That gripe had nothing to do with comfort levels of editions, I've been playing the Forgotten Realms since it was released. This is entirely about the lore and setting. If you followed the actual plot of the Forgotten Realms, you'd find that there was a major upheaval that pretty much ruined the setting when the rules and lore got updated to 4th edition. Ed Greenwood, RA Salvatore and the rest of the major lore writers for Forgotten Realms were furious about the changes because they never got consulted. They just got handed a bunch of notes from WotC amounting to "we killed off most of your gods, added new races you have to pretend were always there, deleted existing races, changed how magic works entirely and basically scrapped all the building blocks that make the Forgotten Realms the Forgotten Realms. Now write the in-game lore reasons and sell us some more books."

To be fair, fifth edition has been them wildly backpedaling and trying to undo all those toxic changes that drove all the players and writers away. But at best, instead of 90% ruined, it's more like 25% ruined, and you have to still deal with the fact that all that nonsense is still part of the canonical lore of 5E. The general consensus is that they'd have done better rewinding the lore to 3E and pretending the changes in 4E never happened when they wrote 5E rather than spend half the book retconning and explaining the reality warping shenanigans needed to delete all the damage that 4E did.

As well as the vandalism of the Forgotten Realms setting, I believe 4E was also what spurred the development of Pathfinder, wasn't it? My understanding is it's basically a fork of the 3.5E D&D ruleset in an original setting.

The rank idiocy of large corporations never ceases to amaze me - their willingness to destroy the good things they have in the pursuit of an extra 1-2% profit.

Anyway, as far as BG3, I am expecting they will try to link it to the story of the previous games as best they can, bearing in mind the current state of the FR lore in 5E.

I am on the fence on the "should it be called BG3" discussion. I feel both parties.


On one hand, the Baldur's Gate story was concluded. It was the story of the bhall spawn and it had a proper ending.

On the other hand, the Baldur's Gate doesn't have to be strictly associated with the bhaal spawn saga. Final Fantasy games are a good example of that where every single game is a different story.

Besides, we know that Sven wanted to tell the story of "what happened then?". IIRC, the starting point of BG3 will not be too far away from the Baldur's Gate city. Was it south of that? So we will be able to visit the city we all missed. And there will be lots of cameos from the original saga. So is there a reason this can't be the begging of another story involving the great city of Baldur's Gate?

For once, I agree with Engerek01. Personally, I'm happy enough just to see a new game set in Forgotten Realms that is using an official D&D ruleset. When was the last D&D-based PC RPG? Neverwinter Nights 2 (if you discount the recent Enhanced Editions)? That's about 10 years ago - a long time. For me, the name and plot continuity are secondary.

As far as plot, Larian's hands are pretty well tied, with the original saga being concluded and the game having to be set many years after the events of the original games, because of WotC's insistence on the use of 5E.

Humor? This is supposed to be more dramatic.

why do people insist that baldur's gate has to be dramatic? the original games never really were.

In the current age, everything has a little bit of drama, action, and comedy in it. But don't worry, I am sure there will be lots of drama as well. Like when your owlbear eats your cat :))

What do you mean by drama? Having your mentor killed and being thrown out into the world with multiple enemies chasing you isn't dramatic?

Guys dont kill the messenger I just read it from their forums. Narrators voices is kinda evidence they did dramatic game. Narrator has deep and low female voice. She might get cheerful sometimes, who knows.

I personally do feel that naming it Baldur's Gate 3 was a bit of an underhanded move designed to appeal to nostalgia in an attempt to reel in a larger audience. The first two Baldur's Gate games were about the tale of Gorion's Ward, their journey from humble origins all the way to (potential) godhood. It had nothing at all to do with the eponymous city, considering that the second game doesn't even take place in Baldur's Gate. As such, naming this game "Baldur's Gate 3" when the protagonist is a completely different character and, given that Larian has mentioned that BG3 will be following the events of the PnP modules "Murder in Baldur's Gate" and "Descent into Avernus", which state that the canonical Bhaalspawn is Abdel Adrian, that just further reinforces that whatever the player did in the previous games will essentially have zero impact on BG3 at all. Larian really should have called it "Baldur's Gate: Rise of the Illithids" or something similar. You're still drawing upon the legacy of the previous games, but not implying that the game will be more of the same. It probably would have mollified a lot of the hostility I often see from die-hard BG fans.

Despite what I mentioned above, however, I'm still looking forward to BG3. I think it's shaping up for what should be a fun D&D CRPG, but I'm under no illusions that BG3 is any kind of true sequel to the previous games.

I think you just made a better argument that BG2 should not have been named Baldur's Gate.

I think Larian should do Trilogy with this, they are so ready to build long-term relationship with the fans and gamers. Things look good for fantasy fans, Dragon Age 4 and Witcher 4 are both coming. Lord of the Ring MMO. Elder Scroll ist most likely Bethesdas next poject after Starfield. Larian should take an advantage of this. I forgot Middle Earth.

Also old-school is coming, Mechwarrior, Cyberpunk, Dune and Half-Life etc. Thats good for BG3 too.

In my perfect world, Larian announces we want to do Tirlogy and CDPR is the publisher. Forget the EA.

Knowing Larian they will certainly release some DLC and depending the mod-friendliness there is certain to be enough content to last for a long while until they will hit stores. Not being opposed to future titles playing in the universe coming from Larian it would be nice to have a true ending not hinting at a second or third part, or, worse, a cliffhanger ... One never knows what happens next considering the current situation the world is in - just saying ...

I think they should sell Companions. Go out of the box.