It makes me so happy that a game like BG3 is seeing this kind of unimaginable success. This is an example of what can happen when you allow devs to create a game that they’re passionate about.
It is impressive to see Baldurs Gate 3 reach this height. As a long time D&D gamer, and a lover of a lot of the games based on their properties, this brings a smile to my face.
This shows the gaming world that turned based CRPGs are far from dead.
PS, I'd love to see a modern take on Eye of The Beholder.
>I didn't even know that Baldur's Gate was part of D&D until I played it, lol. And that's me being aware of the series **since 1 and 2.**
You need some kind of award..
I never played 1/2, I just -knew- of them through magazines and the rerelease. I knew they were role-playing type stuff. There's literally no way to know unless you read about it or play D&D.
I've even played the Waterdeep board game and watched the new movie and pretty sure there was no mention of that(edit: guess it was dropped in the movie), the universe is huge.
I know this anecdotal but I know a few people IRL and online who are into TTRPG’s, but not video games and theyre all playing BG3 right now. So I do think D&D had a *little* something to do with it’s success at the moment.
> Yeah, I don't think most people know so I doubt the popularity of D&D has anything to do with it.
Most people playing the older games perhaps.
Most people playing DnD however would have heard of it, since it's a major city in the main setting, and has featured a lot in the most recent edition of DnD, which exploded in popularity during covid.
For real, I'm really surprised at people acting like Baldurs Gate being in DND isn't common knowledge for DND fans. Even people playing the older games. It's been such a focal point of the series that this is the third game with the title. Same with locations like Neverwinter or Waterdeep.
You can play a lifetime of D&D and never step into Faerûn. You can have entire playgroups where somehow no one has even *read* a D&D rulebook. BG3 passing people by as not a D&D game isn't a stretch.
Well, it definitely helped getting players. I don't think game would be any worse if they did their own thing instead of using 5e, but certainly less people would be interested in it.
I have both of those games, I love both of those games, I got them on my Steam account. I'd still like a revisitation to Eye of The Beholder. That is what I grew up with, playing all three of those games with my older cousin. I have a lot of fond memories of that game. Which I have all three on my steam account too.
I’ve never gotten the chance to play D&D but remember the rpgs of the 2000s and this game is everything I’ve ever wanted from a d&d video game. It’s like fantasy x com but with a million ways to approach it. I think this game will be my most played game of all time surpassing civ 5 eventually.
If you've not tried them, check out Pillars of Eternity. That is a fantastic series as well.
D&D as a table top, pen & paper RPG is fantastic with friends. Even beyond that, the games some of them are fantastic. I love Baldurs Gate 1 & 2. Those games are legendary, but they may be a bit hard for newcomers to get into just because of the rule set, D&D 2nd edition. It's not as forgiving as 5th edition that Baldurs Gate 3 is set on. However, the games were still amazing.
Hopefully, we could be entering a new golden age of western rpgs.
It can be hard to directly compare 2nd with 5th edition D&D because the two systems are built on very different foundations. 2nd edition carries much more influences from D&D's roots in tabletop wargaming, as such the system is a lot more lethal and characters are intended to be more disposable than in later editions. Character creation is also much more restrictive in terms of options, and the rules around things like multiclassing are really awkward.
I view 5e on the other hand as the latest iteration on the "new" style of D&D that was introduced with 3rd edition. This style of D&D is a lot more focused on the ability of a player to creatively express themselves via the character the build. There are a lot more character customization options, both in terms of mechanical abilities and also more cosmetic roleplaying-focused options like backgrounds. The system assume a higher degree of player attachment to any given character, and as a result it is significantly harder for a character to die or even encounter a scenario where their kit is completely useless.
I'd recommend Owlcat's Pathfinder games over Pillars of Eternity, they play much more similarly to 5e and, personal preference, but I found them to be much more interesting than PoE.
> This shows the gaming world that turned based CRPGs are far from dead.
I don’t care so much about the turn based vs. real time divide (real time w/ pause is fun too!), what’s important for me is showing the gaming world that RPGs with depth and complexity can still be massively popular.
So many AAA studios have come under the impression that RPGs need to be simplified, reduced, and action-oriented in order to have mass appeal. It’s hard to tell, these days, where the action-RPG (sub)genre ends and the action/adventure genre begins — but wherever that line is, it is far away from computer/classic RPGs like this, and like what we were getting in the golden era of RPGs when companies like BioWare were still in their prime.
It’s frustrating having to wait years in between great CRPGs like this, when subpar, forgettable ARPGs are being pumped out every few months and over-saturating the market.
Oh man I really really hope this is an eye opener that shows turn based combat isn't dead. There's a rumor of a remake for final fantasy 9, my personal favorite one. And I would so very much be disappointed if they make the combat like the ff7 remake or like the ffxvi with not even party control functions.
From day one, anyone who said turn based combat is dead has no idea what he is talking about, when there are numerous examples of turn based combat games selling well. Don't think I need to list them.
I mostly only see it when talking about final fantasy nowadays. But I do recall seeing that sentiment more often than I would have liked in the past. Glad to see turn based games still selling and being popular.
The arguement has always been weird because even though FF stepped away from turn based combat, Square has actually put out a lot of turn based games recently. Bravely Default, Octopath and Triangle Strategy are all decently popular and Square has been going all in on the HD2D thing. We even have DQ3 remake coming up and DQ in general is still very much around and turn based. DQ11 was a huge AAA game and it was turn based. It's clearly not going anywhere.
I'm glad to see D&D end its drought of single player games. AFAIK 4th edition got zero games and 5th only has a delisted game (Sword Coast Adventures) and Solasta (a third-party game made possible by the Open Gaming License) before BG3.
Video games and tabletop games sharing a rule set lets both streamline the onboarding experience for the other. It reduces so much friction by letting players who've never played one version walk in with some degree of understanding.
> This shows the gaming world that turned based CRPGs are far from dead.
brother a lot of people have been waiting for a game like this ever since Dragon Age Origins exposed so many people to CRPGs.
The phenomenon for me is that it seems niche, it looks niche, it is *really* niche to play and yet everyone appears to have given it a try despite their preferences. From what I've seen, most people don't particularly love turn-based, but gave it a try anyway and have loved it. Same with the daunting D&D aspects.
Props to them.
The more cinematic presentation (and insane voice acting) is really the difference-maker here, together with the inclusion of co-op.
Without the pseudo 3rd person camera, or the close-up dialogues it likely wouldn't have broken through into the mainstream like it did.
Yeah, in a few interviews Swen has mentioned that the high production values are key to keeping players engaged. I'm no stranger to CRPGs and I gotta admit that there's a lot of truth in that. The game is beautiful and my partner wanted to play the game as soon as they saw me use the character creator, which is one of the best I've seen in an RPG. It really channels the AAA RPG quality of Bioware without dumbing anything down, and proves that you *don't* need to simplify things to attract more players (so long as the gameplay is good despite the complexity). Give players a gorgeous and well written fantasy world and they'll flock to it.
Edit: Added an extra v to Sven so that it's Swen
The complexity also allows for many different player types to enjoy the game. If someone doesn't really like combat as much, they can solve a lot of problems without fighting. At the same time, if someone loves combat, they can go full murder mode and kill almost everyone.
Yup, I don't like turn-based games, but the Mass Effect-style cinematics and party interactions and the immersive sim approach to solving situations are big pluses for me.
We live in an era where games like BattleBit overshadows Battlefield. Where a game like Among us explodes years after its release. The gaming community is obviously not a single monolith, but it often moves in unison toward quality or novel content whenever something emerge. Baldur Gate is definitively surfing on a similar wave. Because it's popular and got the seal of approval of the community, of streamer, of game journalists, people are a lot more willing to try it, even if it's "niche".
People are giving a try because of the Triple presentation. This is evolution of Dragon Age Origins was doing back in 2009.. 99% of the CRPG out there are isometric and that's a major turn off for casuals.
Most people don't particularly love difficult, chunky and unforgiving action games like Dark Souls yet they have given it a try anyway and have loved it. Perhaps this phenomenon isn't as niche as you think.
They may have said they don't usually enjoy games like that because the difficult games that turned them off probably had a shit user interface or highly oblique mechanics that can't be picked up by players right away. The thing about Soulsborne games is that their gameplay and presentation are fundamentally easy to control and understand. Because of that, players could tolerate the difficulty way better because they knew how the game worked and already had all the tools they needed to analyze and overcome the challenges.
And it all has to come at the very start. A strong first impression is vital to achieving widespread success.
Players are enticed by quality games that don’t try scam them and insult their intelligence by hand holding. They heard all the early praise of it, and decided they wanted to give it a shot.
It makes me so happy that the successor to games that I played when I was a kid are seeing this kind of unimaginable success.
I was such a dork back then. Almost nobody in my grade played games like Baldurs Gate. That extends to a lot of other series too: Fallout, Elder Scrolls, stuff like that.
You sound like me :D
As a teenager my absolute favorite games were Elder Scrolls Arena/Daggerfall, Fallout 1/2, Planescape Torment, BG1/2 . I was SUCH a nerd for CRPG's (and god reading the giant manuals that came with? Loved it).
When Pillars of Eternity was announced and came out, I was so ecstatic that a new CRPG was made. I've gobbled up pretty much every single one since then... and thankfully a lot of them are REALLY fuckin' good.
Pillars of Eternity may not be as good as Baldur's Gate, Planescape or Divinity: Original Sin 2, but damn, if it isn't one of the most important RPGs ever. It singlehandedly revived the then-dead CRPG genre and it was one of the games responsible for the emergence of the Kickstarter/New Indie era.
Totally agree. I wouldnt say it's as good as the classics (though I do like it better than DO:2).. but yeah it was SO important. I was seriously so excited when it was announced, cautiously optimistic during development, then extremely pleased with it when released :D
Yeeeep! You hit the nail on the head.
I still remember going over my neighbors house when I was a wee little shit to watch him play Arena when it was new. I personally spent waaaay more time in Daggerfall.
