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What is up with Baldur's Gate 3?
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this post was submitted on 14 Aug 2023
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See I've been seeing this take in the headlines, but this doesn't seem like enough to me. Folks have been sick of microtransaction-heavy games in the same way for at least 2 years now, and most studios (outside of the ones you listed) have been releasing games that are light on microtransactions. The System Shock Remake is a good comparison point - it was a modern release in a traditionally niche PC genre, it reviewed very well, and to my knowledge it has no DLC. I guess it didn't release on console yet, so maybe that's a key difference?
To be fair, System Shock remake is of incredibly niche interest. (I speak from personal experience being someone who was waiting a long time for it, heh.)
The style of this game hems closer to Dragon Age or Mass Effect in presentation, and those are much more popular game series, by far. So naturally it appeals to fans of those series, of which there are quite large fanbases.
I think that's what I'm gathering - it's that the increased production value has signaled to the mainstream gamer audience that "this is a Mass Effect", and that is a powerful marketing message. The last game of that type was...Dragon Age Inquisition? So yeah, people have been starving for another one of these.
Well damn, I think we solved it. Larian basically reverse-engineered Bioware's origin story, and this release is them fully stepping into old Bioware's shoes.
Quite fitting considering BioWare made Baldurs Gate and Baldurs Gate II before they were acquired by EA and made into a shell of their former glory.
Aside from it just being a very good game (a new game in the all-time top 10 over at Metacritic is going to be news regardless), if you're hanging out in gaming enthusiast discussion a lot, there are a few other things going on that explain why it's generating so much buzz.
It came out at a lull in the release calendar. August isn't typically a hot month for gaming unless you're an NFL fan. It also ended up being a de facto console exclusive, so once the game started blowing up, the usual console war chatter spun up with it.
The other dimension--and one that surprised me--is it fed the "developers vs. gamers" spat to the point where it's been making headlines again. As you've said, one price for admission games have been coming out more, but I think there are some sour grapes around over Larian's successful graduation from AA by way of passion projects. I invite these developers to join in celebrating this release, as the success of games like these are bound to get more of the kind of game they'd rather work on greenlit.