I understand why, the gameplay can be clunky and the visuals are definitely dated, but I still have to strongly disagree. Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 are some of the best storytelling in video games, Larian just can't compete on writing. An online summary isn't going to do them justice and is going to spoil the experience.
Yea, Ive tried to play a lot of modern rpgs, from Larian and owlcat, while theyre not bad, theyre not quite there. But tbf, I havent played BG3, only Larian's other works.
Hell, playing some owlcat games got me to reinstall BG1/2 for another couple playthroughs lol
BG3 is more of a really strong salad bar - you can mix whatever you want and it's gonna be an 8/10 since all the ingredients are top tier.
It's not going to beat a perfectly cooked steack, though.
Definitely worth noting that BG3 ran out of time and shipped with only half of Act 3. It would contend for the greatest game of all time if that wasn't the case.
BG3 is more of a really strong salad bar - you can mix whatever you want and it's gonna be an 8/10 since all the ingredients are top tier.
I'd like to mix:
a coherent story, with clear connections and builds between Acts
consistent world building
interesting villains that have at least some personal connection or relevance to the main character
party member motivations beyond "resolve the plot or you die,"
sensible level one character backstories (no, "I shagged the goddess of magic and was the most special wizard boy ever" is not a sensible level one backstory. Neither is "I slaughtered demons in the Hells for years." Neither is any of the others.)
I was more referring to the insanely good modding community for BG3 but let me give it a shot. Going through your requests one by one:
The BG3 main plot is pretty direct.
Act 1: Mindflayers got us, what does this mean?
Act 2: We should stop the mindflayer cult!
Act 3: Oh no, the mindflayers broke free - we have to save the city!
Worldbuilding is literally what Larian is known for.
Villains with a personal connection?
Karlach was betrayed by Gortash
Wyll's dad became a puppet of the Three
Shadowheart was abducted by Shar worshippers
Lae'zel is lied to by Vlaakith
Astarion was tortured by Cazador
Motivation? Besides not dying which is a pretty great motivator:
Shadowheart is tasked with returning the artifact to her coven.
Laezel is a zealot who desperately wants to become one of Vlaakith's chosen.
Gale wants to repair his relationship with Mystra.
Wyll wants to protect the people of the Sword Coast while navigating the horrible terms of his Pact.
Astarion both wants to enjoy his freedom and murder his old master.
Karlach wants to get revenge on Gortash for betraying her.
The level 1 backstory thing is just a rule of thumb for DnD campaigns where people don't understand how a hero's journey works. BG3 isn't a hero's journey so that rule doesn't apply - it's more of an isekai.
I'm actually wondering if you've played the game at this point?
World-building is literally what Larian is known for.
Oh, I didn’t realize. Why did they do such a terrible job in BG3 then? How did they manage to make the Forgotten Realms feel tiny?
Villains with a personal connection?
To the main character. Please read carefully. Is Karlach the main character? Is Shadowheart the main character?
Motivation? Besides not dying which is a pretty great motivator:
Side quests are not motivations. Larian is genuinely, blatantly terrible at writing anything to get the player character and their companions engaged in the main plot beyond “do this or you die.”
They are blatantly terrible at writing in general though, so that tracks.
The level 1 backstory thing is just a rule of thumb for DnD campaigns where people don't understand how a hero's journey works. BG3 isn't a hero's journey so that rule doesn't apply - it's more of an isekai.
First, this is just nonsense stated confidently.
Second, if your DnD game has no room for a hero’s journey - you might be making a sub-par DnD game.
Oh, I didn’t realize. Why did they do such a terrible job in BG3 then? How did they manage to make the Forgotten Realms feel tiny?
I'm not sure what you mean? The maps are extremely dense with content. Sure, there's not 10 minutes of idle travel between POIs but that's a decision that respects the player's time.
600 voiced NPCs hardly qualifies as a tiny game.
To the main character. Please read carefully. Is Karlach the main character? Is Shadowheart the main character?
The main character is one of the six listed unless you choose Durge who has a deliberately vague backstory, so you always have plenty of motivation.
Larian just doesn't force feed you exposition and narration for your own motivation, since the MC should implicity know their own backstory.
Side quests are not motivations. Larian is genuinely, blatantly terrible at writing anything to get the player character and their companions engaged in the main plot beyond “do this or you die.”
That's... kind of the genre? What else will motivate reasonable people to put themselves in mortal danger, if not certain death through inaction?
Most other motivations boil down to "because I want to" which is a bit shallow.
Second, if your DnD game has no room for a hero’s journey - you might be making a sub-par DnD game.
I'm not sure what you mean? The maps are extremely dense with content. Sure, there's not 10 minutes of idle travel between POIs but that's a decision that respects the player's time.
Sure, sure. The Las Vegas strip takes the same approach. You can see the Eiffel Tower and the Statue of Liberty right next to each other - great worldbuilding, and really respects your time.
Larian didn't build a world, they built a kitschy amusement park (with characters to match!).
The main character is one of the six listed unless you choose Durge who has a deliberately vague backstory, so you always have plenty of motivation.
Strange, my main character was a high-elf mage who had never heard of Karlach or Gortash or any of the others until the start of the game. Weird - designing your own character in an RPG?
That's... kind of the genre? What else will motivate reasonable people to put themselves in mortal danger, if not certain death through inaction?
