Baldur's Gate 3 - Gameplay and Impressions

Swen played Baldur's Gate 3 at PAX East. Some impressions from various outlets.

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That was laborious.

Looks promising, but it looks very much like Divinity Original Sin. I hope they manage to differentiate it even more from DOS. There's also quite a big jump from Baldur's Gate 1/2 to 3. They're saying it will launch into early access in a short while. So I'm a bit worried that it will probably not suffer major changes graphically, either in art style or rendering techniques.

Am I the only one who feels this is almost just a reskinned D:OS 2?

It doesn't look bad or anything, but it's not distinct enough imo. They even copied the origin stories approach.

Baldur's Hate 3: Divinity Original Junk, a failed system.

not impressive, and that dialogue type is RETARDED

Re-using the DivintyOS engine was probably part of their pitch to get the gig by keeping development costs lower.

Given its pre-alpha and you are going to want to iterate on content sooner rather than later then yeah its going to be re-using some Divinity stuff for now. Things will be amended and changed during development for sure as systems get refined.

Having said that I am hyped for Baldur's Gate 3 again. Loved what they are doing with stealth with its Commandos inspiration and that they are using a camp system. Spells and abilities are in and useful. Full party wipes are a thing which is all good. Seems like real DND to me.

Swen really sold it for me when he killed someone by throwing his boot.

Those who think they want Baldur's Gate III should play Pathfinder Kingmaker. Those who want Divinity 3 can play this.

Originally Posted by Silver
Swen really sold it for me when he killed someone by throwing his boot.

This. I want that game.

Originally Posted by Drithius
Those who think they want Baldur's Gate III should play Pathfinder Kingmaker. Those who want Divinity 3 can play this.

I'll play both

Good videos, and the game looks pretty good overall.

I only somewhat enjoyed DOS2 and stopped playing after 40-or-so hours, which is a lot but unfortunately I got bored with it. I'm not much of a fan of turn-based combat so seeing that BG3 is not real-time-with-pause is unfortunate, but not damning.

I like the D&D combat system so hopefully I will enjoy this more than DOS2, and I like seeing the dice rolls here during conversations. I like the slow progression mentioned, as leveling up a billion times during a game significantly reduces the emotional impact of that for me. Stealth seems interesting here.

Much of my enjoyment will depend upon the engagement I have in the story, characters, and environment, so I'll just have to wait for reviews on that.

They can't beat BG2 even if they invest 20 years in the making of this game. Larian simply miss fundamental things.

I dont think that using engine from DOS is bad thing. Its rather logical step. Im glad its isometric, party based, tb game. For me the critical part will be encounter design, story and atmosphere.

Originally Posted by Drithius
Those who think they want Baldur's Gate III should play Pathfinder Kingmaker. Those who want Divinity 3 can play this.

Anyone with solid taste should want both, and play both.

Originally Posted by Silver
Swen really sold it for me when he killed someone by throwing his boot.

Yes, me too. But in the Worldwide Reveal Video I didn't like when a given enemy (a halfling?) wasted his full round doing nothing useful besides getting up and down a ladder (you can watch it from 59min10sec to 59min35sec). Okay, the game is still being developed and things gonna change but they shouldn't forget to improve the enemy AI behavior.

Originally Posted by Ferris_bg
They can't beat BG2 even if they invest 20 years in the making of this game. Larian simply miss fundamental things.

Not everyone loved BG2 to that extent. I played the whole series plus expansions and I thought the relative lack of exploration (vs. BG1) was a let down. BG2, to me is a great game but it felt a bit too much like a series of intense combat trials vs. an adventure. I don't see any reason that Larian can't build a great game here.

Well, as expected for now it looks like Divinity 3, but somehow I liked what I saw and they told that it will improve more away from Divinity looks with time, so lets hope for the best. I liked characters for as few as we saw, im worry only about long dragging tb battles, which could become repetitive and boring with time and I will lose the will to continue to play, as it happens with many games of late.

Stealth mechanics looked great and all that verticality thing also (I still haven't played D:OS 2), lets hope they could avoid their usual "jokes" (though throwing boots was already there) and make great game with great story for once!
Will it be Baldurs Gate? Im still not sure…

Originally Posted by Stingray
Anyone with solid taste should want both, and play both.

That's a matter of taste entirely. I am personally not a fan of Larian's game design style whatsoever and turning BG into (artistically) D:OS 3 certainly doesn't help allay fears with their direction. It's certainly not a game I'll be buying anywhere close to day one, preferring to wait and see long after the original launch takes place for real, non-hyped reviews.

I backed both orginal sins and a big lure of those games was ultima type experience. Turn based combat was fun and all, but I didn't back those games because of it. For me Baldur's gates' combat being turn based is a definitely a letdown, but I can live with it if rest of the game delivers and since it is d&d, the system should transform quite well to turn based system. The feel of combat is just so different compared to orginal games combat system…

Well I try to keep an open mind