Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General BG3: Darker and more grounded that DOSII?

Wondering if we can expect BG3 to be darker and more grounded than DOSII. IIRC DOS1 (such a long time ago) was really silly and over the top but still awesome, but I felt it was too much. I loved DOSII but still found it a bit too over the top silly at times, though they did a great job overall to an extent that it didn't bother me much.

I may sound like a humorless guy saying this, which couldn't be further from the truth. I love dark humor, like FO2 for example when you get a quest to make a guy dig open a grave to a hidden bunker where he hid his money. He disables a mine on the grave as you force him to dig, and he digs down. One of the options was: "HEY LLOYD! CATCH! (Drop the claymore mine down the hole)". So when you climbed down there was blood everywhere. That made me laugh to tears. I think DOSII has many of the funny and dark humor elements FO2 had - and I do appreciate those.

However with BG3. Though I don't mind humor, especially dark humor being in it. I really think "less is more to maximum effect" is the way to go when it comes to adding humor in a game with a serious tone. A darker atmosphere and a grounded and depressing world is sort of what I like more despite also enjoying good humor. However I'm kinda concerned that Larian will take it too far for my liking.

So basically. Wondering how you feel about the balancing of humor and seriousness. How do hope and/or think BG3 will handle it?

They already said we should expect a darker tone compared to the Divinity franchise.

Personally it's not something I care particularly about. It's not like Baldur's Gate was ever set in some grimdark universe or lacked a certain amount of humor, anyway.
And it's not like D: OS 2 itself lacked its fair share of little grim details, either.

I'm far more concerned about how they'll approach other aspects of the experience, like loot/itemization, progression system or the combat style.

Although I certainly wouldn't want Divinity to lose any more of the humour, and for me DOS2 took it too far, BG isn't Divinity and if that level of silliness doesn't fit then they shouldn't layer it on too thickly.

At the other extreme I'm currently replaying Sacred 2 which is extremely silly. Even as someone who loves inappropriate humour I find it too much, but I figure if something's worth doing, it's worth going completely over the top!

I hated Sacred 2 for enormous amount of bugs and poor balance. Sacred 1 is way better in my opinion

Knowing Larian, we will get FOR SURE some amount of humour even in BG 3, but it will be much more toned comparing to D:OS 1 and 2.



I am with you mate. These features are most important.

This and how the 5e rules are adapted are my two main reasons I'm only cautiously optimistic for BG3 and not outright excited.

I have every confidence in Larian's technical design capabilities, meaning that however they implement things, it will be done well. Perhaps not to my tastes, but solid and well done. I'd like to see them adapt 5e in a similar fashion that BG1/2 adapted 2e. That's vague and hard to define, granted, but that's the best I can manage in describing it. I'm not looking for a 1:1 adaptation of the rules, but something that actually feels like it's adapting the 5e rules (and not just slapping D&D names and terms on a ruleset that has no connection to it at all...for an example of that, see Sword Coast Legends).

The main concern is the narrative for me. Again, Larian are good at what they do...but they have done nothing (to this point) to suggest BG3 won't be a parade of parody, satire and a constant tongue-in-cheek approach to the narrative. Even their publicity vid had Swen Vincke being his adorably goofball self (which I appreciate for what it is too). Do I expect grimdark like, say, Witcher 3? Hell no, and yeah, BG definitely has room for some goofballery (just as the previous games had)...but Larian has not demonstrated (yet) they can balance the silly with the serious.

I agree.

i hate the loot and itemization in DOS2. the grinding of merchants kills me

Exactly! It is one of the few things which were irritating me throughout my playthrough. I hope they will change it in BG3.

buzzwords.
OS2 started in fantasy auschwitz.

Baldurs Gate meanwhile had GO FOR THE EYES BOO.
Dark and grounded is relative and Baldurs Gate profits from nostalgia goggles.
This probably wont have a lot of Larian Humor, but trying to appeal to some "Dark and gritty" high goal is ridiculous. Baldurs Gate wasnt that at all.
Planescape had a talking skull as a companion.