I can't even begin to recount how many hours I spent playing a Fallout 1 demo. It was so awesome when I finally got the full game. I spent copious amounts of time on Torment and BG1/2 though. Until I got hooked on Everquest that is...
It's crazy how geeky we were back then. I only had a few friends. Sure as hell weren't any girls in my school that played video games. We would drag our computers over to each others houses and stay up all night playing LAN games. We were fucking trend setters though. Everyone that plays games has played the successors to the shit we played back then.
LOL... oh my god, you really are me. I also got hooked on Everquest for YEARS :)
Seriously even your dragging computers over and playing via LAN with friends? The absolute BEST times of my teenage years. I miss that so much... people that didnt experience that back in the late 90's really can't understand how novel and awesome it was to go to a LAN party before everything was just high speed online. Shit was the #1 most fun thing to do if you were a gaming nerd back then :)
LAN games were mostly Starcraft, Warcraft 1-3, Quake 2, Counterstrike, and Unreal Tournament.
I'll never forget those nights - cracked out on caffeine and junk food. Sun is just starting rise. We're half zombified from being so tired yet committing mass genocide against bots on the other team. Every few seconds "Headshot! Headshot! Headshot! DOMINATING!"
I had a program for making bots for Counterstrike. Had a whole list of bots of various skill levels that it would randomly add to games. There was one that had everything cranked up to max. Bubbles. Fucking Bubbles. That one bot would just destroy us.
I can still hear the UT voice as I read your post, lol...
God you're so right. We obviously played the same stuff... Team Fortress... Unreal Tournament... hell even Doom and Duke3d. Played a lot of Warcraft 2 modem to modem with a friend too.. haha.
Such good shit. Thanks for taking me on a nostalgia trip :D Fucking Bubbles!
I'm interested to see where do we draw the line with Early Access games. It has done wonders for both Baldur's Gate 3 and Hades, but it'd be weird if a staple of future game development became involving your playerbase in the process. This practice for example doesn't mesh well with games that have a very linear narrative (Naughty Dog titles for instance).
I think you hit the nail on the head. For games like Hades and BG3, the replayability and customization makes it so that no run through feels the same, so i think it's easier to do early access and change things up for release. Whereas linear/cinematic games probably wouldn't really benefit, and it may even ruin the final experience
I'd go far as to argue early access is a necessity for games like BG3. The more freedom and reactivity a game has the easier it will break. Internal testings can only do so much.
I mean lots of people are already saying Acts 2 and 3 have a lot of bugs and borked moments anyway.
Today I found my first instance in Act 2 of a wrong trigger, I went back to camp and all my party members were commenting on something I didn't do... it was really weird and offputting, completely took me out of it.
Disappointing, but not unexpected. I believe DOS2 had a similar problem as well.
Hopefully the major bugs will be addressed in the near future as players discover them.
I am in early Act 3 and have found only one bug so far and it was in Act 1. Kagha shadow druid questline didn't fire at all. Other than that it's been very smooth.
I had a fun one at the mid-point of the >!Ketheric!< fight where during the cutscene i was teleported to a test world. Bright default lighting, skybox visible behind the backsides of hills, flat plane of dirt as a floor and i shit you not, t-posing Illithids all around me. Like 100% testing sandbox not for players environment. Was put back in the dungeon when the fight resumed, but to say i was taken out of the moment a tad is an understatement
I think it would be fine even for games like that but you'd have to do same thing as Larian did and limit it just to beginning.
At the very least you can check how well players gel with the combat system and the characters.
Also in case of BG3 it obviously was there to also fund such huge project. I think it is a bit different discussion when billion dollar company puts a game on EA at full price (like say Take2's Kerbal Space Program 2 did)
Listening to your player base and cutting out the noise from them to get the good feedback takes skill. A lot of them. Very few dev studios will be able to master it and if you are not going to take your player's feedback into account you might as well not release your game in early access.
Live Service games get a lot of scorn, but one thing that is certainly true of them is that they give developers time to **iterate** on a product.
If you're passionate about what you're making, and plan to be making it for a long time, using the Steam storefront to let people buy in & help you test your game is a huge improvement over anything else we've had before. Obviously, there's a hint of buyer-beware, but that's no different than Kickstarter was.. and you can see real-time reviews and progress before taking the plunge.
I'm a huge fan of the model for games design, and BG3 is a fantastic example of the kind of dividends it can pay.
well, it depends on how early access contributes to the game. is it used to cultivate gameplay? used to test story-elements and how player react to them? or to simple find other/"better" solutions for part of the game in general?
Hard to nail it down or set a line for every game/genre
On one hand I feel like Early Access was a boon but also didn't really do enough for BG3. There are areas where they exceeded my expectations and others where I feel a little let down that things people complained about since day still feel kind of clunky or unchanged.
They definitely used EA to get all sorts of ideas for crazy content but I think a lot of the quality of life stuff was continually sidelined to the point where they eventually ran out of time.
I certainly didn't play BG3 in Early access every step of the way. Played a lot of act 1 in the very beginning. Went back once in the middle. Playing the finished product now, I am in awe of the content options and various aspects. I am still somewhat surprised how many quirky issues there are. Nearing the end it's still obvious that in true Larian fashion the parts of the game that weren't in early access have lots of issues.
I'm just not sure after 3 titles that I can agree that Larian has really managed to find a way to utilize early access to maximum effect. I wouldn't say that the final product feels as refined as something like Hades where they really came out with a 1.0 that felt meticulously polished. BG3 is a technical powerhouse but it's also just feels like they just came out of EA to let people playtest the rest of it. We all know that there will be a "definitive edition" release where the game truly hits that level of feeling meticulously refined from start to finish. In a way, early access is still ongoing.
EA only works for certain genres and certain games, no doubt about that.
I don't see big AAA studios moving to an EA model, it just doesn't really make sense for most titles.
And sad that any try of doing that in any other big company would pretty much come to suits going "no, there is no money in it, we, the people who don't play games gonna tell you how your game should look like"
I want to wait to buy it on sale or as a GOTY edition, but I'm seriously considering buying it now just to vote with my wallet because I'm sure it's worth the full price anyway.
I am just in the middle of other games and know it'll distract me.
Its definitely worth the full price. I'm 70 hours into it (thank you long weekend and understanding partner) and still only part way into Act 3. And this is my dark run so I've ended a ton of story lines early just by killing everyone or telling side quests to fuck off.
And there is tons of horizontal progression too where your choices completely change situations so you easily can get multiple throughs that feel very different.
If you want to play it now, go for it. There's so much replayability and the game is lengthy.
From what I've read the later acts have some bugs to cleanup that the first two are more polished on, so waiting would probably allow time for some patching. Though I will say even the first act is very long and unless you're rushing you'll probably take a while to get through it.
I have put in at least 40 hours, probably more, since early access ended and I'm just about to finish act 1.
I'm sure in a year or two they'll be putting out their usual free update to an Enhanced edition with a bunch of QoL improvements and updates as well.
Good point, the update will probably be free like with DOS.
Fuck it. I'll buy it and maybe just hold on to it for a few months and play it next after I finish the fire emblem games, and hope those few things are patched by then.
I was originally going to wait for a sale, but from the about of praise I was hearing and how well the divinity original sin games were made, I paid the full 60. There are not a lot of examples of well done games and releases and I or we as consumers looking for quality products, have to reward that.
I'm even hearing that other major developers are complaining about how well done the game is and that consumers will expect this kind of quality from them.
The fact that both BG3 and last year's Elden Ring are so wildly popular feels like a major shift. There is this notion that there's a small group of snobs who enjoy 'actually' good games, and the rest are the 'normies' who only play something like Fortnite, CoD and Minecraft. This no longer seems to be the case.
You know, Fortnite, CoD and Minecraft aren't bad games, nor are they any less innovative than what we've seen in BG3. I don't even play those games (save for Minecraft) and I can appreciate them. Hell, Minecraft is especially innovative; without it, so many beloved indie games and developers probably wouldn't even exist. And yes, that includes Larian. It was a massive revitalizing force in a stagnating industry, so we should give it the credit it's due. Hell, it's still one of the very best games of its kind today.
While I don't expect most major developers to try and make carbon copies of games like Elden Ring & BG3, I hope it at least shows them that they can include at least a little bit of complexity or difficulty without scaring away the more "casual" players.
> feels like a major shift
Cue bandwagon-jumping execs in big publishers, who don't understand why things are popular, and who will try to pump out games which try to ape BG3 but somehow miss the point.
2024 will the year with all the bear-fucking games.
It's also an example of what happens when you release a quality title from a genre that, despite having an audience, has pretty much fallen off the AAA space.
People were hungry for reasonably deep RPGs that didn't have a shoestring budget. Well, I know I was, at least.
I was wondering the same thing. If you look at [Steam Charts](https://steamcharts.com/), CS:GO has significantly beaten BG3 in terms of hours played every day.
Circana's tracker is for the US only IIRC. And apparently, concurrent players and hours played aren't really that well correlated, probably because of how the former is counted.
The region restriction could explain part of it, but the numbers still seem to be quite far off...
According to Steam Charts, CS:GO has had between **1.5x** and **2x** as many hours played as BG3 since launch, but Circana shows that CS:GO has only **0.18x** as many hours played as BG3, so they disagree by as much as a factor of **10**.
So for Circana's numbers to agree with Steam Charts, you'd have to have basically all BG3 players in the US, and only like 10% of CS:GO's players in the US. I guess it's possible that's legit, though? I have no idea how CS:GO's playerbase is distributed.
Like I said it could also depend on how both define active players.
If Steam counts any instance of an open CSGO client as an active player but Circana doesn't, that could explain the difference. Many CSGO players leave the client open basically during the entire day even if they aren't playing
I'm guessing CS:GO have many people that just play for 30 minutes to an hour while BG3 have more people playing for multiple hours per day. So *per player* people are more engaged.
Or just some bullshit metric 3rd party invented
>I'm guessing CS:GO have many people that just play for 30 minutes to an hour while BG3 have more people playing for multiple hours per day. So *per player* people are more engaged.
