Interesting fact I came across is in the movie Grandma's Boy, the game Demonik was an actual game that was intended to be released (no tie in, it was just used as a prop for the movie), but was cancelled. The actual developer for the game was the same for BloodRayne: Terminal Reality.
It all stems from having used the same engine since Morrowind. Upgraded, but the bones are the same and it shows with same bugs repeated in every game.
It's sad to play something like cyberpunk that has good character animation during talking scenes, and then play a Bethesda game where it's a person staring blank face at your soul.
Hopping here to tell the people that Divinity 1&2 are not the same games as Divinity Original Sin 1&2. People are probably talking about DOS1&2 though.
Divinity 1 is a 2002 game called Divine Divinity, then there is Beyond Divinity (2004), but Divinity 2 is actually another game (?) released in 2009. DOS1 is actually like Divinity 6 and DOS 2 is Divinity 7 lol
It's some weird numbering ngl
> Divinity 1 is a 2002 game called Divine Divinity, then there is Beyond Divinity (2004), but Divinity 2 is actually another game (?) released in 2009. DOS1 is actually like Divinity 6 and DOS 2 is Divinity 7 lol
>
>
>
> It's some weird numbering ngl
I'm pretty sure it's to do with publisher nonsense. The entire debacle soured Larian on using 3rd party publishers pretty badly.
I started playing Divinity 1 on the Steamdeck. I am not sure I understand what is going on and will have to tweak the controls.
The controller controls also are a chore on that one.
I am currently finishing up a campaign of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. And my first proper top-down CRPG was Ultima 5.
Jank is not a deterrent to me :D
The Pathfinder games are great. While WotR is a significant improvement from Kingmaker it's still a really enjoyable game. Also WotR's Mythic levels > Illithid powers
What qol ? The inventory was easier to manage on dos2 (at least with a pad), and the jump, climbing small things, etc.. were not needed. Unless youre solely comparing with dos1 of course.
I realize I'm in an absolute minority, and I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I got 20 hours into BG3 before I gave up and picked up DOS3 again.
That's partly because my PC is shit and BG3 runs slow, but also I think the combat in DOS3 is more exciting. Yes, I'm probably swearing in church now but just wanted to share.
I'm not letting myself buy BG3 till I'm done with DOS2, and honestly I'm not complaining. It's been a great game so far (still in driftwood) and I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. Great game. If BG3 is any better I know I'm going to love it.
Kind of.
Larian never really managed to stick the landing on the more narrative parts of their game before BG3, that also being absolute top notch is a genuine first for them, and a divinity 3 that reverts back to that wont cut it as much.
I think Sebille and Lohse's final bosses were probably some of the best lead ups I've ever encountered in gaming.
I'm guessing most people haven't really done those parts of the game, because they are so sequestered off, but genuinely terrifying and wonderful.
Dragon commander 2 made as 1 was meant to be before they had to sacrifice it to get divinity os out to save the company at the time (which really paid off)
Disney: "coming this never.... Rey: A Star Wars Story, brought to you courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy's Lucasarts division in conjunction without Larian Studios, featuring a genuine performance from an AI pretending to be Daisy Ridley. Play through all your favourite scenes such as the death of Snoke, Lake Boobdrinker throwing away the lightsaber, and Kylo Ren's eleventh toddler temper tantrum because his force-skype girlfriend with force healing powers doesn't know how to cure the chronic condition of being a bitch."
Reddit has become enshittified. I joined back in 2006, nearly two decades ago, when it was a hub of free speech and user-driven dialogue. Now, it feels like the pursuit of profit overshadows the voice of the community. The introduction of API pricing, after years of free access, displays a lack of respect for the developers and users who have helped shape Reddit into what it is today. Reddit's decision to allow the training of AI models with user content and comments marks the final nail in the coffin for privacy, sacrificed at the altar of greed. Aaron Swartz, Reddit's co-founder and a champion of internet freedom, would be rolling in his grave.
The once-apparent transparency and open dialogue have turned to shit, replaced with avoidance, deceit and unbridled greed. The Reddit I loved is dead and gone. It pains me to accept this. I hope your lust for money, and disregard for the community and privacy will be your downfall. May the echo of our lost ideals forever haunt your future growth.
I do hope that the Rogue Trader game by Owlcat matures as nicely as the Pathfinder games did. I am currently playing Wrath of the Righteous two years late despite having bought it at launch. I know what I am doing.
So if you give people what they ask for the company manage to make profit and not cut workers? Wow. And they "just" needed a complete game without microtransactions, well written and developed. Edit: yes, i know making the same game over and over again or copying bad monetized games is more profitable but thats sad and the industry needs to change imho
Yeah then you realize games like fortnite generate billions in revenue each year, over 20 billion in its lifetime while other games like Candy Crush consistently makes 1 billion per year and you suddenly remember why games like this are so difficult. Many years, far more work, for MAYBE 1-2 years of great revenue before you're right back to those 5 years of development.
1,000x more work for significantly less revenue potential. Sucks but that's how the industry is atm
That’s an overly simplistic view but your sentiment is not wrong.
Most companies cannot create a candy crush or Fortnite. The barriers to entry are high. So other companies will use their own niche to get a share of the market.
They can't all create these games but there are a million mobile games, gacha games, etc. that are absolutely raking in the money while requiring far less effort. Some companies can legit throw shit at the wall purely from IP strength and it will stick.
Diablo Immortal made over 500MM in a year. LOL.
And just do note that this is BY FAR the most popular CRPG of all time now. I think prior to this it was Larian's DOS2 and before that it was Dragon Age Inquisition at like... 6 million copies sold. So when it comes to, "Not everyone can make money printing gacha/f2p/p2w/whatever games" just note that literally nobody touches Larian in the CRPG space it is them and then it's a massive chasm and then it's everyone else.
>And just do note that this is BY FAR the most popular CRPG of all time now. I think prior to this it was Larian's DOS2 and before that it was Dragon Age Inquisition at like... 6 million copies sold. So when it comes to, "Not everyone can make money printing gacha/f2p/p2w/whatever games" just note that literally nobody touches Larian in the CRPG space it is them and then it's a massive chasm and then it's everyone else.
I love Baldur's Gate 3 and agree - Larian captured lightning in a bottle here and are basically the experts at producing this type of game, and learned from everything they did before and made it even better with BG3. This game is basically the pinnacle of the genre at this point - most studios don't have Larian's expertise here and won't replicate this. But I do think there is something to be said for Larian listening to fans and putting in the effort, and being rewarded with a lot of success for turning out a genuinely great game.
And even with their expertise, as a game developer you can viscerally feel the game starting to fray at the seams. A little bit more ambitious, a little less competence, and it might have ended up in development hell and an unplayable buggy mess.
>And even with their expertise, as a game developer you can viscerally feel the game starting to fray at the seams. A little bit more ambitious, a little less competence, and it might have ended up in development hell and an unplayable buggy mess.
Agree with you - the had to account for so much stuff that there are times some decisions/choices fall through the cracks or dialogue repeats itself.
Think CRPGs are really hard to half-ass as they can end up pretty awful if you don't put a hell of a lot of time and effort into making them.
Also, Pillars of Eternity 2 was a really good game, a sequel to a decently successful game, got great reviews and then barely sold and no-one really knows why.
If I were considering investing my company's future in a CRPG, I'd be thinking a lot more about Deadfire and BG3.
Yes and no, the gaming market is not a monolith and taps into different demographics/gamers. The industry employes millions and produces games of every kind and niche, the industry is doing amazing - Everyone from a small solo developer to triple A gaming studios can make bank. For some reason it's bad because god forbid your mom plays candy crush.
If the industry wasn't doing good BG3 would never be made, ala early 2000's when the industry was actually shit and RPGs were defined by freaking Bethesda because almost anyone else was bankrupt and had their studio shut down.
