Baldur's Gate 3: New Standard for the RPG Genre?
gameworldobserver.com> However, some devs are urging players not to rate all other games in the genre by such a high standard, appealing to Larian Studios’ unique combination of vast experience and resources.
AAA game labels spend billions on producing mediocre quality bullshit sequels just to maximize revenue predictability rather than quality, originality or artistic value. That's their choice.
At this point, I consider a AAA rating to be a signifier of mediocrity. If something is being touted as AAA, I can be pretty sure it will be a disappointment. There are two factors that cause this: The amount of hype creates expectations that can not be met, and the cost of production is so high a studio can't afford to deliver everything they have to. The value proposition is just not there. I find that indie and mid-sized studios (like Larian) are much better at both controlling quality and managing expectations.
Sony's been knocking it out of the park with their AAA releases though. The last few they've released (Spider-Man: Miles Morales, God of War: Ragnarok, Returnal, Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, Horizon: Forbidden West) have all been extremely fun, polished, and devoid of microtransactions.
I have only played Forbidden West and it’s the most mediocre experience I had with a video game in the past decade. The gameplay felt clunky with weird spikes of difficulty in the middle of otherwise fairly boring segments. The main plot was utter trash and the other quests completely uninteresting. If that’s the standard of good AAA games, I never want to play another one.
What would you consider the best experience you had with a video game in the past decade?
Probably the first Spelunky but Slay the Spire, A Short Hike and Disco Elysium are close. Honorable mention to both 80 days, Stardew Valley and The Witcher 3.
Seconding all of those. Disco Elysium and some parts of Witcher 3 are some of the finest storytelling of the 21st century in any medium.
Hollow knight, ori and the will of the wisps or kerbal space progranm, one of those for sure.
Returnal is way up there though, it is possible to make good AAA.
Other gems are Frostpunk, Outer Wilds, Vampire Survivors.
Can't remember what else.
Outer Wilds is the only game that made me cry it was so good. Incredibly deep and meaningful story, 10/10
Elden Ring is certainly one of the best I played the past decade. The production design is fantastic.
I worked my way back through their catalogue and I have to say I love each of them in such a particular way that I couldn't call any one the best, including Elden Ring. Which was the most fun I had in probably years.
While one starts to recognize repeating themes (and assets), I was shocked to find out how much the original Dark Souls feels like the predecessor to Elden Ring, just more intimate and simpler (for better and worse).
All that said, I'd still recommend Elden Ring to any first-timers.
While not developed by Sony, Elden Ring and FFXVI are definitely AAA releases and they are both far from mediocre
I liked only returnal, everything else feel repetitive or really poor in terms of gameplay (forbidden west, god of war).
This, but my reasoning is slightly different. I think it's more because the cost of production means that can't afford to do anything with artistic merit. The stakes are so high, that "chances" like actually being creative can't happen.
It ends up being a bit like easy-listening rock; doesn't offend anyone, plays by text book "rock" rules, delivers exactly what you'd expect, and nothing more.
Agreed, I've been playing Dave The Diver which on the surface is a gloried flash/mobile game but it has so much personality and depth it draws you in.
I try AAA games on Xbox Game Pass once in a while and I really don't get why they pump this stuff out without recruiting some talent to design it. It's almost worse than big budget Hollywood sometimes.
FWIW, Dave The Diver has been published by Nexon which is AAA.
Triple-A is a designation usually given to a game, rather than a publisher, as it reflects the amount of resources and polish a specific project received.
Triple-A is a designation given to games published by big studios.
Triple-A is a designation given to games which receive some undefined large amount of funding toward its development. That tends to correlate with being developed or published by a large studio, which Dave the Diver definitely was, but MINTROCKET wasn't given nearly the same resources as, say, a typical Xbox Games Studio studio would be.
Triple-A is a designation given to games developed by big studios. Just because it's published by EA or Microsoft doesn't make a game AAA.
Not even that. What matters is the budget and the team size, not the size of the studio. Rockstar Table-Tennis was not a AAA game despite coming from the AAA developer.
I meant it as a necessary but not sufficient criterion.
"In the genre" is the operative part there. There have definitely not been any RPGs that cost a billion to make, and AAA RPGs are pretty rare.
Not all games in the genre are AAA "billion"-dollar games. In fact, most games in this genre are AA at best. And the majority of honest commentary around this centers around that. That's the worry.
Some people have said "Oh, we don't judge like that" but no, I've seen the commentary around non-AAA games being judged. They do make those comparisons.
Thank you for clarifying.
Thank you for expressing this perfectly.