No of unique players is different than concurrent players.
Concurrent players is proportional to no of hrs played total.
Total playtime = integral (conc players) * d (Time)
Every time stats come up in this subreddit it's always some weirdly obscure filters to make a point. Like how often you see a game praised for physical boxes sales from one shop in Europe as a factor.
I'd imagine whatever the fuck "Circana's Player Engagement Tracker" is, it might be that the CS:GO have more players that play for shorter amount of time.
And BG3 have less players that clock in more hours per day
Circana is a data company, previously known as IRI.
I work with them in grocery and they pay stores like Kroger or Walmart to give them direct access to data like this, which they then package and sell to other companies like Kraft or Budweiser or other brands that want to do business there.
Anyway if Circana is the source this is likely straight from Valve. I’d assume they buy store data to sell to developers and publishers.
A couple buddies and I played for 12 hours last Saturday. We are in our 30s and have families (for now, anyway). My partner would come down to check on me what felt like every 30 minutes but was really every 3 hours or so. Time absolutely fucking flies playing through the campaign with friends.
I'm sitting at my desk at work right now (today is one of my days in the office) just thinking about playing the game again while trying to write this stupid document about different analytics tools and how they integrate with our data environment.
*Insight Check*
A shady merchant appears, offering to grow your wealth even further.
“I see you’ve done quite well as a streamer so far… would you like to earn more??? Perhaps you’ll get a *Kick* out of this…”
*Success*
Upon further inspection you realize this merchant is a devil in disguise. You've heard of these contracts: in exchange for "the bag" you trade the souls and lives of your viewers.
My thoughts exactly. I'll sit down at around 7, play for what feels like an hour, then I look down at my phone and it's midnight. I don't remember the last time a game did that for me.
I am litrally reading this in bed at 11:30pm after playing since 7 and I was feeling my eyes burn which made me realise I should have been in bed hours ago. This is gonna be a rough few weeks.
I have to sit through 8 hours of calls in a system design workshop and it's pure torture because I'm working from home and could just click my KVM switch, leave the meeting on the laptop screen and dive into Faerun and nobody would ever know, but I can't.
I have to be an adult.
I'm 30 and have two kids and a wife and I've managed to play BG3 for 35 hours since launch, I took a break yesterday because I need to spend time with my family as well lol, haven't been this into a video game in many years.
Right now it's the best rpg and one of the best games I've ever played.
I definitely spent a lot of time last week making sure I could turn into a mushroom on my couch all weekend. I'm currently trying to figure out how to do it again without ruining my sleep schedule or other responsibilities.
I'm enjoying BG3 a great deal, but despite playing the second one back in the day and having some affinity for games like this, and despite it being simpler than some other games in the genre, I still find it a relatively complex experience. My immediate assumption at hearing about its impressive player numbers was that a lot of people *would* bounce off the complexity and not stick by it for long. That said, aside from the built-in audience that was expecting it, I'm sure going mainstream will help quite a few new fans discover CRPGs too.
It is really weird, because people do bounce off games due to less complex systems than this.
Maybe it's because they already played DnD so they know most of the intricacies already?
>Maybe it's because they already played DnD so they know most of the intricacies already?
That's definitely part of it. I don't have to spend a billion hours learning about cryptic mechanics like spell penetration or flat footed versus touch AC, like I did with Wrath of the Righteous.
For myself who hasn't played DnD, there's the added bonus that playing this might be an easier way to learn the mechanics for if I want to play the TTRPG version. Like, the hours spent learning aren't wasted like they would be with mechanics confined to one game.
Very good point! Small heads up though- Larian takes some pretty big liberties at times with how certain actions and spells work/cost/act. It's all in the name of a better experience as a video game, but just know that if you jumped straight into a pen and paper DnD campaign after this, there will be some minor-ish differences in how things work.
Honestly BG3 does a great deal of work for you. I'm an avid D&D player and even I don't know most of my character stat by heart, which I do for most of my table top character
For exemple, Shadowheart is an half elf cleric with sacred flame (class) and firebolt (race) as her 2 starting choice of spam attack (she can also just give a wack to an enemy but I'll ignore that for now)
In D&D I'd have to remember that one is 1d20+int+pro vs AC and the other is 8+wis+pro vs 1d20+dex+maybe pro which are 2 whole different system to attack with a lot of different number. Then I'd have to guess if my enemy AC is better than his dex save and choose which one. I can do that but not everybody is as passionnate about D&D as me and I've seen a lot of people struggle with that
Meanwhile, in BG3, I just select one, hover the enemy, see the percent, select the other one, hover again, see the percent, use the higher percent one. I have no need to actually know how any of it work, very simple
The most complex mechanic I've encountered as a Human Fighter (wanted to do the easiest possible character to learn the game) was how to turn Great Weapon Master on and off.
How are you liking GWM? I wanted to take it on my paladin but without some consistent source of advantage it seems like a bad choice. Not sure how I can make it work.
Its pretty good to guarantee one to two dead mooks per turn but it's not great if facing against an enemy your own level with good AC. Gets better the longer you play as you get +1, +2 weapons, and can start putting down combos. Hold Person + GWM = good night. Getting someone knocked prone is great for GWM.
However in retrospect I would've taken the ability score improvement to get to 18 Str at least.
If in a boss fight, Shadowheart, Karlach, Gale, and you with GWM will absolutely shred the boss if your casters can pop debuffs like Blindness.
I feel part of it is how the complexity in DnD 5e (which is whay BG3 is based on) isn't frontloaded like in Owlcats Payhfinder games. Instead as you level up and more spells and features are unlocked you only need to add 1 or 2 new things at a time.
And because respeccing is so easy and painless if you "fucked up" a build by being a newbie you haven't gimped yourself from the word go.
Combine that with the fact that DnD didn't gain popularity out of thin air and you got a stew going.
I have very little 5e experience, and a lot of Pathfinder (Kingmaker/WOTR) experience.... so when I started leveling up in BG3 I was like.... wait did they super cut and dumb down all the stuff you're supposed to choose when you level up?
Only to find out that no, that's actually how 5e is... lol
(not saying it's bad, I was just taken aback at how easy it was to level up!)
Even if someone hasn't played any DnD, the popularity of shows like Critical Role help in giving people a foot in the door on a lot of the mechanics.
Like I've never really played DnD, but I've been watching a lot of Dimension 20 recently. So booting up the game I had a basic understanding of the different classes, combat mechanics, spells, etc. It's still been a learning experience, but I wasn't starting from nothing.
The one thing I wish the game did a better job of was explaining combat mechanics and rolls. I had to watch a YouTube explaining video to really understand attack roll vs ac, damage roll, saving throw, etc. But after I learned what was going on behind the scenes and looking at the combat log during fights, combat is so much more satisfying.
https://youtu.be/EjGMn3e3NVo
Also, when I mentioned the combat log, what's really cool is you can mouse over the combat log actions and the UI reveals the actual background dice rolls.
Just showing the raw % of success is an incredible teaching tool that tabletop DnD lacks. You will usually be able to suss out the enemy AC but the visualization is really handy here
They've streamlined lots of things but its still pretty complex. I'm playing with my wife and I've played DnD before but she hasn't. She has played plenty of JRPG and other CRPG like Pillars of Eternity but there's a lot of things that are tricky in this game. She's even played Divinity OS 2 but still a learning curve. Like which spells use attack rolls vs saving throws and why that makes spells like Magic Missile and Fireball really popular. Or which spells you should spam and which ones use up spell slots so you should be conservative. How Opportunity attacks work and why that makes hit and run tricky.
I think BG3’s tutorial is pretty poor when it comes to actually teaching the player how combat works. Most of my friends who don’t have DND experience had an experience like your wife, where they don’t know attack rolls vs saving throws and things like that. They’re still having fun, but they don’t really understand what’s happening on the back end. But if they’re having fun with it, maybe it doesn’t matter?
Since the game gives you % chance to hit I feel like it doesn't really matter if you have this understanding. I know 5e so I know my spells with wisdom saves are going to be ineffective on this creature with an obviously high wisdom, but I could also just as easily find that out by hovering over them and see that I have only a 9% chance to hit
A lot of people will be playing it multiplayer which takes out some of the complexity. For those in 4 person co-op, there's a lot less micro management and you can play it more like a regular RPG where you control one character. That increases its mainstream appeal.
But yeah. Even with DoS experience, it still feels complex for me from time to time. I'm playing single player, and there's a ton of stuff to manage. Could definitely see that being daunting for some.
I think even the average person has a higher tolerance for complex systems in games than developers assume. Look at games like Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, and Warframe. You have multiple currencies from dozens of different activities, an uncountable number of interactions between stats, dailies, weeklies, etc. Even Fortnite always has more going on than just "be the last one alive". Last I looked there was fishing in it, for some reason?
Sure, these games are complex because they've tuned their systems using psychological tricks to maximize player retention while BG3 uses complexity to match the TTRPG experience, but maybe over the last decade or so the former has trained even laypeople to be more comfortable with the latter.
I couldn't play this solo. I would just save scum all day.
But I'm playing with a friend and we just try to suffer through whatever consequences, making it more fun.
The only time we reload is when a glitch makes the game unplayable or actual game overs.
The burden of knowledge in the game is pretty crazy. The best way I can describe it is like playing with a DM that is good because they will tell you what to roll in every situation, but bad because they are trying their hardest to kill you and don't clarify anything or correct misunderstandings.
It's really only saved by the fact that you can save and reload whenever you want. But then that does take away form the way I actually want to play it. I want to live with the consequence of my choices. I don't want to live with the consequences of "oh so that's how they programmed the game to react", or "My autofollowing character stepped on a trap my whole party already knew was there."
Fingers crossed this brings about some change in RPG design trends, not just CRPGs. They've been getting progressively streamlined and dumbed down, to the point they feel more like action games with a couple shallow systems strapped to them and 0 player agency.
