Baldur's Gate 3...confirmed!

[Winthur]

I'm just saying, I'll keep my expectations lower than I would have if it was Obsidian et al. I hope to eat my words, though.

I'd not trust Sawyer & Co. with this undertaking because PoE is a series of games that is simply overwritten and filled to the brim with intrusive loredumps. Considering DivOS (and PF:KM) didn't bomb financially while Deadfire did, I'm optimistic.

[Morty]

The writing in DOS2 was mostly serviceable, not bad or good. It's the gameplay that caused me to drop the game. But I do remember finding the Magisters to be incredibly heavy-handed, over-the-top and generally containing multiple elements that severely annoy me. They're a major element I'm willing to just straight-up call bad.

I don't think the writing was the point in DOS2, really. That would be tactical fantasy combat with a co-op option.

[Erloas]

Well you've got a lot of people saying Larian's writing is good, bad, and ok, so I think that is about as good as you can really hope, because you'll never get anyone to agree on anything. I know there are plenty of games (and movies and books) that others have said had a great story that I didn't care for at all. So I say let them have their try, no matter who did the writing originally or in any theoretical new game you're going to have people that don't agree/like the direction it is going and those that do. It isn't even that uncommon for the *same* writers to go in directions that some fans don't agree with.

I would also remind people that is it very easy and common to have a company that has games that have very different tones. So just because some of Larian's other games have a less serious tone doesn't mean all of their games will have that same tone. The trailer doesn't hint at any sort of comical or light-hearted tone, nor an over the top grim tone.

[NRSASD]

The trailer doesn't hint at any sort of comical or light-hearted tone, nor an over the top grim tone.

I'd say someone's face exploding into a squid might fall into that category. :P

[noob]

Less from "scifi" and more "from even a passing understanding of physics and Space," but yes, that is not entirely inaccurate. But on a very visceral level. Even as a small, living child, the idea of there not being space would have offended me. To look up at the stars and know they were not immense shinging light in an unfathomable distance, around which distant worlds might hang, waiting to be explored, but merely a patten of big lights on a ceiling. To take the wonder and majesty and grandure and size and depth of the universe, of all the boundless silent places, winds whispering on worlds seen by no-being and compress it down to be so... Claustrophobic... just as support for something as idiotic (and ugly, frankly) as sailing ships in space... No, it's something that grates against the very core of my being on two fronts.



(I had not missed this or anything, by the by - it is simply that I have had to be doing a lot of enforced rejuvenation this week - laser canons are not your friends, children, not even if you're an Epic-level Lich made of mithril alloy.)



For the same reasons, I reject the D&D's "infinite" sized planes - after all, why should planes themselves and whole comologies be their own metasphysical solar systems? After all, even if they weere "merely" half a light-year in diameter¹, how practicality, could anyone tell the difference between that and infinity? There should be space in the planes, between different planes of fire, between different divine realms, in beautiful symmetry to the material world, because that's what the planes are. The universe is nearly incomprehensibly massive, and slapping words like "infinity" on it because you can't comprehend numbers is... Diminishing the whole in an attempt, ironically to set boundaries, because most people read infinity as a BIG NUMBER.

(Actually, I consider all of D&D flat limitations to be nothing more than "arbitatily high;" a fire elemental isn't immune to fire, but its merely functionally immune to if its fire resistance is actually 5000 or 10000 or 500000.)



¹Enough space for 137 840 965 800 000 000 - a hundred and thirty seven quadrillion - Earth-sized planet's surface area - three hundred a fifty thousand times more Earth-equivilents than there are stars in the galaxy even by the most generous measure. A distance so large, it would take adventures literally hundreds of millions of years to walk across it. A number of world so large that it dwarves the number of every single finctional world ever created, published or otherwise, across the breadth of human history.

(Actually, half a light years is probably still grossly excessive now I calculate it out.)

And a size so small as to be nearly irrelevant to space itself.

But then routinely optimized characters would deal more damage than the number of atoms at the power of the number of atoms in the plane in which they are or yet it would be ordinary to grab a whole plane and planeshift or teleport or yet killing fire immune stuff with fire would be incredibly trivial as long as it is a number you can write in base 10.(that is if you are playing pen and paper dnd: on computer dnd those differences are not significant in any way)

[Calthropstu]

When I first saw this, my initial reaction was "Hell no." When I saw what beamdog had done with the original baldurs gate with the characters, and the atrocious comments of their lead developer, I swore I would make 100% certain they never got a penny from me. Now that I looked and saw that it's not beamdog, I may give it a shot if it comes out.