Larian isn't even close to AAA studio and their previous games have been great with wide critical and user acclaim.
What are you on about?
I think you may have misunderstood the OP and actually agree with him. He's saying that AAA studios (sometimes) spend more money to produce lower quality products, and that claims from some AAA studio devs that you shouldn't use BG3 as a new standard are just them trying to excuse their own mediocre offerings.
Skyrim and Fallout 4 were made with about 100 people each. Witcher 3 had about 250 developers, and Cyberpunk 2077 closer to 500. Larian's Baldur's Gate 3 team has over 400 people, 10 times the developers they had for Divinity: Original Sin (1).
So how do you describe a 400 person team? Mid-level?
Yes, usually they're called "AA" studios.
Big companies that don't quite have the mega multi 100 million budgets of massive conglomerates like Ubisoft or EA.
I mean there are companies which can be described as having much more resources yet performing much worse.
This is one of those games that I would have chewed on all summer back when I didn’t have responsibilities to tend to.
To those who might consider themselves “well-rounded” with careers and families and sports etc. Does that magic and sense of free time to dig deep into something ever come back?
I explicitly set aside time for it, and track video games along with other things on my todo list.
This may seem counter-productive and like it might ruin the fun, but the opposite turned out to be true. Since free time is finite now (and arguably always was), it helps to get the most out of a game, prioritize which games I really want to play, and what I expect to get out of the experience.
This really makes sense. I think I'll try to adopt something like this.
Part of what I nostalgically yearn for was that feeling of, "my homework is done, it's a Friday night, there's no hockey tomorrow morning. I have a Pentium 2 in my room, summer breeze through the window, the world is asleep, there's a distant train rumbling quietly by, and I'm about to spend an hour reading up on every detail of Baldur's Gate while it installs."
This is probably gone. There's so many parts of this that don't work anymore. But I guess I really cherish that it happened. Those were absolutely magical nights.
Oh man, you nailed it there!
It doesn't. You got old.
Either you decide that it's a hobby worthy of your time and MAKE time between your other responsibilities (or remove some of them) or you make peace with the fact that you don't really care that much about this hobby and that you're done with it.
Not for me. After going through the Switch (perfectly designed for people like me, by being a main console that's also portable), the Steam Deck (finally being able to play those Windows games on Linux, _and_ take it with me), and a few of those Chinese portable emulators like the RG35XX (maybe if I play the games I already love? ...), I finally admit defeat.
It wasn't the games, or even the time, it was my age. That's gone now, and I'm finally admitting it to myself.
I think the grown up version of gaming is coding. It's tackles the things I enjoyed, but in a more mature way.
Not to the same degree, no, but between a Switch and a Steam Deck I'm able to actually chew through my backlog today. I am no longer a completionist but I'm at least able to experience games again. FWIW, I've got 4 year old twins, an 18 month old, a full-time+ job, a spouse I love spending time with, and a small set of hobbies that I engage with daily or weekly; I'm busy. The Steam Decks killer feature is it's sleep mode, which lets you effectively pause any game at any state and seamlessly resume it on wake (Switch has the same feature).
Occasionally.... for me it I seem to get more hooked on a good story line than any specific gameplay. It's more like reading a good book with an awesome plot. The last game I spent a long time on was God of War - PC.
Also, getting older and having more responsibility typically means you become wiser. I no longer want to waste that much time gaming. I'm good with a few hours a week. There are so many better uses of time that I have. I've got outdoor hobbies like mountain biking that take priority over screen time. I spend 40hrs a week doing work on a screen and have a hard time feeling good about MORE screen time when I get home.
I think this is just something that changes over time. Could I spend every single waking moment of my life (aside from work) playing Zelda? Sure, I guess. Will I? Nah. Not because I can't, but because as I grew up I realised there are more important things to experience in life other than 24/7 escapism. I will still play and enjoy it, just not in the extreme way that I would if I was still a teenager.
Ending my career was the best choice I made last year
Are you gonna live off savings?
Not working for others anymore (or subjecting others to that, without it being a comfortable worker coop situation). I make/sell apps which don't require investors or high maintenance
Absolutely. We don't have kids tho. A few times a year a game comes up when I have to explain to my wife that I'm going to need some more time for myself for a week, I go less to the gym during that time, maybe I don't go out for the weekend and house chores get left behind a bit. Then I binge something for 30 hours for a week and then dial back
It depends how you define that magic & sense.
I definitely have to pick & choose which games I delve into more carefully. I basically only play 10/10 new games & classics now.