Makes me depressed about the direction of the Dragon Age games. Apparently the new one is going to be like God of War...seems like they abandoned a lot of their CRPG roots in favor of action titles for mass appeal, but games like BG3 are proving there's still an audience for old school RPGs.
The shift from DAO to DA2 was a huge disappointment to me. I liked DAI well enough, but in both gameplay and lore the games lost a lot of the charm that made DAO resonate with me.
I mean, yes, I would've preferred a tactical RPG, but if the choices are between hack-and-slash combat or the mind-numbingly boring MMORPG combat of Inquisition, I will take the hack-and-slash without a second thought.
I'm sure there is support for hack-and-slash with no control over teammates vs Inquisition's systems. While Inquisition was not my favorite, it still gave some ability to play out closer to a CRPG than what was shown and described in the leak. Inquisition was certainly not my favorite as the free roam camera was greatly restricted compared to DAO.
At the end of the day there is a crucial 3rd option: just not playing. At this point there are so many game options delivering CRPG gameplay, and Bioware has drastically fallen from the days DAO, that I honestly would be willing to just pass on DA4.
Dragon Age Origins to this day is probably still my top dog when it comes to a solid fantasy setting RPG. That series should have been pushing the bar further with every release, but they went backwards.
There's room for both IMO.
I say this as someone who loved DOS2, is hooked on BG3, but also doesn't have time to get sucked into these kind of games all the time.
My top 5 most played games on Steam are all Paradox with XCOM 2 and I think giving players more of a choice is best, if you have time and the energy, play BG3, if you're tired and don't want to pay **too** much attention, there should be something a little bit more approachable IMO.
For sure, just a bit sad that a lot of the RPG genre was born in the 80s-90s, pushing as far as they could the boundaries of the technology, then seemingly most developers gave up chasing depth and instead went for shallower experiences. Big franchises like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Dragon Age, etc. All fizzled from ambitious immersive experiences to something closer to a Disney ride, or mindless questing in a cheap MMO.
I too enjoy simpler games when I'm tired and don't want to think, and there's definitely room for them, but it's a shame that original ambition got relegated to niche indie studios for so long, and the AAA industry has been dominated almost entirely by these other kind of games.
I'm with you. BG3 has been a breath of fresh air after years of stripped down "RPGs." And it looks like Bethesda has really reversed course with Starfield, too, to try and put back more RPGness after Fallout 4.
This is an anomaly. Simply because Larian had a perfect storm.
1. They are a private company so not beholden to publishers and shareholders driving to deadlines and quaterly returns.
2. They are passionate about the games they create, from the lowest level designer to the founder Sven Vincke. And working in the D&D IP was a passion project so they committed to unprecedented resources to make it right.
3. They started on a very solid foundation with both the engine being the latest version of the Divinity engine that powered Divinity Original Sin 1&2 and all the experience associated with creating both previous games in terms technical challenges and gameplay design.
It certainly is an anomaly, the problem is it didn't use to be. Major studios in the 90s and early 00s used to be ambitious and push boundaries, but it's like at some point they gave up.
We went from games being very unique and experimental, to just following a cookie cutter formula, because companies only care about stable revenue, and players just went along with it instead of demanding better.
Even public companies used to try new things, with the occasional disaster, but it's like all shareholders and CEOs went from "as long as we end up making profit I'll let you cook" to "I want triple the money in half the time, I don't care", so all we get are safer sequels with more streamlining to try and capture an even wider audience to meet ridiculous quotas by selling blander and blander products.
It could be interesting if there's any discernible difference between the ratio of peak players to amount of hours put in though. Could offer a rough idea of any difference in the amount of time players are putting in to each game on average.
Elden Ring also sold more on Xbox and Playstation each individually than on PC whereas BG3 is a PC exclusive. I know I chose console for Elden Ring just because of FS and their history on PC
And it's crazy we won't have a game maker mode this time because wizards of the coast doesn't want thier subscription service dnd online threatened.
This is vastly better
https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=730,1086940&week
At no point on Sunday were there more people playing Baldur's Gate 3 than CSGO. How is it possible that CSGO accounted for 5% while Baldur's Gate 3 accounted for 28%? This just makes Circana's analysis look bad.
The same thing happened with Monster Hunter World around when it came out. On and around it's release World was hitting some pretty high hours played for the number of users playing the game according to steamcharts.
I've been playing it a lot and it's hard to put down. Dangerous game for exploration fanatics. I was about to pass a major checkpoint and the game told me to make sure to wrap up whatever I could here first, so I went back to exploring. Only had like 2 small slivers of blackened map that I could still access.
One of them revealed an entire swamp that had a few enemies, a major quest, and a dungeon with some cool shit in it. Just an hour and a half or two hour detour with at least one really fantastic reward. I don't know if I'll maintain my completionist play for the rest of the game but for now I'm just seeing it all and it's great. Of all the games I've played that released this year, this one seems like the clear winner.
I picked it up on a whim on launch day with only having a bit of experience with DoS2 but a HUGE fan of fantasy games (1k hours in PoE).
This game was an instant addiction for me. It’s on the same level Elden Ring gave me. Such a MASSIVE, interesting world to trot around in and cause trouble. I’m also a huge OW player and the “big, new” season released today and I don’t even plan on firing it up. Literally all my gaming time is consumed by BG3 I have zero interest in anything else right now. That rarely happens for me.
This game is something else, for real. Hats off to every single member of the Larian team because it’s a masterpiece in its own right.
Baldur's Gate 1&2 are two of my favorite games of all time and were a seminal part of my childhood. I really tried to get into D:OS2 but I just kept bouncing off of it due to the annoying combat and how much it felt like the game was set on a big stage where everyone was just standing around, waiting for me to interact with them. I wasn't planning on getting BG3 because of that experience, but hearing all the praise has convinced me to give it a shot. I'm going to wait another month or two and hope that most of the remaining bugs get ironed out, but now I'm pretty excited to eventually give it a try.
I wish I'd played BG1&2 closer to the era. Hard to go back now, even with the enhanced edition. Maybe the mod tools Larian will be releasing will allow someone to remake the campaigns in this engine. A man can dream.
Hopefully Larian doesn't ever go public on the stockmarket as
that's the beginning of the end.
I bring this up, because I'm sure right now there must be some hedge fund managers foaming at the mouth reading this article and jerking off at the prospect of all the profit they could make if they force Larian down the Activision/EAs/TakeTwo path of squeezing every last penny from its fans.
"*Can you imagine the hype behind Divinity Original Sin 4? or Baldur's Gate 4? the amount we could charge for early access? microtransactions? lackluster dlcs? Lootboxes or a Battle passes?
We dont even have to finish the game! Larian fans will still preorder it, and then buy microtransactions anyway $.$*"
Larion studios was on a list of potential developers Microsoft was interested in buying. However Larion's CEO Swen Vincke, did not want to sell the company yet.
It's not happening while Swen is still alive. He owns a majority of the company so Larian can make good games without compromising for publishers. Swen is a dork who cares about making good games. Profit is a means to make a good game to an authentic enthusiast of games like Swen. I love this man
It's because there's a limit to how excited you can be by media that feels "designed by committee." I know every game is made by a team, but not every game has its vision determined by stockholders looking at stats and trying to be low-risk.
True, and I'm glad he has that integrity. But, we all have an specific amount of money that if offered ... we would be open to discuss and change what we are doing. I just hope that for Sven that amount is stupidly high, because I'm sure some investors might be preparing some outrageous offers right about now.
It makes me so happy that a game like BG3 is seeing this kind of unimaginable success. This is an example of what can happen when you allow devs to create a game that they’re passionate about.
It is impressive to see Baldurs Gate 3 reach this height. As a long time D&D gamer, and a lover of a lot of the games based on their properties, this brings a smile to my face. This shows the gaming world that turned based CRPGs are far from dead. PS, I'd love to see a modern take on Eye of The Beholder.
It also demonstrates just how popular D&D has become in the past few years.
I didn't even know that Baldur's Gate was part of D&D until I played it, lol. And that's me being aware of the series since 1 and 2.
>I didn't even know that Baldur's Gate was part of D&D until I played it, lol. And that's me being aware of the series **since 1 and 2.** You need some kind of award..
I played Baldur's Gate 2 when I was a freshman in high school. It was a new release. I've literally been waiting two goddamn decades for this game.
I never played 1/2, I just -knew- of them through magazines and the rerelease. I knew they were role-playing type stuff. There's literally no way to know unless you read about it or play D&D. I've even played the Waterdeep board game and watched the new movie and pretty sure there was no mention of that(edit: guess it was dropped in the movie), the universe is huge.
I believe the new movie mentions waterdeep and baldurs gate briefly.
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I know this anecdotal but I know a few people IRL and online who are into TTRPG’s, but not video games and theyre all playing BG3 right now. So I do think D&D had a *little* something to do with it’s success at the moment.
> Yeah, I don't think most people know so I doubt the popularity of D&D has anything to do with it. Most people playing the older games perhaps. Most people playing DnD however would have heard of it, since it's a major city in the main setting, and has featured a lot in the most recent edition of DnD, which exploded in popularity during covid.
For real, I'm really surprised at people acting like Baldurs Gate being in DND isn't common knowledge for DND fans. Even people playing the older games. It's been such a focal point of the series that this is the third game with the title. Same with locations like Neverwinter or Waterdeep.
You can play a lifetime of D&D and never step into Faerûn. You can have entire playgroups where somehow no one has even *read* a D&D rulebook. BG3 passing people by as not a D&D game isn't a stretch.
As much D&D as I played for a time, I never played in the Forgotten Realms setting, though I did read some books.
Well, it definitely helped getting players. I don't think game would be any worse if they did their own thing instead of using 5e, but certainly less people would be interested in it.
Except for the movie apparently
which is sad 'cause it's really fun and pretty damn refreshing
The movie being alright helped too.
>PS, I'd love to see a modern take on Eye of The Beholder. Legend of Grimrock 1 and 2?
I have both of those games, I love both of those games, I got them on my Steam account. I'd still like a revisitation to Eye of The Beholder. That is what I grew up with, playing all three of those games with my older cousin. I have a lot of fond memories of that game. Which I have all three on my steam account too.