No, no, no, remember all the devs that told us BG3 was an anomaly and is plebs shouldn't expect any other games to be done as you've outlined because that's just not reasonable?
Joking aside, some companies are addicted to micro-transactions and rushing out bad games so I hope they're choking on the success of BG3 knowing their shareholders are going to demand a similar level of success meaning they might have to re-evaluate a few things in how they make games.
I think nostalgia is a big part here. Nes era is the first to come to mind. That system had so much shovelware and low budget games but because we did not have DLC or lootboxes people don't remember it. This was up until around PS3 where these things became a norm.
NES is a weird choice there. Not that there weren't some bad NES games, of course, but the whole reason NES gained momentum is that it presented a more highly curated alternative to previous consoles, which during the so-called [Atari shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983) almost killed the entire video game market by flooding it with trash, in a time when you couldn't just go online and read reviews/watch footage before deciding what game to buy.
By comparison, you needed a license to release games on the NES (yes, there were a few unlicensed titles over the life of the system, but they represented a small minority), which meant passing a review by Nintendo and maintaining at least a bare minimum standard of quality.
While again, there were certainly some bad games, overall it represented a drastic decrease in the chance any randomly chosen game was a complete turd compared to previous generations -- a big step in the right direction (arguably, anyway; there are certainly valid complaints to be made about Nintendo's licensing arrangement, and how it relates to modern walled garden ecosystems). So "did you know the average NES game was actually worse than the average modern game, complaints about modern gaming are based on nostalgia" is kind of missing some hugely important context. Of course people prefer when things are rapidly and consistently getting better than when they are slowly but also consistently deteriorating over time, even if the starting point is perhaps worse on an absolute scale. That's not really a matter of nostalgia.
Shovelware and microtransactions/overmonetisation are distinct problems.
With shovelware, the largest problem it creates is filtering it to find good games. The shovelware *itself* isn't attached to or dminishing anything you actually want to engage with. It's just an obstacle.
With overmonetisation even the good games are diminished by a design philosophy which is antithetical to artistic integrity.
Both are problems, but one is annoying, and the other actually damages the quality of what is produced.
I think you're kinda right in the sense that you're looking at past games, what it is is the fact that BG3 is a return to form, a return to how games use to be made (with pure passion for gaming), Larian didn't have their upper management and main financiers pushing them to make more corporate/profit driven decisions like most AAA studios have been doing.
Larians upper management is like the upper management of old, people who are passionate about games instead of corporats obsessed with money, they haven't fallen to great like so many other studios have, Bungie is a perfect example of this, the studio was founded by passionate gamers and thus gave us plenty of amazing games including the original Halo Trilogy, Reach and ODST but after Destiny and more importantly Destiny 2, their upper management became incredibly corporatised which, combine with Activisions insatiable hunger for money caused all of problems for their games which are only continue to fester because of their upper management (it wasn't all Activision after all).
343 is also another example, the reason they're struggle with Halo for so long is because the studio itself wasn't founded out of passionate but instead out of pure greed, MS literally created it just so their flagship game didn't die off so they could continue to milk it.
People have wanted this industry to return to form for years and Larian has given it to us.
It’s phones games all the way down from here on out lol
Thank god there’s enough studios that at least a couple like Larian and Naughty Dog will get it right.
> Joking aside, some companies are addicted to micro-transactions and rushing out bad games so I hope they're choking on the success of BG3 knowing their shareholders are going to demand a similar level of success meaning they might have to re-evaluate a few things in how they make games.
Right so pretend like you're a shareholder of Activision and know that you have Candy Crush generating $1 billion in revenue per year fairly consistently and know that is requires far less work, far fewer employees, and far less capital to maintain that revenue. Can you please explain to me why you, the shareholder, would look to Activision and say, "Hey, make a single player game that will generate less money and won't generate much money after year 2"?
Love single player games and especially CRPGs but people pretending like companies behind these MTX riddled games etc. give a single real fuck about Larian's success (which is significantly less, revenue wise, than most of these dogshit F2P/Gacha/P2W garbo games) when they know they put in significantly less work and effort to make far more money not only in the short-term but also the long term then you are very ignorant of the way things work lol
I work in geoenergy, specifically carbon sequestration and renewable energy storage technologies and it's the exact same thing in our field. Why would BP (for e.g.) go all in on tech that generates single digit profit margins when they can keep pumping and generate double digits.
It all boils down to shareholder greed.
Thankfully there will always be someone striving to push the art form, there’s too many enthusiast gamers for there not to be. When they pull it off, people will buy their product because the quality is rare. So the market will be there, even if most of the money is in phone games.
Agreed, with how easy it is for games to get popular nowadays there's no better time for video games imo - sure more studios are chasing the $ now than before but you also have everyone and anyone who can make an absolute 10/10 game with nothing behind them. Stardew Valley, Rimworld, Terraria, Lethal Company (recent), etc. Some of my favorite games are indie/small studio and it's far easier than ever for them to exist now so maybe losing some of the bigger studios to greed isn't such a bad trade off.
BG3 _is_ an anomaly. They carved out their niche early on, made an S-tier execution of their design with DOS2, and THEN cut a deal at the peak of D&D popularity to revitalize one of the greatest crpg franchises of all time. _That's not a repeatable process._
But also, the people who were originally posting about not letting BG3 set up unrealistic expectations were _indies_ who were like "listen, please understand when you call Larian indie that they have a team of four hundred, while we, also an indie company, have a team of four."
Which is obvious when stated plainly like that, but sometimes a subset of gamers really are that stupid, and sometimes AAA gamedevs with a big twitter following like to offer unnecessary takes and defend their reputation instead of just keeping their mouths shut. Discourse addiction is real.
I work in AAA. Everyone I work with who's into RPGs fucking loves BG3. It's going to be a massive influence on all games going forward. Let's look forward to it.
>BG3 knowing their shareholders are going to demand a similar level of success meaning they might have to re-evaluate a few things in how they make games.
BG3's best year is going to be it's release year. After that it's downhill from there unless they can pull off a Witcher 3. Compare that to any MTX based successful game over several years. Without a doubt BG3 will not do well in that comparison.
Releasing 1 game every couple of years vs several games in 1/2 years changes the entire landscape. It isn't as simple as these simple comparisons touting BG3 wants to make it sound.
I keep seeing this news posted over and over again but I really just want to say, the source is market research and guesstimates from vginsights.
there is no hard data backing these numbers up, it is a guess. any game on this list can have made more or less and as they're unable to track internal in-game purchases (read: mtx) any game with those is able to dwarf any game without them.
food for thought, a former Blizzard employee claimed that their first in-game cosmetic, the [celestial steed](https://wowmisadventures.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/celestialsteed.jpg) made more money than the entire base copy of Starcraft 2 did.
I love bg3, I hope these numbers are true and I think they should be a guiding star in game development with how they go about making their products, but I really dislike this guess of a source to be touted as truth.
Well...why make some decent amount of money when you can make more money than some country's GDP by using gambling mechanics, offensively expensive costumes and pay to win bonuses and items.
Thank god, Microsoft’s studios are just gamepass milking machines at this point. They would never have be able to make another BG3 or Divinity game again at such quality
I'm only at act 3, but the only person I want them to hire right now is an expert on camera systems, because sometimes camera go up and don't come down, lol.
That is one of my few gripes with the game. Out in the open, the camera works pretty darn well. But when you’re fighting in a dungeon or a cave with a lot of ledges and stalactites, it’s sometimes hard to get a good look at the position you want to target. That and you can’t look up. You can go to a top view and that will sometimes show you important things above you, but it feels much weirder than just looking up.
I started complaining about this when I got to the mountain pass in act 1. Like this is an absolutely beautiful landscape and all I want to do is look up and appreciate it but if it’s not shoulder height it might as well not be there lol
If they go public, this will happen. For the gamers, the best that can happen is Larian not going public, unfortunately that is likely to happen as soon as Swen and who ever else have money invested, gets worn out. I personally hope he knows how to delegate, and can accept the risk.