[Kyutaru]

How does one even kill a Fire, Air, or Water elemental with a sword? Slash its atoms in half to make it a new element?

[LibraryOgre]

How does one even kill a Fire, Air, or Water elemental with a sword? Slash its atoms in half to make it a new element?

Sudden and rapid incursion of another element (earth) causes disruption of their form.

[Kyutaru]

Sudden and rapid incursion of another element (earth) causes disruption of their form.

Excellent, that makes sense when dealing with cosmological forces. I guess for the rest of it, Lasers are just intense heat, energy beings should be pretty immune to being fed by their own energy, and planes are likely some Mobius strip concept of infinite. Our own universe is feeling incapable of being infinite already without cheating due to the expansion and contraction concept. Bet if a Spelljammer ship went in a straight line long enough it would end up where it started.

[Kane0]

Like Tyranny or Pillars?

I’ve long wanted a 5e version of NWN. I’m hoping this comes close.

[LibraryOgre]

Excellent, that makes sense when dealing with cosmological forces. I guess for the rest of it, Lasers are just intense heat, energy beings should be pretty immune to being fed by their own energy, and planes are likely some Mobius strip concept of infinite. Our own universe is feeling incapable of being infinite already without cheating due to the expansion and contraction concept. Bet if a Spelljammer ship went in a straight line long enough it would end up where it started.

The planes, especially the outer planes, might also be logarithmic. So, if you're in the Seven Heavens, every step you take "Northwest" moves you further into Law and Good. However, it takes more intense Law and Good to get further along. If the border with the Outlands is 1, getting to 2 or 3 might be relatively easy, but getting to 7 is a journey of several lifetimes.

[Kyutaru]

I love that version! It's like time dilation approaching light speed. Even explains why people might journey deeper and deeper into whatever they choose to be their perfect moral direction, effectively creating a perfect eternity because it gets more and more perfect the longer you walk. As the limit approaches infinity, your soul becomes perfectly aligned.

[RedMage125]

I was going to jump in on the "Spelljammer ship in BG2", but that seems to have wrapped up. If anyone is curious, it's in the drow city.

Well.... PC is obviously one. Divinity 2 was eventually brought to PS4 and XB1.

And the Enhanced Editions of Icewind Dale, Baldur's Gate 1 & 2, etc are all coming to consoles in September (including Switch).

So.... I mean... I expect PC release first with a possible release on XB1, PS4 and maybe Switch within a year of the PC launch.

I just followed up on this, and am amazed. I have a Switch, and next year, I have a 7-9 month deployment on an aircraft carrier. This will be an excellent game for playing in my rack at night.

Daymn... I might have to finally get a Switch myself... if for no other reason, then that.

This is an aside, but I highly recommend the platform. They ported all of the games that I missed when I did not get a WiiU (Mario Kart, Super Mario U, Hyrule Warriors), Smash Bros is awesome, Breath of the Wild is fantastic, there's TWO Blaster Master games that are both excellent, the Shantae games are a lot of fun, the Castlevania Anniversary Collection has been making me happy, I finally started playing Skyrim...there's just so many good games, and they're all PORTABLE.

Will we finally discover that Boo is, truly, a miniature giant space hamster as Minsc always claimed?!

If you have Minsc in your party when you finish ToB, they say he eventually disappears from Rashamen, and "some say he wanders still, out among the stars, where hamsters are giants and men are made legends", or something to that effect.

I wouldn't mind another Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance, but that's why some call me No brains.

Don't get down on yourself. Those games were a lot of fun.

They weren't proper successors to the "Baldur's Gate" name, but they were still fun to play. And isn't that what's important in a game?

[Anteros]

Well you've got a lot of people saying Larian's writing is good, bad, and ok, so I think that is about as good as you can really hope, because you'll never get anyone to agree on anything. I know there are plenty of games (and movies and books) that others have said had a great story that I didn't care for at all. So I say let them have their try, no matter who did the writing originally or in any theoretical new game you're going to have people that don't agree/like the direction it is going and those that do. It isn't even that uncommon for the *same* writers to go in directions that some fans don't agree with.