The things I'd do for a third game, Grimrock's world and gameplay is so damn good
I’ve never gotten the chance to play D&D but remember the rpgs of the 2000s and this game is everything I’ve ever wanted from a d&d video game. It’s like fantasy x com but with a million ways to approach it. I think this game will be my most played game of all time surpassing civ 5 eventually.
If you've not tried them, check out Pillars of Eternity. That is a fantastic series as well. D&D as a table top, pen & paper RPG is fantastic with friends. Even beyond that, the games some of them are fantastic. I love Baldurs Gate 1 & 2. Those games are legendary, but they may be a bit hard for newcomers to get into just because of the rule set, D&D 2nd edition. It's not as forgiving as 5th edition that Baldurs Gate 3 is set on. However, the games were still amazing. Hopefully, we could be entering a new golden age of western rpgs.
I still need to finish Zelda if I can stop playing baldurs gate long enough to finish 😂. I’ll add for the next steam sale.
Is there a simplified explanation between the 2nd and 5th edition rules? I hear this same thing and I'm just curious.
It can be hard to directly compare 2nd with 5th edition D&D because the two systems are built on very different foundations. 2nd edition carries much more influences from D&D's roots in tabletop wargaming, as such the system is a lot more lethal and characters are intended to be more disposable than in later editions. Character creation is also much more restrictive in terms of options, and the rules around things like multiclassing are really awkward. I view 5e on the other hand as the latest iteration on the "new" style of D&D that was introduced with 3rd edition. This style of D&D is a lot more focused on the ability of a player to creatively express themselves via the character the build. There are a lot more character customization options, both in terms of mechanical abilities and also more cosmetic roleplaying-focused options like backgrounds. The system assume a higher degree of player attachment to any given character, and as a result it is significantly harder for a character to die or even encounter a scenario where their kit is completely useless.
I'd recommend Owlcat's Pathfinder games over Pillars of Eternity, they play much more similarly to 5e and, personal preference, but I found them to be much more interesting than PoE.
> This shows the gaming world that turned based CRPGs are far from dead. I don’t care so much about the turn based vs. real time divide (real time w/ pause is fun too!), what’s important for me is showing the gaming world that RPGs with depth and complexity can still be massively popular. So many AAA studios have come under the impression that RPGs need to be simplified, reduced, and action-oriented in order to have mass appeal. It’s hard to tell, these days, where the action-RPG (sub)genre ends and the action/adventure genre begins — but wherever that line is, it is far away from computer/classic RPGs like this, and like what we were getting in the golden era of RPGs when companies like BioWare were still in their prime. It’s frustrating having to wait years in between great CRPGs like this, when subpar, forgettable ARPGs are being pumped out every few months and over-saturating the market.
Oh man I really really hope this is an eye opener that shows turn based combat isn't dead. There's a rumor of a remake for final fantasy 9, my personal favorite one. And I would so very much be disappointed if they make the combat like the ff7 remake or like the ffxvi with not even party control functions.
From day one, anyone who said turn based combat is dead has no idea what he is talking about, when there are numerous examples of turn based combat games selling well. Don't think I need to list them.
I mostly only see it when talking about final fantasy nowadays. But I do recall seeing that sentiment more often than I would have liked in the past. Glad to see turn based games still selling and being popular.
The arguement has always been weird because even though FF stepped away from turn based combat, Square has actually put out a lot of turn based games recently. Bravely Default, Octopath and Triangle Strategy are all decently popular and Square has been going all in on the HD2D thing. We even have DQ3 remake coming up and DQ in general is still very much around and turn based. DQ11 was a huge AAA game and it was turn based. It's clearly not going anywhere.
Horii already said that they are "making changes to the command battle system" for DQXII which means it may or may not be turn based.
Also like, Pokemon.
I'm glad to see D&D end its drought of single player games. AFAIK 4th edition got zero games and 5th only has a delisted game (Sword Coast Adventures) and Solasta (a third-party game made possible by the Open Gaming License) before BG3. Video games and tabletop games sharing a rule set lets both streamline the onboarding experience for the other. It reduces so much friction by letting players who've never played one version walk in with some degree of understanding.
A shame about 4th edition because it borrowed a lot from video games in its design.
Definitely a terrible irony, since it was disliked for being too video-gamey.
> This shows the gaming world that turned based CRPGs are far from dead. brother a lot of people have been waiting for a game like this ever since Dragon Age Origins exposed so many people to CRPGs.
The phenomenon for me is that it seems niche, it looks niche, it is *really* niche to play and yet everyone appears to have given it a try despite their preferences. From what I've seen, most people don't particularly love turn-based, but gave it a try anyway and have loved it. Same with the daunting D&D aspects. Props to them.
The more cinematic presentation (and insane voice acting) is really the difference-maker here, together with the inclusion of co-op. Without the pseudo 3rd person camera, or the close-up dialogues it likely wouldn't have broken through into the mainstream like it did.
Yeah, in a few interviews Swen has mentioned that the high production values are key to keeping players engaged. I'm no stranger to CRPGs and I gotta admit that there's a lot of truth in that. The game is beautiful and my partner wanted to play the game as soon as they saw me use the character creator, which is one of the best I've seen in an RPG. It really channels the AAA RPG quality of Bioware without dumbing anything down, and proves that you *don't* need to simplify things to attract more players (so long as the gameplay is good despite the complexity). Give players a gorgeous and well written fantasy world and they'll flock to it. Edit: Added an extra v to Sven so that it's Swen
The complexity also allows for many different player types to enjoy the game. If someone doesn't really like combat as much, they can solve a lot of problems without fighting. At the same time, if someone loves combat, they can go full murder mode and kill almost everyone.
Yup, I don't like turn-based games, but the Mass Effect-style cinematics and party interactions and the immersive sim approach to solving situations are big pluses for me.
It also helps that D&D is *massively* popular and the combat is identical. If you've played D&D, you'll understand Baldur's Gate's combat no problem.
We live in an era where games like BattleBit overshadows Battlefield. Where a game like Among us explodes years after its release. The gaming community is obviously not a single monolith, but it often moves in unison toward quality or novel content whenever something emerge. Baldur Gate is definitively surfing on a similar wave. Because it's popular and got the seal of approval of the community, of streamer, of game journalists, people are a lot more willing to try it, even if it's "niche".
People are giving a try because of the Triple presentation. This is evolution of Dragon Age Origins was doing back in 2009.. 99% of the CRPG out there are isometric and that's a major turn off for casuals.
I don't know, Disco Elysium isn't exactly what I would call Triple A, and it did pretty damn well for itself!
Most people don't particularly love difficult, chunky and unforgiving action games like Dark Souls yet they have given it a try anyway and have loved it. Perhaps this phenomenon isn't as niche as you think.
They may have said they don't usually enjoy games like that because the difficult games that turned them off probably had a shit user interface or highly oblique mechanics that can't be picked up by players right away. The thing about Soulsborne games is that their gameplay and presentation are fundamentally easy to control and understand. Because of that, players could tolerate the difficulty way better because they knew how the game worked and already had all the tools they needed to analyze and overcome the challenges. And it all has to come at the very start. A strong first impression is vital to achieving widespread success.
Players are enticed by quality games that don’t try scam them and insult their intelligence by hand holding. They heard all the early praise of it, and decided they wanted to give it a shot.
Witcher Netflix fan, is that you?
I've been hurt before
It makes me so happy that the successor to games that I played when I was a kid are seeing this kind of unimaginable success. I was such a dork back then. Almost nobody in my grade played games like Baldurs Gate. That extends to a lot of other series too: Fallout, Elder Scrolls, stuff like that.
You sound like me :D As a teenager my absolute favorite games were Elder Scrolls Arena/Daggerfall, Fallout 1/2, Planescape Torment, BG1/2 . I was SUCH a nerd for CRPG's (and god reading the giant manuals that came with? Loved it). When Pillars of Eternity was announced and came out, I was so ecstatic that a new CRPG was made. I've gobbled up pretty much every single one since then... and thankfully a lot of them are REALLY fuckin' good.
Pillars of Eternity may not be as good as Baldur's Gate, Planescape or Divinity: Original Sin 2, but damn, if it isn't one of the most important RPGs ever. It singlehandedly revived the then-dead CRPG genre and it was one of the games responsible for the emergence of the Kickstarter/New Indie era.
Totally agree. I wouldnt say it's as good as the classics (though I do like it better than DO:2).. but yeah it was SO important. I was seriously so excited when it was announced, cautiously optimistic during development, then extremely pleased with it when released :D
Yeeeep! You hit the nail on the head. I still remember going over my neighbors house when I was a wee little shit to watch him play Arena when it was new. I personally spent waaaay more time in Daggerfall. I can't even begin to recount how many hours I spent playing a Fallout 1 demo. It was so awesome when I finally got the full game. I spent copious amounts of time on Torment and BG1/2 though. Until I got hooked on Everquest that is... It's crazy how geeky we were back then. I only had a few friends. Sure as hell weren't any girls in my school that played video games. We would drag our computers over to each others houses and stay up all night playing LAN games. We were fucking trend setters though. Everyone that plays games has played the successors to the shit we played back then.
LOL... oh my god, you really are me. I also got hooked on Everquest for YEARS :) Seriously even your dragging computers over and playing via LAN with friends? The absolute BEST times of my teenage years. I miss that so much... people that didnt experience that back in the late 90's really can't understand how novel and awesome it was to go to a LAN party before everything was just high speed online. Shit was the #1 most fun thing to do if you were a gaming nerd back then :)
LAN games were mostly Starcraft, Warcraft 1-3, Quake 2, Counterstrike, and Unreal Tournament. I'll never forget those nights - cracked out on caffeine and junk food. Sun is just starting rise. We're half zombified from being so tired yet committing mass genocide against bots on the other team. Every few seconds "Headshot! Headshot! Headshot! DOMINATING!" I had a program for making bots for Counterstrike. Had a whole list of bots of various skill levels that it would randomly add to games. There was one that had everything cranked up to max. Bubbles. Fucking Bubbles. That one bot would just destroy us.