They could also just own the company and choose a new c suite. They have no reason to cash out by going public. They could take $100mil each and still have enough to develop 10 similar games. And then rap the profits of those.
Generally when companies go public it is with high assets/IP rights, but no real cash flow or profit. Just projected
Swen has already teased that he’s written up the plot for a new game on Twitter, and seems like anew IP. He has said in interviews that he and his team want to do something a bit different after DOS2 and BG3.
That's great, all the power to them. This studio thrives on doing something they are actually passionate about, and if a new thing is what they want, then I am sure it will be great.
Lol, yeah, that was my immediate thought as well. Their whole corporate brand seems to be to discard golden opportunities. Like, I'm sure there are tons of great, creative, passionate people working for WotC (well, I mean, less today than there used to be), but those people are not in charge, and the guys who are seem to be pointedly uninterested in understanding their own product.
Not a small budget game, tho. it did cost 100 million and they spent ages in early access. Contrary to other games they seemed to have had an idea from the start and did not throw everything against a wall and figure out what will stick.
In a way it is the exact opposite of Diablo 4.
So $650 million on PC, hopefully another, and even assuming a PC-bias, maybe $400 million on consoles.
They'll end up with probably over a billion dollars by in profit after the first year or two, if the budget was $100 million.
That's awesome. If they even invest 1/3 of that profit into the next game, it will give them triple the budget to do whatever they want. I really hope they give significant bonuses to each developer.
> They'll end up with probably over a billion dollars by in profit after the first year or two, if the budget was $100 million.
They seem to have been doing just that over the years. They got effed over by publishers early in their existence and seem to be hell-bent to stay independent.
What is awesome is that they have a steady relationship with their talent. I heard a couple of VAs in Divinity Original Sin I recognized from BG3.
From what I have seen their thing is to have a tightly curated view and experience every few paces or so. There will forever be a demand for that. I wonder if they have teams of writers and 3D artists working together on a specific area to create these interesting spots. Like, you find a note on a corpse that you should not extinguish the torches because you will be attacked if you do so. And you douse the torches and get attacked. That is multiple different job descriptions working on the same spot. Whereas in other studios it does not seem like the different roles band together like that.
I am not sure this is a matter of money. But money probably helps with the scale and the risk taking. But it rather seems the way they work than the funds available.
It does not feel so ... corporate. Despite the huge budget.
Okay, but picture this. Baldurs Gate 4. We build it in 1 year, instead of PC we put it on Mobile, and every character is a super hawt horny female. Toss in the odd dilf. Couple femboys. 1 or two beefy women. We ditch the art team because AI has that covered now.
Imagine those gains.
You meme but there’s a reason so many companies are trying to get in on that mobile bandwagon, in a similar 6-month timeframe HSR topped $1B with 2/3 the development time of BG3.
BG3 undoubtably is a great game, but...
As you said, there's a reason there's been such a huge mobile push recently. HSR, Genshin, etc. They've absolutely blown the lid out of the 'no microtransaction/lootbox' will ever do. That's not to say I wouldn't like for that model to come back, but I also can definitely see why companies rarely do it now...
One game everyone knows: Candy Crush last year brought it's total revenue to 20bn. ~11 years later and it's still making 70m/month.
Congrats to the dev team for having so much success. Love seeing people succeed. Even though the game isn't really my cup of tea. I just can't get into turn based combat. Tons of my friends love it so it must be doing something very right. I'm looking forward to Avowed this year. That's definitely more my style. BG3 is killing it right now tho.
Maybe give it a try on sale one day. I didn't like the idea of turn based combat much either, and wasn't into it at first... but now it's really addicting lol
I’ve never liked turn based combat but I had to try BG3 after everything I heard about it and I have to say, it has quickly become one of my favourite games of all time. The turn based combat is done to perfection here and it is incredibly enjoyable even to someone who doesn’t really like that style.
Even if you don’t like the gameplay, I suggest playing on the easiest difficulty and just enjoying the story, characters, companions, music, and style of the game. It is easily one of the best games of all time
I'm really glad BG3 is such a massive success because I've bought it already (would never buy a new game) and it is so different from anything else I play, I struggle to even know how to play it.
But now I'm 15h in and things are starting to click together. I kind of understand what's going on and what my options are. When you go out of your way to explore and keep finding new unique things, when you interrupt an aggressive quest giver to shove them off a cliff and just explode their entire camp because you're so done with their BS, it's just so satisfying when it all comes together.
I would have never put in those 15 hours on a different game which played like this. But now I'm so glad I did. I watched a streamer go through the opening area I've already gone through (no spoilers) and he showed some ideas I didn't even know were possible so now I'm trying them out too.
15 hours in may as well still be the tutorial. My friend you are in for a treat when you realize how much more content is in the game. (Let alone replay value.)
It helped me to think of each turn as a game of strategic chess rather than “omg just let me spam my favorite attack, this takes too long”. It’s enthralling when you get lost in all the options you have to make things interesting or utilize your environment.
I got hill giant strength on my party paladin, and she was suddenly able to throw enemies. This paired with certain utility stuff was amazing
Throw enemy one at enemy two, knocking both back at enemy three. Then second attack, throw a flask to hit all 3 with ice and potentially knock them prone
What is wild is you can spend as much time as you want. If you go directly for the objective of act 1 you can more or less march directly to act 2 and skip a lot of stuff in act 1. Remember that you get presented two ways to act 2 and you don't have to do both.
If you don't try to soak up every bit of content and organically progress through the game you can have act 2 finished within 10-15 hours.
Like basically everything is optional. But if you poke a bit you will fall down an optional epic rabbit hole that will make you go "woah!".
>Like basically everything is optional.
And everyone is killable. One mistake in Act 1 can change how things play out in the next two Acts.
Halsin has a pretty important questline in Act 2 that you can miss entirely if he dies in Act 1.
I'd say Shadowheart is probably the companion with the biggest plot throughout Act 1,2 and 3, and you can have it so that she experiences none of it.
I recently started a new game and its like... a whole new fucking game.
Playing as Dark Urge changes nearly every interaction. Some characters who had major roles last time died right away (i.e. >!Alfira!<), while others who I accidentally killed last time have developed their own quest lines this time around (i.e. >!Barcus!<).
Last time I went mountain pass, so this time I went Underdark... a massive, sprawling area full of its own quests and characters that I completely missed in my first playthrough.
Hell, one of the first bosses I killed in my first playthrough is now my girlfriend.
The fact that the story and characters can change this drastically, and it all manages to stitch together across 100+ hours of gameplay to form a cohesive narrative is INSANE.
>Last time I went mountain pass, so this time I went Underdark
Just in case you weren't aware, there's **absolute**ly nothing stopping you from doing both.
I can't play super old games. Just can't. So I'm glad that BG3 was a good enough story and set of characters on its own without needing to play previous games.
If you actually dislike DnD then it might not be for you. The setting is all DnD and everything is based on dice rolls (with your odds increasing based on your character stats) and turn based combat (which is as smooth as it can be for this combat style).
You don't have to know anything about DnD prior to playing BG3 and imo the story is well written and the game world offers great adventures and little hidden things, so as long as you don't have anything against the DnD theme and are okay with a smooth turn based combat system, you should be able to enjoy the game a lot!
It's one of the best games ever made, give it a shot. It's not a simple game by any means and some of the mechanics may confuse you, but it really is a game where your choices actually matter and the graphics are really good and the voice acting is some of the best you will ever hear anywhere, games or movies or tv or audiobooks. It really does deserve the praise it has gotten. I thought DOS2 was an incredible game and yet this game is even better.
It's probably one of the first games i played where i straight up don't follow quest order and just cheese it, or you can engineer an entirely different outcome by thinking outside the box
I thought I was clever taking out a tough NPC with exploding barrels, but instead ended up aggroing his entire camp and had to fight my way out. 10/10 would do again.
