If I was in Larian's shoes, i'd do the same. Their assets/style works and look great. There's still plenty more time for BG3 to find its visual identity, either through special effects or charater models, as Im sure some of those visuals are indeed placeholders. I just saying I dont mind the similar visual style. But some people will hate no matter what.
Its funny everybody seems to have forgotten Icewind Dale...it came out after BG1. Different developper, same engine, riding off on the success of a great game. It was an EXACT visual copy of BG, no one complained at the time. why now?
I think people are just way more critical of games these days. It makes sense, there's so much more available that it's easy to pick anything you see apart because options abound. The rise of the "we value your feedback" era really made it a thing, too. Especially when a developer emphasizes the desire to feedback, the criticism tends to rise astronomically and I think we see the cause of that quite often here. It presents this idea that anyone's voice can change the course of development, and people take that a little personally, and present it personally, too. There's good and bad in it, but when you start seeing so much "I don't like this, so it's objectively bad" replace constructive criticism, it tends to become just a bunch of boring opinions and pointless arguments.