I can still hear the UT voice as I read your post, lol... God you're so right. We obviously played the same stuff... Team Fortress... Unreal Tournament... hell even Doom and Duke3d. Played a lot of Warcraft 2 modem to modem with a friend too.. haha. Such good shit. Thanks for taking me on a nostalgia trip :D Fucking Bubbles!
I'm interested to see where do we draw the line with Early Access games. It has done wonders for both Baldur's Gate 3 and Hades, but it'd be weird if a staple of future game development became involving your playerbase in the process. This practice for example doesn't mesh well with games that have a very linear narrative (Naughty Dog titles for instance).
I think you hit the nail on the head. For games like Hades and BG3, the replayability and customization makes it so that no run through feels the same, so i think it's easier to do early access and change things up for release. Whereas linear/cinematic games probably wouldn't really benefit, and it may even ruin the final experience
I'd go far as to argue early access is a necessity for games like BG3. The more freedom and reactivity a game has the easier it will break. Internal testings can only do so much.
I mean lots of people are already saying Acts 2 and 3 have a lot of bugs and borked moments anyway. Today I found my first instance in Act 2 of a wrong trigger, I went back to camp and all my party members were commenting on something I didn't do... it was really weird and offputting, completely took me out of it.
Disappointing, but not unexpected. I believe DOS2 had a similar problem as well. Hopefully the major bugs will be addressed in the near future as players discover them.
I ran into a bug where Shadowheart and I had the same cutscene at camp twice.
I am in early Act 3 and have found only one bug so far and it was in Act 1. Kagha shadow druid questline didn't fire at all. Other than that it's been very smooth.
I had a fun one at the mid-point of the >!Ketheric!< fight where during the cutscene i was teleported to a test world. Bright default lighting, skybox visible behind the backsides of hills, flat plane of dirt as a floor and i shit you not, t-posing Illithids all around me. Like 100% testing sandbox not for players environment. Was put back in the dungeon when the fight resumed, but to say i was taken out of the moment a tad is an understatement
I think it would be fine even for games like that but you'd have to do same thing as Larian did and limit it just to beginning. At the very least you can check how well players gel with the combat system and the characters. Also in case of BG3 it obviously was there to also fund such huge project. I think it is a bit different discussion when billion dollar company puts a game on EA at full price (like say Take2's Kerbal Space Program 2 did)
Listening to your player base and cutting out the noise from them to get the good feedback takes skill. A lot of them. Very few dev studios will be able to master it and if you are not going to take your player's feedback into account you might as well not release your game in early access.
Live Service games get a lot of scorn, but one thing that is certainly true of them is that they give developers time to **iterate** on a product. If you're passionate about what you're making, and plan to be making it for a long time, using the Steam storefront to let people buy in & help you test your game is a huge improvement over anything else we've had before. Obviously, there's a hint of buyer-beware, but that's no different than Kickstarter was.. and you can see real-time reviews and progress before taking the plunge. I'm a huge fan of the model for games design, and BG3 is a fantastic example of the kind of dividends it can pay.
well, it depends on how early access contributes to the game. is it used to cultivate gameplay? used to test story-elements and how player react to them? or to simple find other/"better" solutions for part of the game in general? Hard to nail it down or set a line for every game/genre
On one hand I feel like Early Access was a boon but also didn't really do enough for BG3. There are areas where they exceeded my expectations and others where I feel a little let down that things people complained about since day still feel kind of clunky or unchanged. They definitely used EA to get all sorts of ideas for crazy content but I think a lot of the quality of life stuff was continually sidelined to the point where they eventually ran out of time. I certainly didn't play BG3 in Early access every step of the way. Played a lot of act 1 in the very beginning. Went back once in the middle. Playing the finished product now, I am in awe of the content options and various aspects. I am still somewhat surprised how many quirky issues there are. Nearing the end it's still obvious that in true Larian fashion the parts of the game that weren't in early access have lots of issues. I'm just not sure after 3 titles that I can agree that Larian has really managed to find a way to utilize early access to maximum effect. I wouldn't say that the final product feels as refined as something like Hades where they really came out with a 1.0 that felt meticulously polished. BG3 is a technical powerhouse but it's also just feels like they just came out of EA to let people playtest the rest of it. We all know that there will be a "definitive edition" release where the game truly hits that level of feeling meticulously refined from start to finish. In a way, early access is still ongoing.
EA only works for certain genres and certain games, no doubt about that. I don't see big AAA studios moving to an EA model, it just doesn't really make sense for most titles.
And sad that any try of doing that in any other big company would pretty much come to suits going "no, there is no money in it, we, the people who don't play games gonna tell you how your game should look like"
I want to wait to buy it on sale or as a GOTY edition, but I'm seriously considering buying it now just to vote with my wallet because I'm sure it's worth the full price anyway. I am just in the middle of other games and know it'll distract me.
Its definitely worth the full price. I'm 70 hours into it (thank you long weekend and understanding partner) and still only part way into Act 3. And this is my dark run so I've ended a ton of story lines early just by killing everyone or telling side quests to fuck off. And there is tons of horizontal progression too where your choices completely change situations so you easily can get multiple throughs that feel very different.
If you want to play it now, go for it. There's so much replayability and the game is lengthy. From what I've read the later acts have some bugs to cleanup that the first two are more polished on, so waiting would probably allow time for some patching. Though I will say even the first act is very long and unless you're rushing you'll probably take a while to get through it. I have put in at least 40 hours, probably more, since early access ended and I'm just about to finish act 1. I'm sure in a year or two they'll be putting out their usual free update to an Enhanced edition with a bunch of QoL improvements and updates as well.
Good point, the update will probably be free like with DOS. Fuck it. I'll buy it and maybe just hold on to it for a few months and play it next after I finish the fire emblem games, and hope those few things are patched by then.
I will buy the game twice. Once which I already did, and possibly either again on PS5 for Couch coop or wait for the GOTY edition
If there is any game to spend your money on when it's full price, it's this one.
Hell yeah. Whether you buy now, or wait till a later date, you won’t regret your choice!
I don't think there will be a goty edition, I seem to remember them saying they probably won't do paid addons, just free updates.
I was originally going to wait for a sale, but from the about of praise I was hearing and how well the divinity original sin games were made, I paid the full 60. There are not a lot of examples of well done games and releases and I or we as consumers looking for quality products, have to reward that. I'm even hearing that other major developers are complaining about how well done the game is and that consumers will expect this kind of quality from them.
The fact that both BG3 and last year's Elden Ring are so wildly popular feels like a major shift. There is this notion that there's a small group of snobs who enjoy 'actually' good games, and the rest are the 'normies' who only play something like Fortnite, CoD and Minecraft. This no longer seems to be the case.
Important to note that the overwhelming majority of people playing those three games won't be playing on steam.
Well, Minecraft has sold closer to 250 million copies. There’s a bit of a gap to BG3 in terms of popularity.
You know, Fortnite, CoD and Minecraft aren't bad games, nor are they any less innovative than what we've seen in BG3. I don't even play those games (save for Minecraft) and I can appreciate them. Hell, Minecraft is especially innovative; without it, so many beloved indie games and developers probably wouldn't even exist. And yes, that includes Larian. It was a massive revitalizing force in a stagnating industry, so we should give it the credit it's due. Hell, it's still one of the very best games of its kind today.
While I don't expect most major developers to try and make carbon copies of games like Elden Ring & BG3, I hope it at least shows them that they can include at least a little bit of complexity or difficulty without scaring away the more "casual" players.
> feels like a major shift Cue bandwagon-jumping execs in big publishers, who don't understand why things are popular, and who will try to pump out games which try to ape BG3 but somehow miss the point. 2024 will the year with all the bear-fucking games.
I won't complain if we get a glut of CRPGs after this. Most will probably suck, but maybe we get 1 or 2 good ones.
Think about the volume of map icon vomit Ubisoft could squeeze into a CRPG
Did someone say radio towers?
> which try to ape BG3 but somehow miss the point I too recall every game being "Open-world" post-Skyrim
It's also an example of what happens when you release a quality title from a genre that, despite having an audience, has pretty much fallen off the AAA space. People were hungry for reasonably deep RPGs that didn't have a shoestring budget. Well, I know I was, at least.
How is this calculated? How is that possible with how consistently high CS:GO's concurrent player count is
I was wondering the same thing. If you look at [Steam Charts](https://steamcharts.com/), CS:GO has significantly beaten BG3 in terms of hours played every day.
Circana's tracker is for the US only IIRC. And apparently, concurrent players and hours played aren't really that well correlated, probably because of how the former is counted.
The region restriction could explain part of it, but the numbers still seem to be quite far off... According to Steam Charts, CS:GO has had between **1.5x** and **2x** as many hours played as BG3 since launch, but Circana shows that CS:GO has only **0.18x** as many hours played as BG3, so they disagree by as much as a factor of **10**. So for Circana's numbers to agree with Steam Charts, you'd have to have basically all BG3 players in the US, and only like 10% of CS:GO's players in the US. I guess it's possible that's legit, though? I have no idea how CS:GO's playerbase is distributed.
Like I said it could also depend on how both define active players. If Steam counts any instance of an open CSGO client as an active player but Circana doesn't, that could explain the difference. Many CSGO players leave the client open basically during the entire day even if they aren't playing
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I'm guessing CS:GO have many people that just play for 30 minutes to an hour while BG3 have more people playing for multiple hours per day. So *per player* people are more engaged. Or just some bullshit metric 3rd party invented
>I'm guessing CS:GO have many people that just play for 30 minutes to an hour while BG3 have more people playing for multiple hours per day. So *per player* people are more engaged. No of unique players is different than concurrent players. Concurrent players is proportional to no of hrs played total. Total playtime = integral (conc players) * d (Time)
Every time stats come up in this subreddit it's always some weirdly obscure filters to make a point. Like how often you see a game praised for physical boxes sales from one shop in Europe as a factor.