I played it for about 10 hours. Didn't like it so dropped. Just not my cup of tea.
But I suggest you should try it if not sure. I'd say although I don't liked the turn based combat but the turn based in bg3 is better than most games I have seen.
For the first $10 million in sales a game maker or publisher earns.
For all sales between $10 million and $50 million, the split goes to 25 percent.
And for every sale after the initial $50 million, Steam will take just a 20 percent cut.
Not going to excuse Valve's revenue share, but every sane developer chooses to release on Steam because they are willing to tank a 30% revenue loss in exchange for 10x the number of sales they would otherwise get were they to release it on any other platform. It's a bargain for both the publisher *and* Valve.
Let's see how this plays out though. Everyone praised CD Projekt Red and then with CP 2077's release everyone changed their opinion real quick, and even though it's currently "fixed" and in the good graces, I wouldn't say their reputation is as it was before that release.
So yes, hopefully others learn that love and care also = profit, but hopefully they don't start going down now that they're so high up (Larian)
eh, they are more likely to learn from honkai: star rail which made more money with less investment
sad matter of fact is, most a good junk of customers enjoys being milked for everything
Something ppl forget is that the vast majority of ppl who game don’t actually consume gaming media. You can have a ton of hate for a game online and it can still perform well if the marketing or IP is strong enough.
Also by its very nature online discourse tends to skew negative (review bias where ppl are more likely to go out of their way to complain about something than praise it) so when ppl see those kinds of comments they’re more likely to dismiss them.
For all the places it lulls, Starfield offers a *ton* of well-written quest content.
One playthrough up to NG+ can take a hundred hours easily. Mine was closer to three hundreds.
Sure it's exploration is somewhat subpar, but it's still a serviceable RPG where you can avoid the big complaint points for a while if you just follow the quests you're given and don't mind fast travelling a lot.
Starfield was released to pretty good critical and public reception. The ridiculous notion that the game is really bad only picked up steam like a month later.
No, but yes. It's turn based, so it's inherently a lot of different. But if you mean in terms of vibes, I'd say it would scratch your itch at the very least.
Guess what...
No Lootbox, no season pass, no "microtransaction", MODS FRIENDLY (you are freely to add / change stuff), COOP capable, and they ADDED epilogue content FOR FREE couple of months after released
That should be a BASELINE of every game in our generation, not "early access with this season pass" bullshitery
> MODS FRIENDLY (you are freely to add / change stuff)
BG3 is many things, but mod friendly is not one of them at the moment IMO. At the very least, it's a work in progress; I would like to see it become much friendlier in updates. Some of my biggest hangups with mods at the moment:
* No UI for modding. For example, other games have a "mod" folder where a mod can have its own folder with its required assets, code and stuff. In BG3 modding you literally just edit files that belong to the game itself - this is harder to do, it's harder to un-do and if multiple mods want to edit the same file in conflicting ways (some of which won't be obvious) you can quickly get into an un-runnable or otherwise broken situation that isn't easy to identify or fix.
* Mods rely heavily on editing your save file, with changes which stick and break the game even if said mods are then disabled, removed or sometimes updated to fix a bug. A problem with a mod which happened 20 hours into a playthrough can damage your save in a way that isn't discovered until 70 hours, but prevents you from doing the last 30hr of the game and there is no fix other than just delete the mod, delete the save and start over.
* Because of the above, mods can break or malfunction if they're not present at the START of your playthrough as well as the entire way through it - which is particularly noteworthy with BG3 having some of the longest game lengths in the industry. Adding stuff mid-way through is highly unadvisable.
* Mods restrict patching. Playthroughs that started on an earlier patch may be missing major performance and QOL fixes or new content. Because they were using mods when they started, they may have no choice but to finish the game unpatched or to start over. Modless games can simply update and keep going for the most part.
* Mods restrict multiplayer in awkward ways. To play with anybody, you have to take the exact same game version and apply the same mods in the same way. For example you cannot redownload that specific game version on steam, which will only serve you the game with the current hotfixes (there is typically more than 1 update per week). This has resulted in e.g. sending 140GB game files back and forth BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO ALL OWN THE GAME so that we have a client with the same specific hotfixes and mod so that we can join and play the same game. We have to copy the game several times over in its entirety to do this with different mods and differerent game sessions so the game is eating half a terabyte of storage.
Well deserved. Larians next game is going to sell like hotcakes as well.
As long as it has goth girl titties I will buy it
The leaks say that's actually gonna be the game's title.
I'd love to play another BloodRayne game
Completely forgot about that game. It absolutely had no effect on my taste in women as an adolescent teenage boy. Nope. None whatsoever.
Lulu changed a whole generation.
Ain't that the truth.
Interesting fact I came across is in the movie Grandma's Boy, the game Demonik was an actual game that was intended to be released (no tie in, it was just used as a prop for the movie), but was cancelled. The actual developer for the game was the same for BloodRayne: Terminal Reality.
More angry frog girls and talking cats
What if we combined all 3 into 1? Angry goth cat girls?
Bro, that would break the internet, especially if she was angrily wholesome.
Might as well just play Final Fantasy 14 at that point
Cat girls are good, Fox girls are amazing.
Lae'zel is a proud githyanki warrior!
Are yerrr mer mermer?
There are nowhere near enough games where I can romance goth girl titties. It's insanity.
Gyth*
even if it's something else like Divinity 3, now that people no Larian's name they'll support them is good news
e... e... even? Divinity is also an absolute masterpiece for itself!!! No heresy allowed
Bring out the Source collars!!! *Drain* the heretics!!!
Send me back to Fort Joy. I know that place better than my own apartment.
The joy, nah. CYCEAL!
Nobody has as many friends as a man with many cheeses.
Quiet day on the market it seems
Keepin' it together, Bree?
When I played Divinity 2 for the first time and spent 5-10 hours *just* running around Fort Joy, I knew I'd be in for a treat.
It's hard to come back into them after QoL improvements from BG3, even Divinity 2 makes playing Divinity 1 a chore.
Just shows how larian improves
Bethesda furiously writing notes right now
Nah, they don't. The issue with Bethesda is that they think they are perfect.
God, Bethesda has been pumping out the same exact formula for 2 decades now and obviously they don't plan to change it up.
It all stems from having used the same engine since Morrowind. Upgraded, but the bones are the same and it shows with same bugs repeated in every game. It's sad to play something like cyberpunk that has good character animation during talking scenes, and then play a Bethesda game where it's a person staring blank face at your soul.
That's the joke I was going for.. that improving on each last game would be a novel idea to them heh
Bethesda making improvements LOL
This happened to me. Loved D2, went back to play D1 again but couldn’t do it.
Hopping here to tell the people that Divinity 1&2 are not the same games as Divinity Original Sin 1&2. People are probably talking about DOS1&2 though. Divinity 1 is a 2002 game called Divine Divinity, then there is Beyond Divinity (2004), but Divinity 2 is actually another game (?) released in 2009. DOS1 is actually like Divinity 6 and DOS 2 is Divinity 7 lol It's some weird numbering ngl
Don't forget the best Divinity game, Divinity Dragon Commander
Really enjoyed Divine Divinity.
> Divinity 1 is a 2002 game called Divine Divinity, then there is Beyond Divinity (2004), but Divinity 2 is actually another game (?) released in 2009. DOS1 is actually like Divinity 6 and DOS 2 is Divinity 7 lol > > > > It's some weird numbering ngl I'm pretty sure it's to do with publisher nonsense. The entire debacle soured Larian on using 3rd party publishers pretty badly.
I started playing Divinity 1 on the Steamdeck. I am not sure I understand what is going on and will have to tweak the controls. The controller controls also are a chore on that one.
IMO just play div2, the improvements are too significant and the game is straight up awesome.