Also, if given a choice between a 5-7h game, and a 15-20h game I'll pick the shorter one.
Then I also set time aside in my weekly calendar to game. I try to have it be a mindful, rather than mindless activity.
Yes, I rarely touch current games outside of very specific titles. I'm mostly spending my time playing games that have proven to be worth it on a community level for at least 6-12 months, and spending a lot of time on classic games that I missed because I was too busy.
On game length, I also default to shorter experiences. How Long to Beat [0] is perfect for that.
Let's not forget that if you have limited time for gaming there's no point in paying launch price for them :)
Aside from whatever Soulsborne shows up, I've only bought games on sale for years. Still have more than I can play. A lot on 75-90% off.
Yes! I love building a big wish list and only making purchases when the sales are deep, typically I'll only pull the trigger when the sale is > 50%. Is There Any Deal? [0] is great for tracking sales and price history.
r/patientgamers sounds like the community for you
Beautiful, thank you!
Nope
Once I did the maths on how many Sunday afternoons I have left (if I live a median lifespan) I found it really hard to spend much time on videogames, sadly.
Speaking in days or years, life somehow seems very long. But when you speak in weeks, and visualize it as such, suddenly it seems so incredibly short.
[Possible Existential Crisis Warning] https://www.failflow.com/die
> Does that magic and sense of free time to dig deep into something ever come back?
Cut down on tv series and your gaming time suddenly shows up :)
:'( Looks at schedule What TV?
Yes-but watching tv is a social~ish event, i.e with your SO. It’s really not my personal time.
That's on you.
I prefer spending some actual quality of time (having a walk, having a conversation) with my SO instead of staying idly next to my SO and half consider it couples time.
Right but if we're dealing with time constraints then it's makes sense that watching something both of you are interested in _together_ is a more efficient use of collective time than watching it separately and talking about it during another activity.
That's not what I meant.
If you share an interest then go for it. What I meant is that some folks prefer to prioritize watching something "meh" on TV with the excuse of spending time with your SO and then complain they don't have time for gaming.
Instead of half assing two things: free time and familiar time. Spend some free time on your personal interests and then spend time with you SO where you are both engaged with each other!
Dunno, I go on walks and evenings out with the SO.
yeah, sometimes. there is always something nagging "you should be doing X", where X is cleaning the gutters, or rebalancing the checkbook, etc. but sometimes you get excited enough that it drowns out the nag.
but it'll never be like being in 8th grade and playing starcraft until your eyes bleed, and then hanging out that the pool; repeat.
I'm still not convinced it's worthy of the Baldur's Gate name. I'll wait for the actual reviews.
Also, there is such a thing as too big a game. I've played some great games lately that could have used being 30-50% shorter.
Im a big baldures gate fan from the beginning. I cant even count the time i spend in BG2. I bought BG3 on EA start and by now have about 130h playtime already. Even tho some things are different compared to the old BG parts, i for myself can say its an unbelievable good game already in EA. If the full game is just as good as the EA part its definatly a new Standard for CRPG same as BG2 set back than.
This is a very solid attitude. Couldn’t say how many CRPG titles I have dropped due to endless quests and dialog that are immediately forgotten in the larger story arc. It’s one thing to build a world with side quests, another to have the savior of said world be required to do fetch quests for 50% of their journey.
From the last 4 open world games i really enjoyed:
Ghost of Tsushima - could have used being a good 30% shorter.
Witcher 3 and Horizon Forbidden West - entirely non repetitive but still took forever. Could have been shorter with little loss.
Horizon Zero Dawn - felt just right. Surprisingly, Elden Ring felt the same, in spite of it being a lot larger. But then I'm a rabid fan of Soulsbornes (I still think the best was Bloodborne and that's probably the shortest.)
Bringing the side quests together or making them meaningful for the Big Bad (eg in Mass Effect and Horizon Zero Dawn) really is a huge step above the fun but shallow RDR-style "open world = do whatever you like."
I give a pass to Fallout for creating one of the most fun universes.
>Diablo IV senior designer Chris Balser also agreed with Nelson Jr., saying that it is important to remember that not all studios operate under the same conditions. He compared Baldur’s Gate 3 to Ultima VII, the favorite RPG of Larian founder Swen Vincke — “that’s a game that had 12 years of prior games feeding into it.”
So does Diablo IV. I understand this sentiment for smaller studios, but from Activision Blizzard? Blizzard DOES have the ability to put in the effort, so I am just going to ignore Chris Basler entirely here.
Yeah, what he said is pretty comical given Blizzard's resources and the rich history of Diablo franchise. What a clown.