I would also remind people that is it very easy and common to have a company that has games that have very different tones. So just because some of Larian's other games have a less serious tone doesn't mean all of their games will have that same tone. The trailer doesn't hint at any sort of comical or light-hearted tone, nor an over the top grim tone.

Someone said their writing is good? I must have skimmed over that post. I don't see how anyone could argue that though unless you're the type of person who enjoys tropes with no depth.

Honestly, the end of DOS2 was more like something from Scooby Doo than epic fantasy.

[ShneekeyTheLost]

Someone said their writing is good? I must have skimmed over that post. I don't see how anyone could argue that though unless you're the type of person who enjoys tropes with no depth.

Honestly, the end of DOS2 was more like something from Scooby Doo than epic fantasy.

Which is perfectly in character with the writing and tone of the original Baldur's Gate trilogy. So... double win?

[GloatingSwine]

I think people are greatly overestimating the quality and consistency of the writing in Baldur's Gate.

The first one especially is all over the place between pop culture references (you literally meet Wolverine within three or so screens of starting the game, characters from old sitcoms show up as Xvarts and Kobolds, one of the ogres is just Homer Simpson) and faux-olde-worlde guff that even the most overwrought DM would knock off after the first ten minutes. (except not always and not even always within the same conversation).

This is the game where the sort of thing that gets you known throughout the land (+1 Rep) is "rescuing" a dead cat, but it's okay because daddy is a necromancer....

Baldur's Gate is much sillier than you remember and really quite a lot of its reputation for character comes out of being one of the earliest games with really good voice actors in, because hell of a lot of it comes from good delivery not good prose.

The writing was good enough, and it uses the mechanisms of the world to provide some decently twisty plotting, but most of the reason it's persisted has been the character of the NPCs and the way it lets you immerse yourself in the world because of the relative freedom to explore and variety of things to do.


(The lack of consistency, especially in what options the PC has in dialogue, is one of the reasons SoD feels so different, because that has a much more modern consistent set of attitudes to pursue not "whatever goofs we thought of for this conversation".)

[Morty]

I think people are greatly overestimating the quality and consistency of the writing in Baldur's Gate.

The first one especially is all over the place between pop culture references (you literally meet Wolverine within three or so screens of starting the game, characters from old sitcoms show up as Xvarts and Kobolds, one of the ogres is just Homer Simpson) and faux-olde-worlde guff that even the most overwrought DM would knock off after the first ten minutes. (except not always and not even always within the same conversation).

This is the game where the sort of thing that gets you known throughout the land (+1 Rep) is "rescuing" a dead cat, but it's okay because daddy is a necromancer....

Baldur's Gate is much sillier than you remember and really quite a lot of its reputation for character comes out of being one of the earliest games with really good voice actors in, because hell of a lot of it comes from good delivery not good prose.

The writing was good enough, and it uses the mechanisms of the world to provide some decently twisty plotting, but most of the reason it's persisted has been the character of the NPCs and the way it lets you immerse yourself in the world because of the relative freedom to explore and variety of things to do.


(The lack of consistency, especially in what options the PC has in dialogue, is one of the reasons SoD feels so different, because that has a much more modern consistent set of attitudes to pursue not "whatever goofs we thought of for this conversation".)

I was more or less going to say the same thing. Baldur's Gate 2 is better about it, and that's probably what most people remember. In addition to a serious case of rose-tinted glasses. Which is why I don't envy Larian's job of living up to it.

[LibraryOgre]

I think people are greatly overestimating the quality and consistency of the writing in Baldur's Gate.

The first one especially is all over the place between pop culture references (you literally meet Wolverine within three or so screens of starting the game, characters from old sitcoms show up as Xvarts and Kobolds, one of the ogres is just Homer Simpson) and faux-olde-worlde guff that even the most overwrought DM would knock off after the first ten minutes. (except not always and not even always within the same conversation).

I am forgetting the Homer Simpson ogre... though remember the Great Gazib? Who summons and explodes an ogre until it gets tired of it?

[GloatingSwine]

I am forgetting the Homer Simpson ogre... though remember the Great Gazib? Who summons and explodes an ogre until it gets tired of it?