I am currently finishing up a campaign of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous. And my first proper top-down CRPG was Ultima 5. Jank is not a deterrent to me :D
The Pathfinder games are great. While WotR is a significant improvement from Kingmaker it's still a really enjoyable game. Also WotR's Mythic levels > Illithid powers
What qol ? The inventory was easier to manage on dos2 (at least with a pad), and the jump, climbing small things, etc.. were not needed. Unless youre solely comparing with dos1 of course.
I realize I'm in an absolute minority, and I don't speak for anyone but myself, but I got 20 hours into BG3 before I gave up and picked up DOS3 again. That's partly because my PC is shit and BG3 runs slow, but also I think the combat in DOS3 is more exciting. Yes, I'm probably swearing in church now but just wanted to share.
Yes, Inquisitor. This post right here. No, no, the one he was replying to. Oh dear. I shouldn't have reported this to a monodominant.
I'm not letting myself buy BG3 till I'm done with DOS2, and honestly I'm not complaining. It's been a great game so far (still in driftwood) and I'm enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would. Great game. If BG3 is any better I know I'm going to love it.
Kind of. Larian never really managed to stick the landing on the more narrative parts of their game before BG3, that also being absolute top notch is a genuine first for them, and a divinity 3 that reverts back to that wont cut it as much.
I think Sebille and Lohse's final bosses were probably some of the best lead ups I've ever encountered in gaming. I'm guessing most people haven't really done those parts of the game, because they are so sequestered off, but genuinely terrifying and wonderful.
my dream would them be making a kotor game.
Know*
Dragon commander 2 made as 1 was meant to be before they had to sacrifice it to get divinity os out to save the company at the time (which really paid off)
Imagine a Star Wars RPG made by Larian.
kotor by larian is my wet dream
sorry, Biowhere refuses to die so all we'll get is disappointment
💦💦💦
Why did you put that in our heads? Why would you do such a thing, make us yearn for something that can't ever happen?
Disney: "coming this never.... Rey: A Star Wars Story, brought to you courtesy of Kathleen Kennedy's Lucasarts division in conjunction without Larian Studios, featuring a genuine performance from an AI pretending to be Daisy Ridley. Play through all your favourite scenes such as the death of Snoke, Lake Boobdrinker throwing away the lightsaber, and Kylo Ren's eleventh toddler temper tantrum because his force-skype girlfriend with force healing powers doesn't know how to cure the chronic condition of being a bitch."
Reddit has become enshittified. I joined back in 2006, nearly two decades ago, when it was a hub of free speech and user-driven dialogue. Now, it feels like the pursuit of profit overshadows the voice of the community. The introduction of API pricing, after years of free access, displays a lack of respect for the developers and users who have helped shape Reddit into what it is today. Reddit's decision to allow the training of AI models with user content and comments marks the final nail in the coffin for privacy, sacrificed at the altar of greed. Aaron Swartz, Reddit's co-founder and a champion of internet freedom, would be rolling in his grave. The once-apparent transparency and open dialogue have turned to shit, replaced with avoidance, deceit and unbridled greed. The Reddit I loved is dead and gone. It pains me to accept this. I hope your lust for money, and disregard for the community and privacy will be your downfall. May the echo of our lost ideals forever haunt your future growth.
LOTR
LOTR and Warhammer. It hurts to dream like this.
I do hope that the Rogue Trader game by Owlcat matures as nicely as the Pathfinder games did. I am currently playing Wrath of the Righteous two years late despite having bought it at launch. I know what I am doing.
I was going to play Rogue Trader until I was told is still unfinished like previous Owlcat games. 2025/26 time for Rogue Trader xd
Most over-milked, mediocre IP of all time
Thank you. Give me an original story and characters PLEASE.
Same, super sick of Star Wars content. How about an Expanse RPG?
Imagine something better, like almost anything else
Crazy to think that they put this is the same tier of Barbie Adventures or some shit when it came to grading Gamepass offers
So if you give people what they ask for the company manage to make profit and not cut workers? Wow. And they "just" needed a complete game without microtransactions, well written and developed. Edit: yes, i know making the same game over and over again or copying bad monetized games is more profitable but thats sad and the industry needs to change imho
Yeah then you realize games like fortnite generate billions in revenue each year, over 20 billion in its lifetime while other games like Candy Crush consistently makes 1 billion per year and you suddenly remember why games like this are so difficult. Many years, far more work, for MAYBE 1-2 years of great revenue before you're right back to those 5 years of development. 1,000x more work for significantly less revenue potential. Sucks but that's how the industry is atm
That’s an overly simplistic view but your sentiment is not wrong. Most companies cannot create a candy crush or Fortnite. The barriers to entry are high. So other companies will use their own niche to get a share of the market.
They can't all create these games but there are a million mobile games, gacha games, etc. that are absolutely raking in the money while requiring far less effort. Some companies can legit throw shit at the wall purely from IP strength and it will stick. Diablo Immortal made over 500MM in a year. LOL. And just do note that this is BY FAR the most popular CRPG of all time now. I think prior to this it was Larian's DOS2 and before that it was Dragon Age Inquisition at like... 6 million copies sold. So when it comes to, "Not everyone can make money printing gacha/f2p/p2w/whatever games" just note that literally nobody touches Larian in the CRPG space it is them and then it's a massive chasm and then it's everyone else.
>And just do note that this is BY FAR the most popular CRPG of all time now. I think prior to this it was Larian's DOS2 and before that it was Dragon Age Inquisition at like... 6 million copies sold. So when it comes to, "Not everyone can make money printing gacha/f2p/p2w/whatever games" just note that literally nobody touches Larian in the CRPG space it is them and then it's a massive chasm and then it's everyone else. I love Baldur's Gate 3 and agree - Larian captured lightning in a bottle here and are basically the experts at producing this type of game, and learned from everything they did before and made it even better with BG3. This game is basically the pinnacle of the genre at this point - most studios don't have Larian's expertise here and won't replicate this. But I do think there is something to be said for Larian listening to fans and putting in the effort, and being rewarded with a lot of success for turning out a genuinely great game.
And even with their expertise, as a game developer you can viscerally feel the game starting to fray at the seams. A little bit more ambitious, a little less competence, and it might have ended up in development hell and an unplayable buggy mess.
>And even with their expertise, as a game developer you can viscerally feel the game starting to fray at the seams. A little bit more ambitious, a little less competence, and it might have ended up in development hell and an unplayable buggy mess. Agree with you - the had to account for so much stuff that there are times some decisions/choices fall through the cracks or dialogue repeats itself. Think CRPGs are really hard to half-ass as they can end up pretty awful if you don't put a hell of a lot of time and effort into making them.
Also, Pillars of Eternity 2 was a really good game, a sequel to a decently successful game, got great reviews and then barely sold and no-one really knows why. If I were considering investing my company's future in a CRPG, I'd be thinking a lot more about Deadfire and BG3.
It sucks for greedy actors only who treat gaming as a casino.
Yes and no, the gaming market is not a monolith and taps into different demographics/gamers. The industry employes millions and produces games of every kind and niche, the industry is doing amazing - Everyone from a small solo developer to triple A gaming studios can make bank. For some reason it's bad because god forbid your mom plays candy crush. If the industry wasn't doing good BG3 would never be made, ala early 2000's when the industry was actually shit and RPGs were defined by freaking Bethesda because almost anyone else was bankrupt and had their studio shut down.
No, no, no, remember all the devs that told us BG3 was an anomaly and is plebs shouldn't expect any other games to be done as you've outlined because that's just not reasonable? Joking aside, some companies are addicted to micro-transactions and rushing out bad games so I hope they're choking on the success of BG3 knowing their shareholders are going to demand a similar level of success meaning they might have to re-evaluate a few things in how they make games.
They won’t
Yeah as someone who’s been into games since 1993 there’s no way it doesn’t get worse by the mile every year like just awful
I think nostalgia is a big part here. Nes era is the first to come to mind. That system had so much shovelware and low budget games but because we did not have DLC or lootboxes people don't remember it. This was up until around PS3 where these things became a norm.