Is this a joke?
Larian Studios makes good games, but by no means are they a "gold" standard.
The Divinity series has a very interesting take on the RPG genre that's not to everyone's liking. And their world-building chops so far are somewhat lacking, compared to the original Baldur's Gate series.
It's also going to be interesting how faithful it is to the mechanics of D&D, and whether Larian again will make a game where you have to scrape by every right, rather than feeling like a powerful RPG character.
Kind of silly that before the game is even released, competitors are calling foul that the game is going to be “too good”. Seems like cope to me.
If you check the article, it’s mostly other developers urging folks to not hold indie and smaller developers to a standard set by 400 developers spending six years working on a title in a genre they have previous success in.
Its developers from Xbox, Blizzard, and Obsidian among the indie devs. They do get to be compared. In fact, they should be exceeding the quality of Larian, or at least matching their peers at Playstation and Nintendo; but they aren't. You don't get to spend $70 billion dollars on an acquisition then expect pity from your customers because, gosh darn it, Larian just has so much passion and skill, give us a break we don't know how to make world-leading games anymore!
No one is going off to compare Baulders Gate 3 to, I don't know, Hollow Knight (actually, that might be a fine comparison!). They will compare it to Avowed, TES6, Starfield, and Diablo 4. It should be no surprise that there's a lot of people inside Xbox who feel embarrassed about comparisons like that.
Doesn't read like they are arguing on behalf of their own studios to me.
This is an indie developer who's not even making RPGs, pointing out that most RPGs do not have 5+ years, 400+ developers, and ~$100 million behind them, while still being very excited and positive about the game itself. Spinning it as "competitors crying foul" is weird.
They are in effectively open-beta right now, and people have been playing it for ~1 week. So there is lots of feedback and impressions out there now.
This is an unnecessarily uncharitable take.
> Two previous games, Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II, “worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from”;
Divinity: Original Sin was one of the best games I've ever played. I don't game much these days but that one sucked me in hard.
I tried playing other CRPGs (Divinity was my introduction to them) to fill the void but they didn't have the fun combat that Divinity did (Path of Exile) or were very story focused (Planescape: Torment, I would have def loved this one if I was younger and had the time).
Pillars of Eternity is a spiritual successor to Baldurs Gate, can't recommend it enough.
Unfortunately, writing is abysmal. Enormous amounts of meaningless, forgettable worldbuilding that feels like a DM who spent too much time reading Silmarillion.
I recently got into PoE and I very much agree. It's been a long time since a CRPG sucked me in the way that PoE 1 has.
Highly recommend Wasteland 3 for a similar experience, also if you never played through Original Sin II it is the original but better.
> the original but better
Better story but less interesting and easier combats. I know of at least one person who loved the first mostly for the gameplay and got bored very quickly with the second. Both incredible games anyway.
I personally liked the original better than Original Sin II.
if you like this kind of grid turn-based combat games there's a chance you might like the MMOs made by Ankama games, they used to be huge in the french speaking community but almost unheard of outside of it. the oldest and most popular is Dofus, as old as WoW, or its successor that available on steam Wakfu, they even have an animated TV show about it.
>Two previous games, Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II, “worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from”
I wish there were more games like the 1st Divinity Original Sin. Personally one of the best humour and writing in a game I'v ever played. Very laid back and down to earth, and not taking itself very seriously (considering the fantasy cRPG genre)
Original Sin 2 is good, actually better, but it's more mature and more dark, totally changed the tone from the first game
> Original Sin 2 is good, actually better, but it's more mature and more dark, totally changed the tone from the first game
Devoured both (500+ HRS on DOS2) and I agree, however DOS2 has the most fun combat I ever experienced in a game, not only in RPGs.
DOS2 combat is truly the top of its class, nothing even comes close.
Both Divinity games already set the standard for cRPG, Larian Studios basically solved cRPG.
Indie devs that try something entirely different with the RPG genre will have a shot.
AAA studios have ZERO excuses, some studios like Bethsesda & Rockstar did what Larian is doing decades ago on their own genre and they still are reaping the fruit of this strategy.
I have to admit that I can't imagine competitors like Ubisoft pulling this off even if the life of the business depended on it
I think both pathfinder games were better than divinity tbh.
To AAA studios: yes, I will compare your products to the new standard so if you try to make a similar game try to be up to the challenge
To smaller studios: if you can't compete with scope, try bringing something new to the table. Isn't it your role as indie?
lmao, big name AAA names saying, please dont rate us against this, they have 400 people and 7 years!
