Game News Baldur's Gate 3 now available on Early Access

[Jedi Exile]

Baldur's Gate 3 is available on Steam and GOG for a full $60, a price tag that was apparently not high enough to prevent the game from crashing Steam due to its popularity.

I, for one, welcome our new BioWare Larian overlords.

 

[Junmarko]

Playing an Early Access game through Stadia.

 

[ArchAngel]

Only good thing I have seen from watching it on Twitch is that Larian decided to fix conversations by removing thinking options and give us real sentences.

 

[Ausdoerrt]

Some people need to learn how Early Access works, at least for Larian. If D:OS EA is anything to go by, what we're seeing now is veeeery different from the final product. And most people treat it like it's a full release :smh:

Yea, the engine is D:OS2, so it's not gonna win over any DOS haters. However, the system itself is quite different, so it's just presentation. Or is the Codex judging games on visuals over gameplay these days?

Oh, and while the guy from Ars Technica gets extra points for being edgy, most of his actual complaints are idiotic, so there's that.

They'll be going after the legions of Critical Role fans and hipster "nerds" with this. Such people have zero interest in the originals.

Which makes complete commercial sense, as there's probably several times more of these people than fans of original BG / IE games. And the game does try hard to capture the tabletop feel.

 

[Elwro]

"Immediately after recruiting the rogue, you encounter three distressed, stranded fisherfolk who believe they're excavating an injured child from rubble. The "child" is an Illithid who is mind-controlling them—and if you want them to believe you, you'll need to pass a rather difficult Charisma check. If you pass the check, they express shock, loathing, and distrust of you before fleeing. If you fail the check, the Illithid convinces them you want the child to die, and it's civilian-murdering time. Yay!"

(from that Ars Technica preview)

Yeah, sounds totally like BG to me ;-)

 

[jac8awol]

100% this - imho stay away from Beamdog in general.

I am really trying to like this game. Started DoS2 again on Monday and it is borderline fraud how similar those two are.
Menus, inventory, loot etc. Found more apples in 30min of BG3 than in BG1/2 combined. They brushed up icons a little and pushed
it out.

Doesn't mean that it is a bad game - but asking 60 Euro for a reskin of DoS2 is a bit much. Their fanboys having a field day at the moment nonetheless.
Companions are very subpar so far, the half-elf lady is ok, but the magician I wanted to kill after 10 seconds. The yellow chick should be green, she is
angry 100% of a time - what a great character.

If I just find so much of a whiff of any SJW shit I am out.

Brother, please keep us posted on the SJW front. I have an extreme allergy to that faggy shit, so I need to know how bad it is. If you catch even the vaguest hint of Orc Lives Matter just level with me.

 

[MrBuzzKill]

Akin to the Total War series, this literal reskin should've been called Original Sin: Baldur's Gate

 

[Delterius]

I do agree that Baldur's Gate was the Original Sin.

 

[luj1]

I really hope, that they ditch any sort of "management crap" that they had in Kingmaker, and just purely focus on the proper game.

Yes, but that's not going to happen, we are going to get an awkward grand strategy hybrid again

I have a feeling even this 1/4th finished bug fest is likely to be more enjoyable than PoE 1.

Not exactly a herculean feat, watching paint dry is more enjoyable than PoE 1

 

[KeighnMcDeath]

100% this - imho stay away from Beamdog in general.

I am really trying to like this game. Started DoS2 again on Monday and it is borderline fraud how similar those two are.
Menus, inventory, loot etc. Found more apples in 30min of BG3 than in BG1/2 combined. They brushed up icons a little and pushed
it out.

Doesn't mean that it is a bad game - but asking 60 Euro for a reskin of DoS2 is a bit much. Their fanboys having a field day at the moment nonetheless.
Companions are very subpar so far, the half-elf lady is ok, but the magician I wanted to kill after 10 seconds. The yellow chick should be green, she is
angry 100% of a time - what a great character.

If I just find so much of a whiff of any SJW shit I am out.

Brother, please keep us posted on the SJW front. I have an extreme allergy to that faggy shit, so I need to know how bad it is. If you catch even the vaguest hint of Orc Lives Matter just level with me.

Wasn't there another press release of making all races equal and dropping negative statistics or penalties?

bah, can't find it.
Old news

ah! FOUND IT.

 

[aratuk]

Shaking my head at the Ars Technica reviewer's sincere, pearl-clutching criticism of the game forcing him to kill innocent NPCs under the influence of an illithid.



If the story doesn't let me play an uncomplicated hero, then I don't want to play!

Combined with his whining about the recruitable NPCs being mean to him, I just don't know how seriously I can take his more substantive criticisms.

 

[V_K]

I just don't know how seriously I can take his more substantive criticisms.

It's a good thing then that there isn't any.

 

[The Bishop]

Baldur's Gate 3 is available on Steam and GOG for a full $60, a price tag that was apparently not high enough to prevent the game from crashing Steam due to its popularity.

