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Why did Baldur's Gate 3 blow up? Larian lead writer says it's thanks to "a big gamble" with CRPG standards

"We believe RPGs are big ... So we always believed the audience was there," says Adam Smith

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  • He focuses on the visual aspects of the game, which are indeed wonderful and contribute a lot to immersion, but to me, a host of other elements contribute at least as much to making this game stand above the rest. The writing, acting, world richness, player agency, variety of story possibilities, battle mechanics, and sound design, for example. There's so much to love that even with all the bugs, it's still a lot fun.

    • I think I agree with him. It's not just that it looks good and that it's cinematic; it's that it brings what they were doing well already to that cinematic standard that we got from the big studios for years. But those big studios were frequently sacrificing the depth of the RPG in the process. Mass Effect 1 had a full character sheet and a bunch of mechanics that never really came together. Mass Effect 2 had fairly simple skill trees. That series was good for lots of reasons, but in order to make each sequel in only 2 years, they threw away what didn't work rather than iterating on it to fix what didn't work. BG3 is iterating on Larian's previous successes and still letting us get that cinematic experience from Mass Effect. It's definitely what caught my attention when it was previously barely on my radar.

      • I think live play podcasts and shows might help also. I'm a big live play DND/ttrpg listener despite having never played in person with people. I bought it pretty much instantly and I'm loving how much it feels like those podcasts.

        I know CRPGs based on ttrpg mechanics still hit with people back in the 90s and early 00s but I'm guessing it wasn't the selling point. Like I'm pretty sure people didn't buy Fallout back in 97 because it used a system that was similar to GURPS.

        The Adventure Zone podcast by the McElroy brothers came out in like 2014 and the live play podcast genre skyrocketed since. Pretty much every podcast network has at least a few DND shows plus a few more using other unique systems. There's even podcasts parodying live play like Offices and Bosses, an improv comedy where they play fantasy monsters playing DND with human characters. Theres no way people would have come up with that format before the adventure zone.

        • Yeah DnD is going through a resurgence in pop culture right now. It's not just for sweaty nerds in their mom's basements anymore

      • To this day, I really wish BioWare had iterated on their mechanics in Mass Effect instead of trying to make it more of a shooter in RPG clothing. I liked how certain classes could only wear certain armor or use certain weapon types, and how you had more choice in how your Shepard was built.

    • To be fair, audiovisual and name recognition is huge. People talk about the game as if nothing like it has ever existed. DOS 1/2, Kingmaker/WotR, PoE I/II, and many more are similar games, also varying levels of amazing, but without large cinematic budgets and mo cap and extensive voice acting and DND name recognition, they don’t even get mentioned in most comparison articles which always just go to DragonAge.

45 comments