Larian’s Baldur’s Gate 3 is poised to be one of the biggest cinematic role-playing games in years & many devs are criticizing the scale/scope of it!
Interesting video describing various developers’ take on the game. Is it a genre-defining game or not?
Nobody really expects RPG’s to be as big and deep as BG3, they just want a complete game that works without shitty microtransactions everywhere and always online for no reason. Plus, having interesting characters and storylines, quests that can be solved in more than one way, and gameplay that’s actually formed by taking player feedback and listening to it is what people reacted well to, among other things. Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t even have Denuvo!
If there’s one thing that I hope competitors learn from Larian and BG3, it’s that respecting your players and giving them what they want leads to success. Similar to Elden Ring and from software, like that video mentioned. Now compare BG3 to Diablo 4 and Immortal, or the upcoming Starfield and you’ll see why people love it. It’s not about specs or scope, it’s about designing a game to be actually FUN.
Wait, what’s wrong with the upcoming Starfield?
Nobody really expects RPG’s to be as big and deep as BG3…
Just to warn you, you will now be quoted in a future video about “Social media viciously attacks Larian for games that are too big and too deep!”
It’s not about specs or scope, it’s about designing a game to be actually FUN.
This is the key point that these publishers and studios are trying to avoid.
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on designing microtransaction psychologically manipulative money sinks (dark designs)?
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on creating addiction in the player-base so that they keep playing the game (and spending money)?
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit DLC (not actual new content)?
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit to satisfy shareholders?
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on shit the devs don’t want, but executives do?
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit padding for marketing purposes?
- How much of most AAA budgets are spent on bullshit DRM?
And keep in mind, by budgets here, I mean both the dollar amount AND time spent by devs that could be spent elsewhere (which is part of the dollar amount since salaries, but I wanted to make it clear that time spent is also important).
Some of the absolute best games in the industry have literally none of that, and people still want to play and buy them years after release because gasp they’re actually fun, but these publishers and devs don’t want to compare to those, because they WANT the industry to be a bunch of “GAAS” bullshit that’s basically a vacuum pushed into people’s wallets, cause hey, if it worked for Candy Crush…
Where are the devs criticizing the scope of it?
It seems the summary of most of the posts are “smaller studies can’t create games as big as BG3” and “not every game/RPG needs to be as big and complex as BG3”.
Are those responses incorrect and how is that being critical of BG3?
If anything, they are critcizing the idea that BG3 is the game all RPGs need to strive to be.
They’re complaining because they make RPGs that are pathetically shallow and now people know what a AA studio can do.
Sounds more like a straw-man you’re criticizing than anything.
And Larian is definitely a AAA developer at this point. Once you have hundreds of people working on a game you aren’t a small developer anymore.
I mean James Berg did though
"I would not be surprised if this was more dev effort than the next 2 or 3 games in the genre combined. It’s Rockstar-level nonsense for scope.
Only a few studio groups could even try this. I cannot wait to play, but this kind of effort likely won’t be replicated this decade"
Yes the original starter of the thread Xalavier Nelson Jr. has a very fair point that this can set a standard for indie games however most people have big problems when these complaints are also coming from other AAA developers. James Berg works for bloody microsoft one of the largest companies that is absorbing huge portions of the gaming industry in a monopolistic pattern. Josh Sawyer is a Design Director for Obsidian who is a company who basically follow a very similar path as Larian, its just they sort of failed with their Pillars of Eternity series especially after Deadfire. Maybe Avowed will turn out well but their recent stuff has not found much favor at least in terms of RPGs.
BG3 is what AAA development should be if it was about making good products but at the end of the day these companies are here to make as much money as possible. I mean there is nothing wrong with making money but its clear many publishers have been pushing quite hard on consumers to paying more for less. As long as gaming budgets are this expensive we should be getting things of this quality more frequently but its not likely. I doubt we will see anything close to BG3 from Bethesda with ES6 a game they have teased for nearly 5 years now with almost nothing beyond that little teaser.