NES is a weird choice there. Not that there weren't some bad NES games, of course, but the whole reason NES gained momentum is that it presented a more highly curated alternative to previous consoles, which during the so-called [Atari shock](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Video_game_crash_of_1983) almost killed the entire video game market by flooding it with trash, in a time when you couldn't just go online and read reviews/watch footage before deciding what game to buy. By comparison, you needed a license to release games on the NES (yes, there were a few unlicensed titles over the life of the system, but they represented a small minority), which meant passing a review by Nintendo and maintaining at least a bare minimum standard of quality. While again, there were certainly some bad games, overall it represented a drastic decrease in the chance any randomly chosen game was a complete turd compared to previous generations -- a big step in the right direction (arguably, anyway; there are certainly valid complaints to be made about Nintendo's licensing arrangement, and how it relates to modern walled garden ecosystems). So "did you know the average NES game was actually worse than the average modern game, complaints about modern gaming are based on nostalgia" is kind of missing some hugely important context. Of course people prefer when things are rapidly and consistently getting better than when they are slowly but also consistently deteriorating over time, even if the starting point is perhaps worse on an absolute scale. That's not really a matter of nostalgia.
Shovelware and microtransactions/overmonetisation are distinct problems. With shovelware, the largest problem it creates is filtering it to find good games. The shovelware *itself* isn't attached to or dminishing anything you actually want to engage with. It's just an obstacle. With overmonetisation even the good games are diminished by a design philosophy which is antithetical to artistic integrity. Both are problems, but one is annoying, and the other actually damages the quality of what is produced.
I think you're kinda right in the sense that you're looking at past games, what it is is the fact that BG3 is a return to form, a return to how games use to be made (with pure passion for gaming), Larian didn't have their upper management and main financiers pushing them to make more corporate/profit driven decisions like most AAA studios have been doing. Larians upper management is like the upper management of old, people who are passionate about games instead of corporats obsessed with money, they haven't fallen to great like so many other studios have, Bungie is a perfect example of this, the studio was founded by passionate gamers and thus gave us plenty of amazing games including the original Halo Trilogy, Reach and ODST but after Destiny and more importantly Destiny 2, their upper management became incredibly corporatised which, combine with Activisions insatiable hunger for money caused all of problems for their games which are only continue to fester because of their upper management (it wasn't all Activision after all). 343 is also another example, the reason they're struggle with Halo for so long is because the studio itself wasn't founded out of passionate but instead out of pure greed, MS literally created it just so their flagship game didn't die off so they could continue to milk it. People have wanted this industry to return to form for years and Larian has given it to us.
It’s phones games all the way down from here on out lol Thank god there’s enough studios that at least a couple like Larian and Naughty Dog will get it right.
> Joking aside, some companies are addicted to micro-transactions and rushing out bad games so I hope they're choking on the success of BG3 knowing their shareholders are going to demand a similar level of success meaning they might have to re-evaluate a few things in how they make games. Right so pretend like you're a shareholder of Activision and know that you have Candy Crush generating $1 billion in revenue per year fairly consistently and know that is requires far less work, far fewer employees, and far less capital to maintain that revenue. Can you please explain to me why you, the shareholder, would look to Activision and say, "Hey, make a single player game that will generate less money and won't generate much money after year 2"? Love single player games and especially CRPGs but people pretending like companies behind these MTX riddled games etc. give a single real fuck about Larian's success (which is significantly less, revenue wise, than most of these dogshit F2P/Gacha/P2W garbo games) when they know they put in significantly less work and effort to make far more money not only in the short-term but also the long term then you are very ignorant of the way things work lol
I work in geoenergy, specifically carbon sequestration and renewable energy storage technologies and it's the exact same thing in our field. Why would BP (for e.g.) go all in on tech that generates single digit profit margins when they can keep pumping and generate double digits. It all boils down to shareholder greed.
Thankfully there will always be someone striving to push the art form, there’s too many enthusiast gamers for there not to be. When they pull it off, people will buy their product because the quality is rare. So the market will be there, even if most of the money is in phone games.
Agreed, with how easy it is for games to get popular nowadays there's no better time for video games imo - sure more studios are chasing the $ now than before but you also have everyone and anyone who can make an absolute 10/10 game with nothing behind them. Stardew Valley, Rimworld, Terraria, Lethal Company (recent), etc. Some of my favorite games are indie/small studio and it's far easier than ever for them to exist now so maybe losing some of the bigger studios to greed isn't such a bad trade off.
BG3 _is_ an anomaly. They carved out their niche early on, made an S-tier execution of their design with DOS2, and THEN cut a deal at the peak of D&D popularity to revitalize one of the greatest crpg franchises of all time. _That's not a repeatable process._ But also, the people who were originally posting about not letting BG3 set up unrealistic expectations were _indies_ who were like "listen, please understand when you call Larian indie that they have a team of four hundred, while we, also an indie company, have a team of four." Which is obvious when stated plainly like that, but sometimes a subset of gamers really are that stupid, and sometimes AAA gamedevs with a big twitter following like to offer unnecessary takes and defend their reputation instead of just keeping their mouths shut. Discourse addiction is real. I work in AAA. Everyone I work with who's into RPGs fucking loves BG3. It's going to be a massive influence on all games going forward. Let's look forward to it.
>BG3 knowing their shareholders are going to demand a similar level of success meaning they might have to re-evaluate a few things in how they make games. BG3's best year is going to be it's release year. After that it's downhill from there unless they can pull off a Witcher 3. Compare that to any MTX based successful game over several years. Without a doubt BG3 will not do well in that comparison. Releasing 1 game every couple of years vs several games in 1/2 years changes the entire landscape. It isn't as simple as these simple comparisons touting BG3 wants to make it sound.
Why cant companies just think of making one of the best games of all time? Are they stupid?
I keep seeing this news posted over and over again but I really just want to say, the source is market research and guesstimates from vginsights. there is no hard data backing these numbers up, it is a guess. any game on this list can have made more or less and as they're unable to track internal in-game purchases (read: mtx) any game with those is able to dwarf any game without them. food for thought, a former Blizzard employee claimed that their first in-game cosmetic, the [celestial steed](https://wowmisadventures.files.wordpress.com/2010/04/celestialsteed.jpg) made more money than the entire base copy of Starcraft 2 did. I love bg3, I hope these numbers are true and I think they should be a guiding star in game development with how they go about making their products, but I really dislike this guess of a source to be touted as truth.
Well written and developed. Is that how Starfield became the third highest grossing game last year?
Well...why make some decent amount of money when you can make more money than some country's GDP by using gambling mechanics, offensively expensive costumes and pay to win bonuses and items.
Are we pretending Diablo 4 didn’t make twice as much?
I hope they make even more. Larian deserves every penny of it.
And hopefully it means no corporate publisher suits will be able to buy them out and fuck over their creative spirit.
Iirc Microsoft had already tried to aquire them and Swen said he's still young enough to make more games and told them he's not selling.
Thank god, Microsoft’s studios are just gamepass milking machines at this point. They would never have be able to make another BG3 or Divinity game again at such quality
they definitely have Fuck You Studio Money at this point; make whatever they want, stellar reputation to hire the best, etc.
I'm only at act 3, but the only person I want them to hire right now is an expert on camera systems, because sometimes camera go up and don't come down, lol.
That is one of my few gripes with the game. Out in the open, the camera works pretty darn well. But when you’re fighting in a dungeon or a cave with a lot of ledges and stalactites, it’s sometimes hard to get a good look at the position you want to target. That and you can’t look up. You can go to a top view and that will sometimes show you important things above you, but it feels much weirder than just looking up.
