bg often gives you 3 or 4 dialog options to choose from in order to steer the game in a direction that suits your style. I see that here, as well. Even when using one of the featured characters. So I really don't understand the criticism. Recommend you wait and see.

In my case I really like the ability to play a fully fleshed character with an interesting story to tell. One of my favorite rpgs - Dragon Age: Origins did that as well and I see a little of that in the PAX demo. I am excited to see where they will take this.

The 'criticism' (if you can call it that) is that game dev is never free - any time/money you spend on one aspect is time/money not spent elsewhere (within a department anyway - graphics artists won't be taking time away from narrative writers). So the question was whether having premade characters to play would reduce the amount of branching narrative options for others. May or may not be the case - hence the DOS2 comparison question. Does DOS2 have multiple paths/endings based on decisions for self-rolled characters? If so, I'm good. If it's not much more work to make your companions playable, then it's probably a good choice.

I liked DA:O too - but that wasn't like this. There you created a new character and played your origin story, making decisions along the way. This is characters with premade backgrounds.

I meant the proper game, and actually noticed after posting that it does indeed have its own page here, so will obviously be released here. So that is good news. Means I can buy it :) As usual I will wait a bit, though. See what the game is actually like first, read some reviews, etc. And certainly wait for the full release, and not this early access bullshit. I suppose that may be a GOG bloatware thing anyway, and like with Steam, I'm not going to use their client.

But I am cautiously looking forward to the game, and hope they give me some good reasons to buy it. Would be brilliant with an excellent RPG again.

It will be interesting to see how this turns out. Baldur's Gate are among my all-time favorite games, so I hope for the best. Personally I wished they stick with the original Baldur's Gate/Dragon Age-like combat. I always thought it felt really fresh compared to turn-based. I don't mind turn-based, but I got a little burned out on it after the huge boom of RPGs using it in the last few years. And I just played 60 hours of Fire Emblem..

Is it another game in the three-quarter isometric-perspective, real-time-with-pause style of Baldur's Gate 1 & 2? NO.

Is it a tactical-combat RPG with a branching storyline, isometric OR over-the-shoulder perspective, richly developed NPCs, very close adherence to 5e D&D rules, and created by a developer with a proven record for successful RPGs? YES.

Thumbs-up. Let's do this.

To be honest, I would have preferred that Larian didn't call this game "Baldur's Gate III". While there have been hints that there may be some cameos from characters from the previous games, it sounds like there will be very little connecting this game to the previous two. In particular, the character you play in this game has nothing to do with the character from the previous two games -- or so it would seem. Perhaps there will be a surprise twist that our character is somehow connected with the lineage of our character from the original game, which is what allows us to resist the Illithid tadpoles. But thus far there has been very little indication that this game is connected to the previous two outside of the main city it takes place in and a few key NPC cameos.

My opinion is that the name is pure marketing hype But after seeing the game-play videos, I'm very certain that this is a game I would enjoy playing. As far as the name goes... I don't see why this game deserves the title "Baldur's Gate III" any more than the previously released "Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance". Both seem to have nothing to do with the original two Baldur's Gate games aside from the setting.

TL;DR: The name seems like pure marketing/name-recognition fluff, but the game-play itself still captures my interest.

According to interviews, Larian has said that custom characters will be much more interwoven into the world and have personal content on par with the "pre-gens", so that at least mollifies one of my main concerns (which was that, in order to have the "full experience", I'd HAVE to play one of the pre-generated companions.) It's an interesting concept, and I'm not against it in theory, but just like how stepping into the shoes of Batman or Geralt or Hawke or Commander Shepard, it's fairly obvious that each of these characters has their own distinct personality. You may be guiding what they do throughout the story, but they're not YOUR character.

Other minor concerns of mine include the order of battle (one team goes followed by the other team going feels VERY artificial. I hope that the final game will have the order of battle determined by individual initiative, or at least an option to make it that way), and my general disapproval of making the illithids the "face villain" for the game (I think illithids work best as the "puppetmaster behind the scenes" kind of villain, not the kind of overt invasion threat that they're building them up to be in BG3, but that's mostly my own personal view as a D&D DM and player).