Like gamers especially RPG gamers just want a complete game. Its clear the success of BG3, DOS 1 & 2, and Owlcat’s pathfinder games show there is a clear market for this. It just needs to be handled with well.
Plenty of games are “complete” and have a similar or larger scope then BG3, and they’re not getting the attention that BG3 is getting now. On the other side of the coin, people really responded to Disco Elysium, and a lot of that had to do with what they did within a small space. If all I wanted was “big” and “complete”, I’d be interested in Starfield, not Baldur’s Gate 3.
I think you are confusing my term for complete with big and shallow. BG3,DOS2, Disco Elysium did well with their confines. The world felts very reactive to your decisions as a player and there is connecting sinew to most of the game with itself. Starfield and Bethesda’s game are in a way glorified puddles they may be miles wide but typically underneath there is very little depth to it. Typically modders are the ones who add the depth that Bethesda didn’t want to deal with. So you basically have a game where the puddle dips in an irregular fashion. This was honestly the biggest problem of CP2077. It was just a huge puddle, it had a fantastic writing for its main and side stories but almost everything else was pretty meh. I rather they just had a smaller world but pack it fuller with far more cool stuff than have vast spaces of nothingness.
No, I thought you were saying that a game was incomplete just because they added an expansion pack to it at any point, ever, which is a definition I find to be pretty absurd but plenty of people use. In this case it sounds like you’re saying that some games are incomplete just because you prefer a modded, remixed version of the game rather than the one they actually made, which is a definition I’d also disagree with. Large swaths of empty space, particularly in Elder Scrolls and Fallout, is an aesthetic and design choice, among other things, and more or less reactivity may or may not mean that there isn’t as much depth in the story, but those games have other strengths, like build variety, exploration, and such.
you’re saying that some games are incomplete just because you prefer a modded, remixed version of the game rather than the one they actually made, which is a definition I’d also disagree with.
I would argue no, its more the systems in place feel like a first pass. For instance, the civil war of skyrim feels like a very unfinished concept. Its something that was slap together to just say they have it as content. You do a few side missions then a siege and repeat. There is little ebb and flow to it, it is a straight line, you as a player are on a monorail. Your actions have little impact on the world besides what arbitrary flag is being flown. Also build variety of Stealth archer? There is very little reason to change your playstyle compared to DOS 2 or BG3 where your different classes/attributes do have a major factor in how you solve encounters. The teleportation gloves of DOS 2 are the perfect example of how equipment can easily change how people interact with the game. Sure we don’t need games where there are exclusive routes but the common Open world approach is keep it as open as possible. Like cyberpunk 2077 suffered from problems with the empty space that Witcher 3 didn’t because you are on the hunt for recipes for new armor sets and witcher potions.
Hell even some of the games I recommended do suffer from some mechanics not hitting well. Pathfinder Wrath of Righteousness had some issues like the crusade minigame since it feels like the devs said hey would it be cool if we had a HOMMlike minigame in our already packed crpg. That sounds badass but the minigame wasn’t that fun however everything around it was phenomenal like the troop recruitment even though it didn’t matter had some very interesting talking points and choices. Like you pick the lich route, should you use death row inmates as undead meatshields to liberate your nation under assault of demons. Like it didn’t hit well but it felt like the mechanic was thought about and had effort put into it from other sections of the game. It isn’t some isolated system that is just there.
I am not a fool who thinks expansion packs are the devil. Hell I am in favor of hefty expansion packs since I remember when you got 1 or 2 and that was about it for the game.
None of what you said makes those games incomplete though. It’s just something about it that you didn’t care for. The systems are hardly a first pass; they’ve been making that game for about 15-20 years before Skyrim, and they’re not going to deviate too far from the formula for Starfield either, I’ll wager. It doesn’t mean they didn’t finish making it. They’ve finished making games that way over and over again.
I mean James Berg did though
Those aren’t criticisms of Larian or Baldur’s Gate 3. They are opinions that creating games at a certain scale isn’t something developers can just replicate at will. Just like Rockstar games aren’t something any studio can’t just go out and put together.