He is, IIRC, just north of the Xvart village sitting at a campfire. You talk to him, he says he will eat then smash you to pudding, mmmm, pudding. (a common Homer refrain about food).

His sprite is noticably much yellower than other ogres in the game.

(Edit: North of the Gnoll Stronghold, not Xvart Village. I knew it was that corner of the map.)

[Cikomyr]

Baldurs Gate certainly always been goofy. A tad less so BG2, but it still had its jack**** moments..

I thought Tazok showing in Firkraag dungeon was just out of nowhere.

[LibraryOgre]

Or Garrick in Amn, playing Cyrano de Bergerac?

[Millstone85]

5e's most blatant Spelljammer reference is in Dungeon of the Mad Mage.

Spoiler

Show

You get to visit one of the Tears of Selûne, an asteroid called Stardock where spelljamming vessels occasionally, well, dock. There is also a crashed ship containing a pirate illithid captain (with a wooden leg and everything), a miniature giant space hamster, and a map of Realmspace. And yes, the book uses those terms.

[Cikomyr]

Or Garrick in Amn, playing Cyrano de Bergerac?

Or even stuff that was plain random. Think of the Twisted Rune, an amalgamation of the most powerful mages and creatures of the game, that just.. Happen to you.

Edwina and the Netheril Scroll

Everything related to Jan Jansen

The flippin' talking sword...

[Brookshw]

The same series that has a scene where rookie adventurers attack you, get their asses kicked, then reload their last save and decide not to attack you the second time?

Huh, don't recall that encounter. When/where was it??

[Cikomyr]

Huh, don't recall that encounter. When/where was it??

Throne of Bhaal, you need a beholder eye stalk. Since you are epic level adventurers at the moment, everyone groans at the basicness of the quest, so you decide to hire adventurers to do it for you.

Spoiler

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Bondari: (I'm telling you we can take CHARNAME. Nanoc, you are unfettered by the weaknesses of the civilized world! Tim, you can cast magic missile! I will backstab. I bet she/he has all kinds of great treasure!)
Nanoc the Barbarian: (But Tim is terrible. Remember the kobold king? He cast one spell then hid behind a rock while we had to slay everyone!)
Tim Goldenhand: (Hey! I have the healing potions! I heal you!)
Nanoc the Barbarian: (I can shrug off a blow that would fell a normal man! Unfettered by your civilized ways, I...)
Bondari: (Enough! Ready...) ATTACK!!!
[Bondari and company attack CHARNAME]
[CHARNAME transforms into The Slayer]
[Bondari and company get slaughtered]
Bondari reloads
Bondari: Uh, here's your eyestalk sir. We found something else, too. I hope you like it.
CHARNAME: Well done, Bondari. Here is your reward.
Bondari: Thanks. It was a good quest. I found a dagger and Tim here got a scroll of identify. In a couple of days he'll be able to tell me about my dagger.
Tim Goldenhand: Hi.
Bondari: Thanks again, Protagonist! Bye! Good luck with the dragon!
Nanoc the Barbarian: I bid you a "Farewell" suitably unfettered by civilization.

[Morty]

For all that ToB saw rules come apart at the seams, it did do a pretty good job making the player character feel like a big deal.

[Mitsu]

Based on 5e! Yes! Can't wait to play PAM Hexblade there or Sorcadin!

Also I can't wait to play Paladins with new Oath system!

I hope they will stick to 5e as much as possible, feats, classes, subclasses etc.

[Calemyr]

I think it might be worth noting that between their logo for the game and the big tentacle in the trailer (which one youtuber pointed out looked like the illithid version of a spaceship), we're probably talking about the mind flayers in their glory. As in 'not the shattered remnants of a dead race hiding in the dark recesses of any world they can find'. That is simultaneously exciting (as they've never been anything but a minor side-feature before) and worrying (because they've never been anything but a really cheap and annoying speed bump before).

For all that ToB saw rules come apart at the seams, it did do a pretty good job making the player character feel like a big deal.

Yeah. I will readily admit that the game isn't stellar as a game (it's like Final Fantasy Tactics, half the fun is in bending the rules like a pretzel in order to just run roughshod over it), and it has more than a little silliness in it (Minsc, of course, and a chinchilla Bhaalspawn. Plus the Newhart reference in BG1).