In any case, I likely will still get BG3, because what I'm mostly looking for is a good 5E D&D game, and from what I've seen BG3 looks like it can deliver. However, I'm not really considering BG3 as a Baldur's Gate game, because it really has nothing to do with the Bhaalspawn saga outside of a few Easter Eggs, cameos, MAAAAYBE Minsc as a party member (given how he's apparently a favourite of the devs). Near as I can tell, the only real claim to being a Baldur's Gate game is that BG3 is also set in the eponymous city. It's like if somebody announced they were making Back to the Future IV, except that there's no Doc Brown, no Marty McFly, no time travel and no DeLorean (although it does make a cameo), and the only real link to the previous movies is that it's also set in Hill Valley. :P

That is good news. I likewise don't see this as '3' to the BG series but it's looking like a good game by itself, which is all that matters in the end.

In more good news (though I'm not sure if there was much doubt), according to Rock Paper Shotgun, the classes not featured in the demo are going to be added, so there'll be 12 (including Barbarian, Paladin, Sorcerer, etc).

I'm still not sure I like the idea of 'team initiative' and the whole party (whether enemy or ally) taking their turns together before switching to the other. It might speed up some easier battles, but I think I'd prefer individual initiative and having to plan around the potential chaos of enemy moves interrupting my carefully laid plans.

I love the idea of BG3 but Lorians display so far is so-so. It would probably have made a much better Icewind or Neverwinter Nights Game than a Baldurs Gate. I'll probably pick it up on a 75 or 60% sale but likely not much else. Pity but thats reality.

Just saw a Youtube vid covering a lot from a Reddit Q&A - quite a bit of info that makes it sound pretty good (in theory)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZVtH1Qg0wDk&t=805s

The chances of getting a true BG3 (that is, true to BG1 and 2) have, for years, always ever seemed to be slim at best.

Larian seems like a quality CRPG developer and great company, and Swen Vincke seems really talented and cool as hell. I am playing and enjoying Divine Divinity, and plan to play through the whole Divinity series. I have no doubt that BG3 will be a great, great game.

But with it being called BG3, it kills once and for all the chance of ever getting a true successor to BG1 and BG2. To me, with BG1 and BG2 being my favorite games of all time... to me, that is all that matters in the end.

And to those that think Larian's BG3 looks and feels and plays like BG1 and BG2...

I respectfully disagree. I respectfully totally disagree.

Anyone who says things like "no THIS is the true BG experience" are really saying that "this is a true TABLETOP DUNGEONS & DRAGONS experience." When they see someone "complain" that "this is no BG game", they would argue by saying "nah BG games were never true to D&D rules" or "nah D&D games are meant to be turn-based" and all that. They try to make the original games seem "inferior" or "bad" by citing the fact that they were not very true to the core D&D rules. I find that funny because that's exactly what makes the BG games what they are. How is it a BG game if you change all the essential elements of the original BG games to something opposite? These people either really don't see that, or they are just intentionally ignoring that and pretending they know what they're talking about and you don't.

Some also argue that, the original BG games were not what the devs *really* tried to make. That the making of the BG games was closer to a "lucky accident", as it were. And that is exactly why this new BG3 is the TRUE Baldur's Gate. These people either were never real fans of the original games, or never even played the original games to begin with. They can't understand where the sentiment "this is no BG game" comes from and don't bother to try and understand exactly why some people have that sentiment. They just try to tell you that the way you feel about something is "incorrect" and that your feelings are invalid.

And I'm not making up random, baseless "accusations". If you read / participated in the discussions on Larian forums during the few months after the initial announcement, you will see what I mean.

My objection to BG3 being a true sequel to the BG games was based more off the fact that BG3 at first seemed to have very little to do with the actual Bhaalspawn saga. We got hammered with lore and screenshots and trailers all revolving around illithids and githyanki, after all. That said, Larian's since come out on a few occasions with pretty emphatic claims that the Bhaalspawn saga DOES have quite a pivotal role in the events of BG3. So was all the hype about illithids just a smokescreen to hide this fact? Or did they perhaps re-pivot their design to incorporate the Bhaalspawn story more into the game following the backlash from fans? I don't know, and I can't really speculate either way, but I'm willing to give Larian the benefit of the doubt until we get a chance to play through the game.