Then diablo4 credits almost 10k people in making it, and although a fun game, feels like its basically still in beta with all the basic features its missing.
Undoubtedly, this is a new standard for this old stale mold. Let us all rejoice. Hallelujah.
Its worth calling out this article what it really smells like it is: native advertising.
> James Berg, senior technical program manager for accessibility at Xbox, noted that the amount of dev effort put into Baldur’s Gate 3 could equal 2-3 other games in the RPG genre combined. “It’s Rockstar-level nonsense for scope. Only a few studio groups could even try this.”
This is serious, devastatingly sad levels of cope. This is one of the three most valuable companies on the planet, who just blew almost $70 billion dollars on the largest acquisition in video gaming history, comparing Baulders Gate to Rockstar, a company with over 5,000 employees making literally the most expensive games on the planet. Oh, fun fact though, Halo Infinite is also, easily, a top 5 most expensive game ever made; I bet James Berg doesn't want to remind you of that.
If the people at Larian take offense at statements like James', its justified. James, and many of the other devs/people in the replies, are essentially saying "oh its resources, I mean they've got such a structural advantage in making such a good game, it can't be skill, it can't be an intense and unique alignment of mindset and goals, its just money!".
Let's see how many other ways game developers can say "we have visionless leadership":
> Diablo IV senior designer Chris Balser also agreed with Nelson Jr., saying that it is important to remember that not all studios operate under the same conditions. He compared Baldur’s Gate 3 to Ultima VII, the favorite RPG of Larian founder Swen Vincke — “that’s a game that had 12 years of prior games feeding into it.”
I am LOSING my mind at the cringe from these game designers. Previously never before seen levels of excuse-making and cope. Let me check my notes here... Oh! Right! Diablo 1 was released in 1996! Diablo 4 definitely didn't have, checks calculator, 27 years of prior games feeding into it, let alone ELEVEN years of evolution and refinement in the previous game alone... which Blizzard basically threw out the window. (to be clear, D4 is a fine game, but there's a lot of very genuine criticism that they forgot most of what they learned with D3).
> Obsidian Entertainment design director Josh Sawyer noted that “having the foundation set and the funding to build things on your own terms is invaluable.”
Well, if Xbox not releasing a single good game in, like, four+ years didn't have you concerned for Avowed before, seems like Josh is trying to tell us that we should be. Three responses from people within Xbox Game Studios (technically!). I mean, I'm not one for identifying patterns where there may not be one, but... Xbox hasn't released a hit, exceedingly well reviewed game since... I don't even know. Flight Sim is a mainstay. Maybe Ori in 2020? Minecraft has the strongest back in the history of business, singularly keeping tens of thousands of people employed.
See, I think Rockstar is gonna keep making awesome games. Whatever Naughty Dog and SSM make next will be awesome. Nintendo? Physically incapable of making bad games, they can't do it. CDPR? They screwed up, but they still make incredible games. Its no wonder that its all the Xbox people hopping in to these threads. If there is a structural difference between Larian and other game developers, that difference is Passion, and that's it; and that speaks volumes more about Xbox and the other devs in that thread than it does about Larian. Go find a mirror, and make better games; market economics won't feel the pity you're so hoping to make us feel.
this is some lovely dark marketing, an innocent insider conversation, prompted by a single developer, Xalavier Nelson Jr., who might or might not have been encouraged by Larian marketing team, gets blown up into a narrative piece by a literally who game news sweatshop. the narrative here is that "the game is so good, how can other games compete", as a concern troll, communicated by the developers of lesser games themselves. so bold as to be comedic! much respect to Dominik Warkiewicz.
Weird that it's called Baldur's Gate 3 when it has basically nothing to do with BG 1 and 2. If they really wanted to use the Baldur's Gate name for easy publicity they should've gone the Dark Alliance route and added a subtitle to set it apart. Now it just seems like a low effort, audience alienating cash grab. And really, they couldn't make a high tier epic level adventure for the God of Murder to go on? They had to pick up a tiny encounter in SoA and base an entire game on it? That's like writing The Lord of the Rings part 4 and making it all about Elfhelm's adventures.
>Now it just seems like a low effort, audience alienating cash grab
You are way too negative. Maybe try the game first? They have a stellar track record (Divinity I & II) + you can just read the reviews considering the game is in early access for +2 years. And they did listen to player feedback.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1086940/Baldurs_Gate_3/
(+ checking your profile: Larian is in Belgium, it's a fine local product you should be proud of)
This comment is wrong on so many levels it's hilarious.