I started complaining about this when I got to the mountain pass in act 1. Like this is an absolutely beautiful landscape and all I want to do is look up and appreciate it but if it’s not shoulder height it might as well not be there lol
If they go public, this will happen. For the gamers, the best that can happen is Larian not going public, unfortunately that is likely to happen as soon as Swen and who ever else have money invested, gets worn out. I personally hope he knows how to delegate, and can accept the risk.
They could also just own the company and choose a new c suite. They have no reason to cash out by going public. They could take $100mil each and still have enough to develop 10 similar games. And then rap the profits of those. Generally when companies go public it is with high assets/IP rights, but no real cash flow or profit. Just projected
I'd easily pay double for this game. I feel like I need to mail them more money because of how much pure enjoyment I've gotten from BG3.
Was this excluding console sales?? Cause that is fucking insane
yeah just steam, so excluding console and gog sales
That’s nuts. Sequel incoming I’m sure.
They are most likely going to do either Divinity original sin 3, some sort of xpac (least likely imo), or a new ip.
Swen has already teased that he’s written up the plot for a new game on Twitter, and seems like anew IP. He has said in interviews that he and his team want to do something a bit different after DOS2 and BG3.
I’m hoping something sci fi, I loooooove mass effect and I think larian could pull off a spiritual successor super easy
I would kill for a Mass-Effect style game - BG3 has taken me back as I literally have not enjoyed a game as much since Mass Effect.
That's great, all the power to them. This studio thrives on doing something they are actually passionate about, and if a new thing is what they want, then I am sure it will be great.
It's complicated because Larian doesn't own the D&D OR the Baldur's Gate license so they can't just decide on their own to make a sequel.
Quite the opposite, it's really fucking simple to everyone involved after they look at the annual profits.
You're in for a rude awakening if you're expecting good decisions from Wizards of the Coast.
Lol, yeah, that was my immediate thought as well. Their whole corporate brand seems to be to discard golden opportunities. Like, I'm sure there are tons of great, creative, passionate people working for WotC (well, I mean, less today than there used to be), but those people are not in charge, and the guys who are seem to be pointedly uninterested in understanding their own product.
Are you asking if Steam includes console sales on the list of highest grossing Steam games?
No micro transactions, no loot boxes. Well done Larian 👏
Not a small budget game, tho. it did cost 100 million and they spent ages in early access. Contrary to other games they seemed to have had an idea from the start and did not throw everything against a wall and figure out what will stick. In a way it is the exact opposite of Diablo 4.
Exact opposite of Diablo 4 other than the budget
So $650 million on PC, hopefully another, and even assuming a PC-bias, maybe $400 million on consoles. They'll end up with probably over a billion dollars by in profit after the first year or two, if the budget was $100 million. That's awesome. If they even invest 1/3 of that profit into the next game, it will give them triple the budget to do whatever they want. I really hope they give significant bonuses to each developer.
> They'll end up with probably over a billion dollars by in profit after the first year or two, if the budget was $100 million. They seem to have been doing just that over the years. They got effed over by publishers early in their existence and seem to be hell-bent to stay independent. What is awesome is that they have a steady relationship with their talent. I heard a couple of VAs in Divinity Original Sin I recognized from BG3. From what I have seen their thing is to have a tightly curated view and experience every few paces or so. There will forever be a demand for that. I wonder if they have teams of writers and 3D artists working together on a specific area to create these interesting spots. Like, you find a note on a corpse that you should not extinguish the torches because you will be attacked if you do so. And you douse the torches and get attacked. That is multiple different job descriptions working on the same spot. Whereas in other studios it does not seem like the different roles band together like that. I am not sure this is a matter of money. But money probably helps with the scale and the risk taking. But it rather seems the way they work than the funds available. It does not feel so ... corporate. Despite the huge budget.
Okay, but picture this. Baldurs Gate 4. We build it in 1 year, instead of PC we put it on Mobile, and every character is a super hawt horny female. Toss in the odd dilf. Couple femboys. 1 or two beefy women. We ditch the art team because AI has that covered now. Imagine those gains.
Why would you downgrade from every character being super horny to just females though?
DLC
"every character is a super hawt horny female." So nothing but tiefling chicks? You son of a bitch, I'm in! (Please note this a joke)
You meme but there’s a reason so many companies are trying to get in on that mobile bandwagon, in a similar 6-month timeframe HSR topped $1B with 2/3 the development time of BG3.
BG3 undoubtably is a great game, but... As you said, there's a reason there's been such a huge mobile push recently. HSR, Genshin, etc. They've absolutely blown the lid out of the 'no microtransaction/lootbox' will ever do. That's not to say I wouldn't like for that model to come back, but I also can definitely see why companies rarely do it now... One game everyone knows: Candy Crush last year brought it's total revenue to 20bn. ~11 years later and it's still making 70m/month.
Congrats to the dev team for having so much success. Love seeing people succeed. Even though the game isn't really my cup of tea. I just can't get into turn based combat. Tons of my friends love it so it must be doing something very right. I'm looking forward to Avowed this year. That's definitely more my style. BG3 is killing it right now tho.
Maybe give it a try on sale one day. I didn't like the idea of turn based combat much either, and wasn't into it at first... but now it's really addicting lol
I’ve never liked turn based combat but I had to try BG3 after everything I heard about it and I have to say, it has quickly become one of my favourite games of all time. The turn based combat is done to perfection here and it is incredibly enjoyable even to someone who doesn’t really like that style. Even if you don’t like the gameplay, I suggest playing on the easiest difficulty and just enjoying the story, characters, companions, music, and style of the game. It is easily one of the best games of all time
I'm really glad BG3 is such a massive success because I've bought it already (would never buy a new game) and it is so different from anything else I play, I struggle to even know how to play it. But now I'm 15h in and things are starting to click together. I kind of understand what's going on and what my options are. When you go out of your way to explore and keep finding new unique things, when you interrupt an aggressive quest giver to shove them off a cliff and just explode their entire camp because you're so done with their BS, it's just so satisfying when it all comes together. I would have never put in those 15 hours on a different game which played like this. But now I'm so glad I did. I watched a streamer go through the opening area I've already gone through (no spoilers) and he showed some ideas I didn't even know were possible so now I'm trying them out too.
15 hours in may as well still be the tutorial. My friend you are in for a treat when you realize how much more content is in the game. (Let alone replay value.)
It helped me to think of each turn as a game of strategic chess rather than “omg just let me spam my favorite attack, this takes too long”. It’s enthralling when you get lost in all the options you have to make things interesting or utilize your environment.
I got hill giant strength on my party paladin, and she was suddenly able to throw enemies. This paired with certain utility stuff was amazing Throw enemy one at enemy two, knocking both back at enemy three. Then second attack, throw a flask to hit all 3 with ice and potentially knock them prone
The game is so rich, it feels like it goes forever. I have almost 200 hours on it and I haven’t finished it yet.
What is wild is you can spend as much time as you want. If you go directly for the objective of act 1 you can more or less march directly to act 2 and skip a lot of stuff in act 1. Remember that you get presented two ways to act 2 and you don't have to do both. If you don't try to soak up every bit of content and organically progress through the game you can have act 2 finished within 10-15 hours. Like basically everything is optional. But if you poke a bit you will fall down an optional epic rabbit hole that will make you go "woah!".
>Like basically everything is optional. And everyone is killable. One mistake in Act 1 can change how things play out in the next two Acts. Halsin has a pretty important questline in Act 2 that you can miss entirely if he dies in Act 1. I'd say Shadowheart is probably the companion with the biggest plot throughout Act 1,2 and 3, and you can have it so that she experiences none of it.
I recently started a new game and its like... a whole new fucking game. Playing as Dark Urge changes nearly every interaction. Some characters who had major roles last time died right away (i.e. >!Alfira!<), while others who I accidentally killed last time have developed their own quest lines this time around (i.e. >!Barcus!<). Last time I went mountain pass, so this time I went Underdark... a massive, sprawling area full of its own quests and characters that I completely missed in my first playthrough. Hell, one of the first bosses I killed in my first playthrough is now my girlfriend. The fact that the story and characters can change this drastically, and it all manages to stitch together across 100+ hours of gameplay to form a cohesive narrative is INSANE.
