Baldur's Gate III announced!

It turned out my pessimism was warranted so far. I was afraid they would ignore the Baldurs Gate legacy and also remove "real time with pause" in favor of turn based fights like in DOS.

Yeah, Larian makes good turn based games and D&D itself is turn based but still. At the moment it looks too much like DOS2 (just with a Baldurs Gate brand and D&D rules). They could just have made a DOS3, which would probably have allowed them more creative freedom, or make a D&D game without having to excavate the Baldurs Gate brand.

Since it's early I will just think of it as a DOS3 with a better combat system (yeah, I'm one of those people who didn't like the armor system from DOS2 that much) and more interesting lore from here on out. Which is good, just not what I would have hoped for.

My other points which I'm pessimistic about are the story (Larians previous games were just ok to mee) and the itemization (Larians games feel more like a MMO in that regard to me).

Yeah, DOS2 is a good game and the engine should work really well for other isometric RPGs like BG3 (it's one of the reasons why I didn't play DOS2 when it launched, but instead directly tried to use the editor to recreate Irenicus dungeon. But since the state of the editor was not the best I scraped that after 2 months and played the game instead).

Maybe I'm a masochist but I actually like it when games don't try to hold the hand of the player as much and allow the player to easlily get killed while learning about the world.

 

There were the old Infinity Engine powered games for PC which where story driven, turn based D&D-ruleset games and then there were the realtime hack and slash console versions which had nothing to do with Baldurs Gate, except for the naming.

I hope this is more like the former, the latter I can do without.

Cheers

 

Btw. Bg2 enhanced edition is still very good. If one just wants same old baldurs gate enhanced edition is worth playing.

Part of the complaints might have to do with more realistic 3d graphics. 3d leaves less for imagination and definitely is styled differently than old 2d game. Might take a while to get used to new graphics.

 

i;ve read an article about this on ars and EG and still confused what kind of game this is.

then i watch the gameplay trailer... eh? a turn-based game like Mario+Rabbits but with full randomness dialled to 11?

 

It is a dungeons and dragons rules based role playing game. Dungeons and dragons is a paper and pen type of game. Battles are turn based and outside battle you have big world to explore. Result of action is decided by throwing dices.

The story of the game is based on baldur's gate world.

 

I still don't see the problem other than people wanting real-time but if I remember correctly I paused the crap out of Baldurs Gate for the tough fights.

In my opinion other than story and lore Divinity original sin was the better game but that's just me, I barely ever play games more than once so I last played Baldurs Gate 2 when I was 15 or 16 so my memory might be failing me.

 

You’re probably correct. I haven’t played DOS series but from what I’ve seen combat is much more intriguing. Combat in BioWare titles can be pretty bland, definitely their biggest challenge has been including the environment as part of the battle.

 

Probably like most retro games it SOUNDS really fun, then you play it...

 

BG1 & 2 still hold up well today, DOS 1 & 2 are really really good games. i dont agree with you

 

According to Larrian Studios they considered doing real time with pause similar to Baldur's Gate, however, they decided to do turn based as it would allow them to more accurately map the current D&D ruleset 1:1 in the game. As the tabletop version is also turn based, this makes sense.

IMO, it's the correct way to do it, but I can understand how some people might want real time with pause. Myself, I hated the real time aspect of the combat in Baldur's Gate even with the ability to pause. It never felt quite right WRT the D&D ruleset, especially as it was party based. I'm not a fan of AI driven party members in a party based RPG, even when you can adjust their behavior.

I still loved the games, however, as the storytelling was fantastic. So the combat system was tolerable.

Also, there still might be ties to the old Baldur's Gate games. During the demo the guy was pretty specific in saying that he cannot comment on any characters other than the ones revealed. This came up when someone asked about a certain character that is fond of a certain hamster. Also, any public information (including the early access build) will mostly be limited to the first chapter of the game.

Regards,
SB

 

this looks amazing. Baldurs gate is up there with the ultima series in terms of my favorite RPGs.

 

I try to play Divinity Original Sin 2 but it wasn't interesting for me and it looks like Larian Studios use BG3 name and create DOS3. Very disappointing.

 

Wizards of the Coast owns the baldur's gate brand/universe/ruleset. It's larian who implements the game but it looks like WotC is responsible for a lot of the content, mechanics etc. and in the end WotC approves the game. So I suspect this game definitely will be a lot like DOS from engine POV but I suspect content and mechanics are heavily influenced by WotC.

Larian tried to ask to do baldurs gate game before DOS but WotC didn't approve of them at that time. It's DOS and DOS2 that got WotC onboard.

I would wait for the open alpha and feedback from it before being too excited/disappointed. Larian has good track record of listening to the community. Even to the point where enhanced editions have been made and given for free to those who bought original game.

 

I really doubt that final game will be much different from this presented gameplay

 

For me the gameplay in DOS/DOS2 has been very good. I like the turn based strategic approach. Where the issues have been is more on the plot side and some aspects being unbalanced. I'm in the let's wait for it camp because of all the changes(new d&d rules instead of DOS rules).

I expect those who expected real time battles are very disappointed. On the other hand for me BG2 was still kind of turn based as I had to pause all the time and the NPC AI was just plain stupid. I recently finished shadows of amn enhanced edition so my memory for both BG2 and DOS2 is fresh.

 

For those who like the BG2 style realtime(ish) battle mechanics I would recommend trying out pathfinder kingmaker. It's very, very good. Though it's also punishingly difficult and requires knowing d&d rules well.

 

BG2 is one of my favorite game and I enjoyed active pause combat. DOS2 was just so slow for me that after 4 hours (I payed full price of game) I didn't give it another chance (also narrative at least first hours was rather poor). But ok, I understand that dos is not my type of game, but why you use bg name for creating dos3 ? I think dos3 would be success as dos2 was, don't understand it.

 

WotC who owns baldurs gate asked larian studios to make bg3. Who knows, perhaps they like what larian is doing? d&d is inherently turn based and baldurs gate is based on d&d rules.

DOS2 sucks in the beginning and gets better and better towards end.

 

I read many forums and belive me, my feelings are not unique