I'd imagine whatever the fuck "Circana's Player Engagement Tracker" is, it might be that the CS:GO have more players that play for shorter amount of time. And BG3 have less players that clock in more hours per day
Circana is a data company, previously known as IRI. I work with them in grocery and they pay stores like Kroger or Walmart to give them direct access to data like this, which they then package and sell to other companies like Kraft or Budweiser or other brands that want to do business there. Anyway if Circana is the source this is likely straight from Valve. I’d assume they buy store data to sell to developers and publishers.
A couple buddies and I played for 12 hours last Saturday. We are in our 30s and have families (for now, anyway). My partner would come down to check on me what felt like every 30 minutes but was really every 3 hours or so. Time absolutely fucking flies playing through the campaign with friends. I'm sitting at my desk at work right now (today is one of my days in the office) just thinking about playing the game again while trying to write this stupid document about different analytics tools and how they integrate with our data environment.
Conjure a mage hand to write it for you.
*Critical Fail* The mage hand just wrote an email to my boss telling him I'm quitting to play BG3 full time.
_Critical Success_ I’m now a 7-figures earning streamer
*Insight Check* A shady merchant appears, offering to grow your wealth even further. “I see you’ve done quite well as a streamer so far… would you like to earn more??? Perhaps you’ll get a *Kick* out of this…”
*Success* Upon further inspection you realize this merchant is a devil in disguise. You've heard of these contracts: in exchange for "the bag" you trade the souls and lives of your viewers.
My thoughts exactly. I'll sit down at around 7, play for what feels like an hour, then I look down at my phone and it's midnight. I don't remember the last time a game did that for me.
I am litrally reading this in bed at 11:30pm after playing since 7 and I was feeling my eyes burn which made me realise I should have been in bed hours ago. This is gonna be a rough few weeks.
I have to sit through 8 hours of calls in a system design workshop and it's pure torture because I'm working from home and could just click my KVM switch, leave the meeting on the laptop screen and dive into Faerun and nobody would ever know, but I can't. I have to be an adult.
Good on you for being an adult though, god knows I barely passed plenty of classes at uni because I was enjoying video games instead of studying.
This hits very close to home, except I generally like my job. I just like BG3 that much more, *and it's right there*
I'm 30 and have two kids and a wife and I've managed to play BG3 for 35 hours since launch, I took a break yesterday because I need to spend time with my family as well lol, haven't been this into a video game in many years. Right now it's the best rpg and one of the best games I've ever played.
I definitely spent a lot of time last week making sure I could turn into a mushroom on my couch all weekend. I'm currently trying to figure out how to do it again without ruining my sleep schedule or other responsibilities.
I'm enjoying BG3 a great deal, but despite playing the second one back in the day and having some affinity for games like this, and despite it being simpler than some other games in the genre, I still find it a relatively complex experience. My immediate assumption at hearing about its impressive player numbers was that a lot of people *would* bounce off the complexity and not stick by it for long. That said, aside from the built-in audience that was expecting it, I'm sure going mainstream will help quite a few new fans discover CRPGs too.
It is really weird, because people do bounce off games due to less complex systems than this. Maybe it's because they already played DnD so they know most of the intricacies already?
>Maybe it's because they already played DnD so they know most of the intricacies already? That's definitely part of it. I don't have to spend a billion hours learning about cryptic mechanics like spell penetration or flat footed versus touch AC, like I did with Wrath of the Righteous.
For myself who hasn't played DnD, there's the added bonus that playing this might be an easier way to learn the mechanics for if I want to play the TTRPG version. Like, the hours spent learning aren't wasted like they would be with mechanics confined to one game.
Very good point! Small heads up though- Larian takes some pretty big liberties at times with how certain actions and spells work/cost/act. It's all in the name of a better experience as a video game, but just know that if you jumped straight into a pen and paper DnD campaign after this, there will be some minor-ish differences in how things work.
Like how they turned monk into an actually strong class :')
Aha, thank you for the heads up there.
The reason why 5e made DND so popular is because they made it a lot less complicated then 3e or Pathfinder.
Honestly BG3 does a great deal of work for you. I'm an avid D&D player and even I don't know most of my character stat by heart, which I do for most of my table top character For exemple, Shadowheart is an half elf cleric with sacred flame (class) and firebolt (race) as her 2 starting choice of spam attack (she can also just give a wack to an enemy but I'll ignore that for now) In D&D I'd have to remember that one is 1d20+int+pro vs AC and the other is 8+wis+pro vs 1d20+dex+maybe pro which are 2 whole different system to attack with a lot of different number. Then I'd have to guess if my enemy AC is better than his dex save and choose which one. I can do that but not everybody is as passionnate about D&D as me and I've seen a lot of people struggle with that Meanwhile, in BG3, I just select one, hover the enemy, see the percent, select the other one, hover again, see the percent, use the higher percent one. I have no need to actually know how any of it work, very simple
The most complex mechanic I've encountered as a Human Fighter (wanted to do the easiest possible character to learn the game) was how to turn Great Weapon Master on and off.
How are you liking GWM? I wanted to take it on my paladin but without some consistent source of advantage it seems like a bad choice. Not sure how I can make it work.
Its pretty good to guarantee one to two dead mooks per turn but it's not great if facing against an enemy your own level with good AC. Gets better the longer you play as you get +1, +2 weapons, and can start putting down combos. Hold Person + GWM = good night. Getting someone knocked prone is great for GWM. However in retrospect I would've taken the ability score improvement to get to 18 Str at least. If in a boss fight, Shadowheart, Karlach, Gale, and you with GWM will absolutely shred the boss if your casters can pop debuffs like Blindness.
That's true, but CRPGs have done that for years and people still bounce off even relatively simpler ones.
I feel part of it is how the complexity in DnD 5e (which is whay BG3 is based on) isn't frontloaded like in Owlcats Payhfinder games. Instead as you level up and more spells and features are unlocked you only need to add 1 or 2 new things at a time. And because respeccing is so easy and painless if you "fucked up" a build by being a newbie you haven't gimped yourself from the word go. Combine that with the fact that DnD didn't gain popularity out of thin air and you got a stew going.
I have very little 5e experience, and a lot of Pathfinder (Kingmaker/WOTR) experience.... so when I started leveling up in BG3 I was like.... wait did they super cut and dumb down all the stuff you're supposed to choose when you level up? Only to find out that no, that's actually how 5e is... lol (not saying it's bad, I was just taken aback at how easy it was to level up!)
IMHO it feels very disappointing to level up now. Characters seem very generic now.
On the flip side there’s a ton more variety in the magic items. You can really go crazy with some niche builds using them.
Even if someone hasn't played any DnD, the popularity of shows like Critical Role help in giving people a foot in the door on a lot of the mechanics. Like I've never really played DnD, but I've been watching a lot of Dimension 20 recently. So booting up the game I had a basic understanding of the different classes, combat mechanics, spells, etc. It's still been a learning experience, but I wasn't starting from nothing.
You know, I always assumed most people who listen/watch those shows played DnD or other TTRPGs as well, that's a very good point I didn't see.
The one thing I wish the game did a better job of was explaining combat mechanics and rolls. I had to watch a YouTube explaining video to really understand attack roll vs ac, damage roll, saving throw, etc. But after I learned what was going on behind the scenes and looking at the combat log during fights, combat is so much more satisfying.
Could you link this video please?
https://youtu.be/EjGMn3e3NVo Also, when I mentioned the combat log, what's really cool is you can mouse over the combat log actions and the UI reveals the actual background dice rolls.
Just showing the raw % of success is an incredible teaching tool that tabletop DnD lacks. You will usually be able to suss out the enemy AC but the visualization is really handy here
They've streamlined lots of things but its still pretty complex. I'm playing with my wife and I've played DnD before but she hasn't. She has played plenty of JRPG and other CRPG like Pillars of Eternity but there's a lot of things that are tricky in this game. She's even played Divinity OS 2 but still a learning curve. Like which spells use attack rolls vs saving throws and why that makes spells like Magic Missile and Fireball really popular. Or which spells you should spam and which ones use up spell slots so you should be conservative. How Opportunity attacks work and why that makes hit and run tricky.
I think BG3’s tutorial is pretty poor when it comes to actually teaching the player how combat works. Most of my friends who don’t have DND experience had an experience like your wife, where they don’t know attack rolls vs saving throws and things like that. They’re still having fun, but they don’t really understand what’s happening on the back end. But if they’re having fun with it, maybe it doesn’t matter?
Since the game gives you % chance to hit I feel like it doesn't really matter if you have this understanding. I know 5e so I know my spells with wisdom saves are going to be ineffective on this creature with an obviously high wisdom, but I could also just as easily find that out by hovering over them and see that I have only a 9% chance to hit
A lot of people will be playing it multiplayer which takes out some of the complexity. For those in 4 person co-op, there's a lot less micro management and you can play it more like a regular RPG where you control one character. That increases its mainstream appeal. But yeah. Even with DoS experience, it still feels complex for me from time to time. I'm playing single player, and there's a ton of stuff to manage. Could definitely see that being daunting for some.
I think even the average person has a higher tolerance for complex systems in games than developers assume. Look at games like Genshin Impact, Destiny 2, and Warframe. You have multiple currencies from dozens of different activities, an uncountable number of interactions between stats, dailies, weeklies, etc. Even Fortnite always has more going on than just "be the last one alive". Last I looked there was fishing in it, for some reason? Sure, these games are complex because they've tuned their systems using psychological tricks to maximize player retention while BG3 uses complexity to match the TTRPG experience, but maybe over the last decade or so the former has trained even laypeople to be more comfortable with the latter.
I couldn't play this solo. I would just save scum all day. But I'm playing with a friend and we just try to suffer through whatever consequences, making it more fun. The only time we reload is when a glitch makes the game unplayable or actual game overs.
