One does wonder if they’re regretting announcing this as Baldur’s Gate III and not giving it another title (someone suggested Baldur’s Gate: Rise of the Illithids). Making it a numbered sequel means there are expectations for it to follow the originals to a certain extent, and keep it reasonably close to a D&D ruleset. You’re immediately engaging a couple of devout and opinionated fanbases. It seems like those are restrictions Larian would have been happy to do without, having the freedom to make the game they way they like... But on the other hand there’s the prestige and inherent hype associated with the series, which they can surely capitalise on. I’d love to know whether it was a Larian or WotC decision to call it a sequel.
I've seen this argument before and it strikes me as semantics. Just using the Baldur's Gate title regardless of if it's a true sequel or not is going to bring hardcore fans to the series, just like the Devil May Cry reboot brought old fans to the series.
It’s been so long and this game is so different, they could have simply called it “Baldur’s Gate”. There has been a trend of restarting franchises with as simple a name as possible. God of War, Doom, Tomb Raider etc. Given that you can’t carry anything over from BG2 and it’s set so much later, calling it 3 seems a bit manipulative.