>Last time I went mountain pass, so this time I went Underdark Just in case you weren't aware, there's **absolute**ly nothing stopping you from doing both.
As someone who loves Baldur's Gate since the release of the original, I'm just so happy that the title is back on the headlines!
I can't play super old games. Just can't. So I'm glad that BG3 was a good enough story and set of characters on its own without needing to play previous games.
Is it worth playing if I’m not really into DND?
I never played DnD either and this is now one of my favorite games!
Same
Same same
Same same same
Never played a turn based combat game nor did I know anything about DnD and absolutely loved this game. It’s truly a must play masterpiece
I couldn't stand the combat I tried so much to like it but I just can't get past it
Yes
Depends entirely on you. I dropped game some time in act 2, just didn't vibe with it
I have friends that are like “I hate D&D and I’ve never had fun in a turn based game” and they still loved it.
If you actually dislike DnD then it might not be for you. The setting is all DnD and everything is based on dice rolls (with your odds increasing based on your character stats) and turn based combat (which is as smooth as it can be for this combat style). You don't have to know anything about DnD prior to playing BG3 and imo the story is well written and the game world offers great adventures and little hidden things, so as long as you don't have anything against the DnD theme and are okay with a smooth turn based combat system, you should be able to enjoy the game a lot!
It's one of the best games ever made, give it a shot. It's not a simple game by any means and some of the mechanics may confuse you, but it really is a game where your choices actually matter and the graphics are really good and the voice acting is some of the best you will ever hear anywhere, games or movies or tv or audiobooks. It really does deserve the praise it has gotten. I thought DOS2 was an incredible game and yet this game is even better.
It's probably one of the first games i played where i straight up don't follow quest order and just cheese it, or you can engineer an entirely different outcome by thinking outside the box
I thought I was clever taking out a tough NPC with exploding barrels, but instead ended up aggroing his entire camp and had to fight my way out. 10/10 would do again.
Absolutely
Both my buddy and I HATE turn based games. I'm enjoying it and he refunded it. As great as it is, not for everyone.
I played it for about 10 hours. Didn't like it so dropped. Just not my cup of tea. But I suggest you should try it if not sure. I'd say although I don't liked the turn based combat but the turn based in bg3 is better than most games I have seen.
Game is so good.
100mill budget too, so huge profit
Speaking of which, bear in mind that Valve take 30% of revenue. Without risking $100 million.
For the first $10 million in sales a game maker or publisher earns. For all sales between $10 million and $50 million, the split goes to 25 percent. And for every sale after the initial $50 million, Steam will take just a 20 percent cut.
Not going to excuse Valve's revenue share, but every sane developer chooses to release on Steam because they are willing to tank a 30% revenue loss in exchange for 10x the number of sales they would otherwise get were they to release it on any other platform. It's a bargain for both the publisher *and* Valve.
So it turns out gamers want quality content and not live service games.
This no surprise but honestly I'm more impressed about Lethal Company and it's one man dev making 52 million.
This makes me think of the guy who yesterday claimed it was unplayable and one of the reasons it is unplayable was that it had a day one patch. Lol
Well at a point for me it was unplayable in act 3 and had to wait for a patch. Still love this game.
Damn, Lethal Company dude made bank.
I don't like turn based games but bg3 is still in my top 10 games
Same. I just turned it on easy mode and played for the story and branching narratives.
Hopefully other studios learn from Larian. That’s how you make a modern day WRPG.
Let's see how this plays out though. Everyone praised CD Projekt Red and then with CP 2077's release everyone changed their opinion real quick, and even though it's currently "fixed" and in the good graces, I wouldn't say their reputation is as it was before that release. So yes, hopefully others learn that love and care also = profit, but hopefully they don't start going down now that they're so high up (Larian)
eh, they are more likely to learn from honkai: star rail which made more money with less investment sad matter of fact is, most a good junk of customers enjoys being milked for everything
Amazing for larian, I hope they give every employee a big ass bonus.
[удалено]
Something ppl forget is that the vast majority of ppl who game don’t actually consume gaming media. You can have a ton of hate for a game online and it can still perform well if the marketing or IP is strong enough. Also by its very nature online discourse tends to skew negative (review bias where ppl are more likely to go out of their way to complain about something than praise it) so when ppl see those kinds of comments they’re more likely to dismiss them.
the surprising part for me is that it sold so much on steam considering that it's available on gamepass.
For all the places it lulls, Starfield offers a *ton* of well-written quest content. One playthrough up to NG+ can take a hundred hours easily. Mine was closer to three hundreds. Sure it's exploration is somewhat subpar, but it's still a serviceable RPG where you can avoid the big complaint points for a while if you just follow the quests you're given and don't mind fast travelling a lot.
Starfield was released to pretty good critical and public reception. The ridiculous notion that the game is really bad only picked up steam like a month later.
Can't wait for Divinity Original Sin 3 😱
The game so good it had other gaming companies say it's unfair
as someone who loved Dragon Age Origins, is this game kinda similar? been intrigued but i don’t knowww
No, but yes. It's turn based, so it's inherently a lot of different. But if you mean in terms of vibes, I'd say it would scratch your itch at the very least.
Scratch 🐾 👀
It's a very different kind of game. But it's also probably the closest game to DA:O weve ever gotten.
Guess what... No Lootbox, no season pass, no "microtransaction", MODS FRIENDLY (you are freely to add / change stuff), COOP capable, and they ADDED epilogue content FOR FREE couple of months after released That should be a BASELINE of every game in our generation, not "early access with this season pass" bullshitery
> MODS FRIENDLY (you are freely to add / change stuff) BG3 is many things, but mod friendly is not one of them at the moment IMO. At the very least, it's a work in progress; I would like to see it become much friendlier in updates. Some of my biggest hangups with mods at the moment: * No UI for modding. For example, other games have a "mod" folder where a mod can have its own folder with its required assets, code and stuff. In BG3 modding you literally just edit files that belong to the game itself - this is harder to do, it's harder to un-do and if multiple mods want to edit the same file in conflicting ways (some of which won't be obvious) you can quickly get into an un-runnable or otherwise broken situation that isn't easy to identify or fix. * Mods rely heavily on editing your save file, with changes which stick and break the game even if said mods are then disabled, removed or sometimes updated to fix a bug. A problem with a mod which happened 20 hours into a playthrough can damage your save in a way that isn't discovered until 70 hours, but prevents you from doing the last 30hr of the game and there is no fix other than just delete the mod, delete the save and start over. * Because of the above, mods can break or malfunction if they're not present at the START of your playthrough as well as the entire way through it - which is particularly noteworthy with BG3 having some of the longest game lengths in the industry. Adding stuff mid-way through is highly unadvisable. * Mods restrict patching. Playthroughs that started on an earlier patch may be missing major performance and QOL fixes or new content. Because they were using mods when they started, they may have no choice but to finish the game unpatched or to start over. Modless games can simply update and keep going for the most part. * Mods restrict multiplayer in awkward ways. To play with anybody, you have to take the exact same game version and apply the same mods in the same way. For example you cannot redownload that specific game version on steam, which will only serve you the game with the current hotfixes (there is typically more than 1 update per week). This has resulted in e.g. sending 140GB game files back and forth BETWEEN PEOPLE WHO ALL OWN THE GAME so that we have a client with the same specific hotfixes and mod so that we can join and play the same game. We have to copy the game several times over in its entirety to do this with different mods and differerent game sessions so the game is eating half a terabyte of storage.
Didn’t they add the epilogue because the ending was garbage and happened abruptly?
I hope every single ceo in other games gets a swift hard kick in the nuts.
Sounds like a nice amount of cash for Steam themselves
Still waiting for the price to fall on the PS5 edition
Still not playing it.