It’s like how someone would argue that not all books/novels need to be as long and complex as the Song of Ice and Fire series. Not all books need to be like those books, just like not all games need to be like BG3 (or GTA or RDR to use the other comparison).
BG3 is what AAA development should be if it was about making good products but at the end of the day these companies are here to make as much money as possible.
I think the quality of game, and lack of monetization, is certainly something that AAA games should strive for. I wouldn’t agree that all AAA needs to be as big and complex as BG3 though. Just as Elden Ring being a great game doesn’t mean that all similar games need to be massive and open-world in the same way.
Those aren’t criticisms of Larian or Baldur’s Gate 3. They are opinions that creating games at a certain scale isn’t something developers can just replicate at will. Just like Rockstar games aren’t something any studio can’t just go out and put together.
It’s like how someone would argue that not all books/novels need to be as long and complex as the Song of Ice and Fire series. Not all books need to be like those books, just like not all games need to be like BG3 (or GTA or RDR to use the other comparison).
Except my point has very little to do with complexity or how long it is. I rather a game be short than waste your fucking time, we don’t need 200+ hour games. It is one of those things I hate about modern gaming where if a game is less than 20 hours of enjoyment it is worthless to many. I want quality yet many AAA studios don’t pump out the best stuff. Halo infinite ended up as a trash fire that didn’t respect its players and has basically been put down because of pointless money grubbing. Every Ubisoft game follows the very same formula make a large empty world where you clear towers.
We as gamers should strive for games like BG3 because they were quality works that were made for the enjoyment of the player. They aren’t meant to fuck with you and hand over your wallet. Hell one of the biggest games this summer was a fucking roblox Battlefield game. People just want to play a good game that isn’t trying to always nickle and dime them. Its a plus when there is complexity but its not a requirement for it to work.
Edit: Larian is a studio that has basically been the poster child for “crowdfunding” and I personally am fine with that. This can be what happens when we support studios with an idea. There will be a ton of failure but crowdfunding has brought many top tier indie games especially in genres thought dead in modern gaming (FTL, Divinity Original sin, Shovel Knight, Wasteland 2, Superhot, Yooka-Laylee, Night in the Woods, A Hat in Time, Elite Dangerous, Ready or Not, etc.)
We as gamers should strive for games like BG3 because they were quality works that were made for the enjoyment of the player.
But that’s what the comments that people are taking as “criticisms of BG3” are talking about, and is the context for the video from OP. There aren’t developers saying “High quality games shouldn’t be the standard”.
I asked for examples of developers criticizing the scope of BG3, and you replied with examples. I guess I’m confused as to how I was supposed to know you weren’t talking about “complexity or how long it is” (aka. scope)?
But yes, if your point is “developers should make good games, and not bad games” (yes, I’m being reductionist) then sure, I agree with that, but that’s not really what I was trying to point out, and that’s not what the video was about.
I think saying you can make 2/3 games out of the effort of 1 is a more cynical approach of you should be milking your consumers, you don’t need to put this much effort into the game when 1/3 of that would have been “worthy” of release in the modern AAA space.
Since yes in a reductive point I’m just saying “Make good games, not bad ones idiot AAA devs” I’m just anti devs (more realistically publishers) trying to milk consumer’s wallets.
Sounds clickbaity as fuck.
Setting appropriate expectations for one’s own work is one thing, but I’ll never understand why some people feel the need to deride others for exceeding them.
Because they don’t want to be held to the new standard, obviously. They’re comfortable and are preemptively taking offense at the idea of having to do more in the future. Like the normal kids who want to punch down the one overachiever who reminds the teacher to assign homework.
But this isn’t a homework assignment; these are businesses competing for consumer dollars, and Larian is winning with their investment into a happy team and good product.
I’ll never understand why some people feel the need to deride others for exceeding them.
Who is doing this?
The video kinda of dances around the subject, but I didn’t see anything specific.