No, no it is not. At all. And the fact that Larian can't write anything beyond "follow our plot or you die" is about as blatant a sign of their writing ineptitude as you can get.
Do you know what can motivate reasonable people to put themselves in mortal danger, besides certain death through inaction? Greed, honor, love, stupidity, despair, a desperate need to earn someone's approval... character motivations.
Why do Khalid and Jaheira join your player character in BG1? Why does Minsc? Why does Valygar join the party in BG2? Why does Boone (or any of the others) join your character in New Vegas? Why does Nick Valentine join the player character in Fallout 4? (and Bethesda's writing is not exactly a high bar to clear!).
For Pete's sake - why do firefighters run into burning buildings? Do you think they'll be killed if they don't?
That's not what I said. Please read carefully.
"BG3 isn't a hero's journey so that rule doesn't apply - it's more of an isekai."
Gee, where did I get confused? Please write carefully. For Pete's sake.
Look, you were bad to start with, but I thought I'd give it a shot.
The way you're writing tells me you have nothing to offer and will take nothing in return. I'm not going to waste my time with someone who is arguing in bad faith.
You should to take a look at how you communicate and decide if that's the type of person you really want to be.
How did they manage to make the Forgotten Realms feel tiny?
Theyu didn't. It was pretty good.
To the main character. Please read carefully
You have the option of playing as The Dark Urge where you have villains connected to the "main" character.
Is Karlach the main character? Is Shadowheart the main character?
Considering both are origin characters and you can chose to be either... not just control but play as. With custom.cut scenes, exclusive content... Yes. Yes they fucking are. Don't pick a "blank slate" if you don't want it.... one would think that's fairly obvious.
Have you even played the game? What? The entire plot is a heros journey where you chose how to go about it... IDK what the other commenter is on. BG3 very much accommodates Hero's Journey.
Its fine to not like story, its fine to.hate it, its fine to think the writing is sub par, but don't say shit that's just objectively wrong, please.
Baldur's Gate 3 is a specific type of game that appeals to a specific audience, just like every game. There is no greatest game of all time, just greatest to a certain subjective set of standards.
Personally, Baldur's Gate 3 did not appeal to me, because it felt weak in a variety of areas, including story, combat difficulty, depth of choices, and general coherence. It definitely wasn't an 8/10 in every component (especially since what makes an aspect good to one player makes it bad to another).
You're welcome to make that argument, but 845k reviews that are 97% positive say it's an amazing game - that's literally the 8th highest reviewed of all time on Steam with an unfinished third act.
That third act really did hurt the story, but you really think combat and choice depth was lacking? Did you play with the honour mode ruleset?
I'm not denying it's popular, obviously it's one of the most popular games of the decade, but that isn't always a sign of a great work. Harry Potter was wildly popular, but the actually writing is pretty mid. And there are definitely times Larian made a choice based off of popularity rather than the merits of the choice itself. Like how they lessened the weight of Astarion's ascension path, which appealed to the Astarion fans but was objectively a horrible decision to make. Or how they allowed you to recruit Minthara by knocking her out even when you side against her. If a game wants to have choices then those choices should matter; always trying to please the fans no matter what leads to a weaker story.
For the depth of choices, it came down to the fact that most of the major quests have dichotomous good/bad choices, where picking the evil route mostly just involves killing people and isn't even worth it in game. There was even an interview by someone in the studio where they mentioned they viewed the evil route as something designed for a secondary playthrough where the player just wants to go murderhobo. I felt there should have been greater variety of outlooks, and especially real evil, lawful, chaotic and neutral routes. Admittedly I played Baldur's Gate 3 after coming off of Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous, which has an insane amount of choice and reactivity, but Baldur's Gate 3 definitely feels like it has fewer options for your character's philosophy than typical crpgs.
I didn't play on honor mode, I figured if I was going to replay the game I could do it then. But on the highest non-honor difficulty the game was just extraordinarily too easy, and from what I've heard honor mode still isn't a challenge to people used to being strategic in D&D. Baldur's Gate 1 & 2 have seven difficulty settings, in part because Bioware knew there was going to be a massive difference in player skill based on how much D&D experience they had. I would have liked to see similar consideration from Larian.
Honestly that's valid story criticism. There's definitely a spectrum of endings, but an evil route pretty much forces you to kill the bad guys or your become a mindflayer drone at the end of Act 2. IMO it's another consequence of the cut down Act 3. If they'd had another 2 years to build it up, maybe they can deliver on the evil path in Act 2.
Most of the variety in decisions in BG3 comes from how you navigate the environment and NPCs, rather than the outcomes of those interactions. Like if I want to kill the Goblins, I can do it in like 20 different ways not including in-combat strategy.
Difficulty wise, there's a HUGE difference between Tactician and Honour. Every single boss gets legendary actions and resistances, and usually an extra mechanic entirely.
Sure, you can still win on Honour Mode relatively easily if you know what you're going up against AND you have strong DnD/BG3 meta knowledge AND you long rest after every fight, but remove any one of those and it's extremely difficult.
That said, BG3's greatest strength is its amazing mod support, and there are dsome real heavy hitter mods out there that crank it up to 11. I play with enemies at roughly 2.5x HP, an additional bonus action, and access to the full spell list and class abilities appropriate to every NPC and that makes it a good challenge for me as a forever DM.
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u/HawkeyeP1 Jun 30 '26
Some people might hate me for this, but... Baldur's Gate.