Larian Studios Forums Baldur's Gate III Baldur's Gate III - General Why are there no roaming NPCs?

If they could implement roaming NPC, and a proper fog of war system which is currently THE BIGGEST issue with the game outside the shallow combat system. It would add a lot of depth to the game,
imagine navigating a tomb stealthily with mobs actively roaming, it would add a lot of depth to the combat as well. I don't understand why they didn't do that this RPG should be above and beyond, not Indy vanilla. Going into dangerous situations shouldn't feel so safe, and when entering a dangerous area this would add an element of suspense. There are so many development issues with this game and doing stuff like this would accelerate this game out of the indy development level. THe worlds feel frozen and almost like navagating the overworld of a mario game on your way to the next combat piece, it ruins replay ability.

Quite a few enemies do roam. The Intellect Devourers on the beach. The Hook Horrors. The Zhentarim. The Minotaurs used to patrol an area of the Underdark, until the latest patch. The Owlbear and her cub mooch around a fair bit, although in a fixed pattern. Depending on how you enter, one of the adventurers in the crypt walks along a route, one of the paladins of Tyr is a wanderer, and most of the goblins never bleeding STOP moving.

Unless you mean roam *with complete freedom*, but that would be a nightmare, as you could find yourself up against the Gith with a level 1 party. The sections would have to be separated somehow (they're all in the same giant file at the moment, hence no mid-game loading).

+1 for more roaming travelling merchants, villagers doing errands, wildlife.
The absence of NPC's moving around (meaningfully, not like the intellect devourers simply moving random in a given area) together with the absence of day/night to indicate the passing of time are the biggest disappointments in how Larian designed the game imo. Still hoping for a minimal, even cosmetic, day night thingy and NPC routines, but fully expecting to get disappointed. Heck, I would even buy Day/night cycle as a 20$ DLC

I agree with both Adiktus and Serra. It feels like we got roaming enemies, but there is a severe lack of roaming friendly / neutral NPCs to make the world feel more alive.

Even in games like PoE1 there were random animals running around to make the wilds feel more alive and immersive.