Some 15 years ago I read some discussion on Gamasutra, an discussion forum for game developers. It was there said something like "they were always told to make "dark story paths", but then it always turned out that 90% of the game runs where played on the "good paths".

To use similar amounts of development resources for different "good" and "evil" paths would in the end be a big waste. Too few would appreciate it. By default most people want "to do the right thing", at least in a game that feels emotional engaging.

Why do you think talk about wanting darker game means that players want to be more evil? Most players want to be a hero, but in a darker world. If anything that makes it feel much more heroic. Compare to something like Mass Effect Andromeda, where almost entire game was so lighthearted that it did not feel that meaningful or impactful to be a hero like it felt in previous Mass Effect games.

Think Divinity Original Sin 2, which is darker setting than BG3. Player was still a hero in it, and it actually felt less dark than BG3, but that is largely due to how it was represented and less advanced graphics and cinematics. New game will likely have little less whimsical characters like Sir Lora, and it will have more advanced graphics and cinematics making representation feel much more impactful, but story itself might only be little darker than before. Larian also does not want it to be all nihilistic and it will have their usual humor, and you can still be a hero and save it all, which i think everyone including Larian expects most players to do.


But i also hope that evil runs are done a lot better than before, they have often been lacking even in Larian games. That is also big reason why many don't do evil playtroughs, they are too often just asshole simulators rather than something interesting.