←back to thread

400 points redbell | 1 comments | | HN request time: 0.215s | source
Show context
mastax ◴[] No.37023856[source]
I am a bit shocked by how popular this game is. All the signs were there, though.

- Their previous game Divinity: Original Sin 2 was critically acclaimed, very popular for a pretty hardcore CRPG, and had long legs.

- DnD has a lot of brand power and has been strongly in the zeitgeist for years.

- There's a big cohort of millennials who have strong nostalgia for Baldur's Gate and who have plenty of money to buy games (if not time to play them).

- The Early Access release for this game was wildly popular beyond the developer's expectations, and maintained interest for years.

I definitely underestimated the brand power of DnD and Baldur's Gate because they aren't very important to me, personally. But also there have been a load of really good CRPGs in recent years and there seemed to be a pretty low ceiling to how much interest they could get. Tyranny, Pillars of Eternity, Pathfinder: Kingmaker, and a few others were amazing and beloved CRPG games but were lucky to have a tenth of the success of BG3. But those games were generally less accessible, mostly not multiplayer, and again lacked the brand power.

replies(23): >>37023935 #>>37023996 #>>37024117 #>>37024205 #>>37024275 #>>37024405 #>>37024425 #>>37024476 #>>37024623 #>>37024928 #>>37025022 #>>37025366 #>>37025806 #>>37025829 #>>37026174 #>>37026708 #>>37026774 #>>37026886 #>>37026934 #>>37028214 #>>37030086 #>>37033309 #>>37036777 #
jakebasile ◴[] No.37023935[source]
I like the CRPG genre a lot, but I think one reason that BG3 is taking off is that it _looks_ like a modern AA(A?) game while the rest look basically like Baldur's Gate did in 1998. BG3 lets you see the world in a lot more detail and it helps immerse you in Faerûn.

Many people will claim "graphics don't matter", but the reality is that they do help.

replies(3): >>37024019 #>>37024446 #>>37025645 #
flohofwoe ◴[] No.37024019[source]
TBH it looks and especially feels much more like a reskinned Divine Divinity OS2 with DnD rules implanted than BG1 and BG2 (which isn't necessarily a bad thing of course, but I don't feel a lot of BG1 and BG2 nostalgia when playing BG3, instead I'm constantly reminded of OS2).

PS: One thing that is a lot better than in BG1 and BG2 is that combat with low-class characters feels a lot more interesting. Not sure how much of this is because of the ADnD vs DnD5 rules or whether Larian has added some tweaks to the DnD5 rules.

replies(5): >>37024083 #>>37025414 #>>37026113 #>>37029295 #>>37032373 #
theoriginaldog ◴[] No.37032373[source]
And yet the graphics are obviously better and more immersive than BG 1 and 2. Of course they build their technology from their previous games, but it doesn't change the fact that most other CCRPGs are less immersive for most gamers. I am pretty confident that high fidelity 3D graphics attract more gamers than isometric 2D, no matter if these look like the studios previous game.
replies(1): >>37032767 #
1. flohofwoe ◴[] No.37032767[source]
TBF, BG3 is still at its core a top-down "feels-like-an-isometric-camera" game, this is still the best solution for managing a whole party of characters, especially in combat (unlike Witcher3 for instance, which has a traditional 3rd-person camera - but has no party to manage).