The story, however, still strikes me as very powerful if you let yourself ride it. The feeling of desperation as you're left broke and powerless in the woods with only a chirpy little sister-type for companionship. The feeling of grim satisfaction as you crush the Iron Throne's interest under your heel and flood their mine. The horror and confusion as the dopperlgangers spin a disturbingly believable tale of how your adventure is a descent into madness, and how you've killed everyone you care about in your grief over what was apparently only a near-fatal attack on Gorion - everything you wish was true combined with everything you desperately fear. The frustrated catharsis of bringing down your half brother in a fight so unbalanced you usually need to rely on so much cheese you need to import it from Wisconsin.

The feeling of loss when the Sarevok's support structure is destroyed and the party goes their separate ways. The anger at seeing Imoen all but killed in front of you. The awe of standing in the temple of Bhaal in the Forest of Wyrms, of learning that it is your birthplace. The frustration as your agency gets ripped out of your hands and what looks like a reasonable request gets denied before you ever have a chance to explore it (seriously, SoD could have gone so much better if you just had a chance to say "Forget this crusade, you and I can get the job done together."). The feeling of impotence as Irenicus turns your greatest victory so far into the darkest hour you'll ever have.

Then BG2 starts up and it goes into an open world rollercoaster of emotions. Loss and romance and high adventure and dungeons and dragons and camaraderie and banter. Lots and lots of banter. Then you've got Throne of Bhaal where the combat is either tedious or irrelevant, but, as you said so very well, you feel like a big deal indeed. For my part, I don't play the game for the gameplay, just for the story.

I am quite interested in seeing what Larian does with it. They said they were going to do a more advanced version of Original Sin 2, where every character (even player made ones) will have their own plot lines. OS2 serves as a remarkably good dry run for that. They said they were going to make it much more party-focused, since the quantity and quality of your potential party members was what differentiated Baldur's Gate from Icewind Dale.

I mean, if you leave the Bhaalspawn out of it, what makes a Baldur's Gate game? To me, it's the characters and the backstory. If they can get that to work, I think it'll be worth it.

Based on 5e! Yes! Can't wait to play PAM Hexblade there or Sorcadin!

Also I can't wait to play Paladins with new Oath system!

I hope they will stick to 5e as much as possible, feats, classes, subclasses etc.

This is Larian Studios. I can't say it'll be a 100% faithful representation of 5e (though I hope so as I love my "black knight" hexblade, myself), but they're very good at creating systems that service the gameplay rather than throttle it (something Black Isle was prone to doing, especially in Planescape: Torment).

Honestly, they're the only company I can think of these days that could do this well. Which saddens me, as it means all my old heroes are dead.

[Erloas]

Well they did explicitly state in the E3 PC game event that the game is as much 5E as would work in a digital system.
They also said that the game is set about 100 years after the end of BG2.

Other than that they really didn't say anything, they even started their little on stage bit by saying they weren't really going to be talking about much besides what is in the trailer.

[Calemyr]

I saw an interview on YouTube between Fextralife and the boss of Lariat.

Points of interest I thought I'd mention:

Role in Baldur's Gate: Lariat considers BG3 to actually be the fifth installment in the story, after BG1, BG2, and the tabletop games "Murder at Baldur's Gate" and "Descent into Avernus". They expect to have recurring locations and scenes from previous installments, as well as characters, but did not go into details. There will be no uploading BG2 game saves into BG3. WotC apparently intends to implement BG3 into canon they way they have the other two.

Game Length: They aren't comfortable putting an exact number on how long the game will last, beyond guessing 100 hours. They are aiming for Original Sin 2 level of length.

Ruleset: The game is based on 5th edition rules, with additions and subtractions made to best suit a video game environment (i.e. relying on their famous environmental systems in place of a DM's ability to improvise). Subclasses are stated to be included as well, with a tone that suggested that this should be obvious.

Linearity: They are using Original Sin 2 as a model for the linearity of BG3. Explicit mention of BG2 and the 20k was made, as a static problem with myriad ways to solve it.

Engine: They will be using their in-house engine for the game. They label OS2 as v3.0, the enhanced edition as v3.5, and BG3 as v4.0.

Art Style: They claim the trailer is suitably representative of their intended artistic style for the game.

Hope this information is useful. It's a pretty interesting interview if you feel like looking it up yourselves.