I for one hope they try to make a good game rather than trying too hard to be edgy. They did that with OS2.
OS2 was a game in which you make a Boss easier by comitting genocide. and people called it too childish.

The Goal is unattainable and thus shouldnt be tried. you cannot win against nostalgia goggles.
Dark and Grounded is just a codeword for "thing i like" and "old game good".

This can easily be seen in the posters here bemoaning that BG3 is going to be a Parody. as if OS2 was a Parody, or the other Larian games for that matter.
Theres no point fighting rumors. Ive seen the same happen to several other games companies, theres always going ot be people who havent played the games that are going to parrot nonsense that isnt true.
So what am i gonna say to you people, i guess "Im sorry for you", because no matter if this game is gonna turn out good or bad, youre gonna hate it on principle because of some preconceived notion that the past is sacred and any new iteration can only be terrible.

Well let's look at what we know so far. Spoilers for descent into Avernus below















The Prequel to the game has a corrupt city with gang wars, a refugee crisis and three evil Gods of Murder, Tyranny, and Undeath, and their servants running around, the Undercellar a massive bar/brothel/black market/entrance to the Underdark, public fiend cults, a nearby city that gets pulled into Hell, betrayals, the Bloodwar, Demon Lords, Tiamat Hell Goddess of Chromatic Dragons, Archdevils, the option to trade your soul to spare your life, Infernal Machines that run on destroyed souls, undead, warlords.

And that was just the prequel. We know the Mindflayers which eat brains, conduct horrifying experiments on folks, and turn people into more of them are in and they have a giant Spelljamming Nautiliod.

The main character and possibly the whole party has something dark inside of them, possibly a mindflayer tadpole that is making them stronger instead of turning them into a Mindflayer.

We know there is a three way genocidal war between the the Illithids, Githyanki (including ones riding Red Dragons), and Githzerai and it appears to have spilled over into Faerun.

So yeah its sounds pretty fucking dark to me.

I don't want them to make a Divinity Gate 3
Divinity recycling, cartoon graphics, exaggerated humor, many limitations (mainly in character customization, I want to see a lot of customization options for races, appearance, clothes etc.. for example, if I want to play with an evil Necromancer, I want to be able to create a dark look/appearance character)

Totally agree.
But "Balder's Gate: Original Sin III" is what the Larian fanbase will demand so that's what we will likely get.

poes law in full effect right now
I dont even know whats satire anymore

Who told you that? I am a fan of Divinity games, but i dont want BG 3 to be D:OS 3. These are completely different games, even if they are both RPG titles.

I guess that they didnt want to make D:OS 3 now, because they wanted to create something different. Thats why they decided to get the license and make a BG game.

Same. Even within the Divinity series I'd like to see Divinity 3 become a thing but I haven't been disappointed with the excursion into DOS and DOS2 in spite of them being very different games; as a newcomer to BG I'd expect BG3 to be BG, not Divinity wearing BG's clothes.

I could argue that IMHO DOS2 was something a diversion away from the Divinity that I'm familiar with and I could gripe about that, and have done a bit, but not to the point of saying "this is unacceptable". Similarly, I wouldn't be surprised if BG3 may diverge somewhat from its predecessors but I think that's necessary in order to make a new game a new game: there's little to be gained in reinventing the wheel, after all. I'm reminded of the futility of what was IME a particularly notorious example which was the seemingly endless carping about Oblivion not being Morrowind II, and while it wasn't perfect, it certainly wasn't that bad (and was very, very good with the addition of some overhaul mods: though that's a matter of taste and some preferred theirs vanilla) and its corollary, Morrowind wasn't as astonishingly awesome as Oblivion's detractors claimed. Just ask any Daggerfall fan. Anyway, the point of my ramble is that games evolve. Forcing them to stay too "true" to the original is as bad as making too many changes.