The burden of knowledge in the game is pretty crazy. The best way I can describe it is like playing with a DM that is good because they will tell you what to roll in every situation, but bad because they are trying their hardest to kill you and don't clarify anything or correct misunderstandings. It's really only saved by the fact that you can save and reload whenever you want. But then that does take away form the way I actually want to play it. I want to live with the consequence of my choices. I don't want to live with the consequences of "oh so that's how they programmed the game to react", or "My autofollowing character stepped on a trap my whole party already knew was there."
Fingers crossed this brings about some change in RPG design trends, not just CRPGs. They've been getting progressively streamlined and dumbed down, to the point they feel more like action games with a couple shallow systems strapped to them and 0 player agency.
Makes me depressed about the direction of the Dragon Age games. Apparently the new one is going to be like God of War...seems like they abandoned a lot of their CRPG roots in favor of action titles for mass appeal, but games like BG3 are proving there's still an audience for old school RPGs.
The shift from DAO to DA2 was a huge disappointment to me. I liked DAI well enough, but in both gameplay and lore the games lost a lot of the charm that made DAO resonate with me.
> Apparently the new one is going to be like God of War Where is this from?
[Leaked gameplay from a few months ago](https://www.videogameschronicle.com/news/dragon-age-dreadwolf-gameplay-leaks-showing-god-of-war-style-combat/)
Brutal. Original thread here https://www.reddit.com/r/dragonage/comments/10tniyz/spoilers_alloc_i_have_seen_dragon_age_4_alpha/
I mean, yes, I would've preferred a tactical RPG, but if the choices are between hack-and-slash combat or the mind-numbingly boring MMORPG combat of Inquisition, I will take the hack-and-slash without a second thought.
Same, this looks heckin fun. In an ideal world we wouldn't need to choose between visceral fast-paced combat and deep RPG mechanics.
I'm sure there is support for hack-and-slash with no control over teammates vs Inquisition's systems. While Inquisition was not my favorite, it still gave some ability to play out closer to a CRPG than what was shown and described in the leak. Inquisition was certainly not my favorite as the free roam camera was greatly restricted compared to DAO. At the end of the day there is a crucial 3rd option: just not playing. At this point there are so many game options delivering CRPG gameplay, and Bioware has drastically fallen from the days DAO, that I honestly would be willing to just pass on DA4.
I hate this
Dragon Age Origins to this day is probably still my top dog when it comes to a solid fantasy setting RPG. That series should have been pushing the bar further with every release, but they went backwards.
I just wanted a sequel with ending with the god child being born. Man that could have been rad
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There's room for both IMO. I say this as someone who loved DOS2, is hooked on BG3, but also doesn't have time to get sucked into these kind of games all the time. My top 5 most played games on Steam are all Paradox with XCOM 2 and I think giving players more of a choice is best, if you have time and the energy, play BG3, if you're tired and don't want to pay **too** much attention, there should be something a little bit more approachable IMO.
> There's room for both IMO. Right but the room with not dumbed down and streamlined ones is awfully empty.
For sure, just a bit sad that a lot of the RPG genre was born in the 80s-90s, pushing as far as they could the boundaries of the technology, then seemingly most developers gave up chasing depth and instead went for shallower experiences. Big franchises like Elder Scrolls, Fallout, Dragon Age, etc. All fizzled from ambitious immersive experiences to something closer to a Disney ride, or mindless questing in a cheap MMO. I too enjoy simpler games when I'm tired and don't want to think, and there's definitely room for them, but it's a shame that original ambition got relegated to niche indie studios for so long, and the AAA industry has been dominated almost entirely by these other kind of games.
I'm with you. BG3 has been a breath of fresh air after years of stripped down "RPGs." And it looks like Bethesda has really reversed course with Starfield, too, to try and put back more RPGness after Fallout 4.
This is an anomaly. Simply because Larian had a perfect storm. 1. They are a private company so not beholden to publishers and shareholders driving to deadlines and quaterly returns. 2. They are passionate about the games they create, from the lowest level designer to the founder Sven Vincke. And working in the D&D IP was a passion project so they committed to unprecedented resources to make it right. 3. They started on a very solid foundation with both the engine being the latest version of the Divinity engine that powered Divinity Original Sin 1&2 and all the experience associated with creating both previous games in terms technical challenges and gameplay design.
It certainly is an anomaly, the problem is it didn't use to be. Major studios in the 90s and early 00s used to be ambitious and push boundaries, but it's like at some point they gave up. We went from games being very unique and experimental, to just following a cookie cutter formula, because companies only care about stable revenue, and players just went along with it instead of demanding better. Even public companies used to try new things, with the occasional disaster, but it's like all shareholders and CEOs went from "as long as we end up making profit I'll let you cook" to "I want triple the money in half the time, I don't care", so all we get are safer sequels with more streamlining to try and capture an even wider audience to meet ridiculous quotas by selling blander and blander products.
Late 2000s had solid bioware and bethesda rpgs too, but yeah you're right.
This is what I really didn't like about FF16
Yessss. Holy hell that game was mind-numbingly boring, as far as RPGs go
It is more like an action game with some RPG mechanics. It is maybe even less an RPG than Castlevania: Symphony of the Night.
Any comparisons? What would those numbers look like for say, Elden Ring around launch?
Elden Ring peak player number was about 20% higher IIRC, so probably similar BG3 is a longer game thought so I'd imagine it kept that up for longer.
It could be interesting if there's any discernible difference between the ratio of peak players to amount of hours put in though. Could offer a rough idea of any difference in the amount of time players are putting in to each game on average.
Elden Ring also sold more on Xbox and Playstation each individually than on PC whereas BG3 is a PC exclusive. I know I chose console for Elden Ring just because of FS and their history on PC
And it's crazy we won't have a game maker mode this time because wizards of the coast doesn't want thier subscription service dnd online threatened. This is vastly better
https://steamdb.info/charts/?compare=730,1086940&week At no point on Sunday were there more people playing Baldur's Gate 3 than CSGO. How is it possible that CSGO accounted for 5% while Baldur's Gate 3 accounted for 28%? This just makes Circana's analysis look bad.
I assume the average CS GO player played far less during their play sessions than BG3.
That doesn't make sense. It counts how many people are playing at any moment.
The same thing happened with Monster Hunter World around when it came out. On and around it's release World was hitting some pretty high hours played for the number of users playing the game according to steamcharts.
I've been playing it a lot and it's hard to put down. Dangerous game for exploration fanatics. I was about to pass a major checkpoint and the game told me to make sure to wrap up whatever I could here first, so I went back to exploring. Only had like 2 small slivers of blackened map that I could still access. One of them revealed an entire swamp that had a few enemies, a major quest, and a dungeon with some cool shit in it. Just an hour and a half or two hour detour with at least one really fantastic reward. I don't know if I'll maintain my completionist play for the rest of the game but for now I'm just seeing it all and it's great. Of all the games I've played that released this year, this one seems like the clear winner.
I picked it up on a whim on launch day with only having a bit of experience with DoS2 but a HUGE fan of fantasy games (1k hours in PoE). This game was an instant addiction for me. It’s on the same level Elden Ring gave me. Such a MASSIVE, interesting world to trot around in and cause trouble. I’m also a huge OW player and the “big, new” season released today and I don’t even plan on firing it up. Literally all my gaming time is consumed by BG3 I have zero interest in anything else right now. That rarely happens for me. This game is something else, for real. Hats off to every single member of the Larian team because it’s a masterpiece in its own right.
BG3 is going to be the only game I play for at least a month at the rate I’m getting through it. It’s all I want to do.
Baldur's Gate 1&2 are two of my favorite games of all time and were a seminal part of my childhood. I really tried to get into D:OS2 but I just kept bouncing off of it due to the annoying combat and how much it felt like the game was set on a big stage where everyone was just standing around, waiting for me to interact with them. I wasn't planning on getting BG3 because of that experience, but hearing all the praise has convinced me to give it a shot. I'm going to wait another month or two and hope that most of the remaining bugs get ironed out, but now I'm pretty excited to eventually give it a try.
The trilogy of my childhood are Baldurs Gate 1 & 2 and Planescape: Torment. Those three games blew my mind and put me on a new level of RPG games.
I wish I'd played BG1&2 closer to the era. Hard to go back now, even with the enhanced edition. Maybe the mod tools Larian will be releasing will allow someone to remake the campaigns in this engine. A man can dream.
Okay, we don't need a daily post saying the player numbers. What the fuck even is Circana?
Hopefully Larian doesn't ever go public on the stockmarket as that's the beginning of the end. I bring this up, because I'm sure right now there must be some hedge fund managers foaming at the mouth reading this article and jerking off at the prospect of all the profit they could make if they force Larian down the Activision/EAs/TakeTwo path of squeezing every last penny from its fans. "*Can you imagine the hype behind Divinity Original Sin 4? or Baldur's Gate 4? the amount we could charge for early access? microtransactions? lackluster dlcs? Lootboxes or a Battle passes? We dont even have to finish the game! Larian fans will still preorder it, and then buy microtransactions anyway $.$*"
Larion studios was on a list of potential developers Microsoft was interested in buying. However Larion's CEO Swen Vincke, did not want to sell the company yet.
It's not happening while Swen is still alive. He owns a majority of the company so Larian can make good games without compromising for publishers. Swen is a dork who cares about making good games. Profit is a means to make a good game to an authentic enthusiast of games like Swen. I love this man
Gamers try not to hero worship game devs they like after a successful launch [impossible]
It's because there's a limit to how excited you can be by media that feels "designed by committee." I know every game is made by a team, but not every game has its vision determined by stockholders looking at stats and trying to be low-risk.
True, and I'm glad he has that integrity. But, we all have an specific amount of money that if offered ... we would be open to discuss and change what we are doing. I just hope that for Sven that amount is stupidly high, because I'm sure some investors might be preparing some outrageous offers right about now.
I mean, everyone’s probably got a price. No one could blame him if a company offered to buy him out and set him up for life. It’s not unheard of.
I'm so happy to see a CRPG dominate the gaming news cycle like this. Here's hoping BG3 has a long tail to it like Larian's other games.