I, for one, welcome our new BioWare Larian overlords.

Whether BG3 turns out shit or not, you have to give Larian credit for pushing a real RPG with real character system into the mainstream spotlight. Bioware was happy enough to just make third person shooters with bare bone customization and lots of pointless dialogue.

 

[KevinV12000]

Steam can't delete negative posts in the discussion thread fast enough to stop what is becoming an avalanche.

I'm a huge Larian fan--have every game, liked/loved all of them--but after 5 hours with this it's clear to me that they went in the wrong direction on this one. And, yes, it's early access and unfinished, but I'm talking bedrock game concepts that aren't going to change between now and full release. The setting is bad, the companions are god-awful, and, worse, they wanted to fight off the charge that it was "DOS2 with a BG Mod" so badly that they've needlessly redesigned UI and game concepts that worked great in favor of clunky clutter.

 

[Nihiliste]

Steam can't delete negative posts in the discussion thread fast enough to stop what is becoming an avalanche.

I'm a huge Larian fan--have every game, liked/loved all of them--but after 5 hours with this it's clear to me that they went in the wrong direction on this one. And, yes, it's early access and unfinished, but I'm talking bedrock game concepts that aren't going to change between now and full release. The setting is bad, the companions are god-awful, and, worse, they wanted to fight off the charge that it was "DOS2 with a BG Mod" so badly that they've needlessly redesigned UI and game concepts that worked great in favor of clunky clutter.

Damn I was hoping for a good game, idiot that I am

 

[entr0py]

From the Kotaku review:

"While BG3 is a sequel to genre-defining PC RPG classic Baldur’s Gate 2 in name, it is mechanically and tonally a follow-up to developer Larian’s genre-redefining masterpiece Divinity Original Sin 2. The battle system and granular environmental interactivity of the latter have been modified to fit dice-based Dungeons & Dragons rules, but they nonetheless function extremely similarly to the way they did in Original Sin 2. The first time I spilled a puddle of oil on the ground, causing two powerful enemies to fall on their butts, and decided to commemorate the moment just before I set all of the oil on fire by naming a save file “Mwahahaha,” I knew I was home."

A'ight boys, thats it, when even the shills dare to say its just a reskin....

 

[oneself]

This game is not a continuation of the franchise no matter what they say. Period.

Good. rtwp needs to go.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

The setting is bad, the companions are god-awful

Well duh, it's a Baldur's Gate sequel.

 

[Black]

Game doesn't even start and you already have to choose who you want to fuck
#priorities #decline

 

[aleam iacis]

I put a couple hours into this "early access" pre-release BS. It feels kind of like D:OS with a couple splashes of Neverwinter Nights 1. I couldn't force myself to finish either of those but at least it's not Tyranny mixed with PoE.

 

[Immortal]

This game is essentially Divinity Original Sin 2 in Faerun.
The graphics are slightly better on a technical level.. but the world / area design is a carbon copy of DOS2 ..

Wide open area that you explode from bottom left to top right.. There doesn't appear to be any world map or region wide exploration.
Waypoints let you zip about ala braccus statues. Ect..

I was sorta hoping to See Larians spin on a Baldurs Gate styled game (minus the RTWP) and explore sprawling villages or hoof it in wide open fields.
Also large parts of the map feel just empty.

Still more fun than PoE 1.

 

[Borian]

... BG was properly finished in ToB. The only reason to use BG in the name is for marketing.

How many people really wanted a Baldur's Gate 3? I had no interest in looking into this from the moment it was announced. The necromantic trend of digging up long-dead games to make a buck off the name has discouraged any interest I have in revivals. BG set up its own genre, and these guys don't make games that keep me coming back to them. They're not treading water so much as leveling out the planet to fill the earth with one exact inch of water. There's some irony in there, that this studio gained fame by making spiritual successors to this game's predecessor - a parasocial relationship akin to digging up the grave of an acclaimed writer to post selfies with the bones.

I haven't looked into it once but I'm confident that this won't feel like a Baldur's Gate 2 sequel. This is the age of decline, too, so why should I care about some modern average to better-than-average CRPG-style game when I have decades of other games to play. Why would anything be good

 

[Dr Schultz]

This game is essentially Divinity Original Sin 2 in Faerun.
The graphics are slightly better on a technical level.. but the world / area design is a carbon copy of DOS2 ..

Wide open area that you explode from bottom left to top right.. There doesn't appear to be any world map or region wide exploration.
Waypoints let you zip about ala braccus statues. Ect..

I was sorta hoping to See Larians spin on a Baldurs Gate styled game (minus the RTWP) and explore sprawling villages or hoof it in wide open fields.
Also large parts of the map feel just empty.

Still more fun than PoE 1.

Good thing, considering that "exploring" in the I. E. games essentially mean clearing the black spots of small (and occasionally beautiful) 2d paintings. Not exactly thrilling gameplay...

 

[V_K]

Good thing, considering that "exploring" in the I. E. games essentially mean clearing the black spots of small (and occasionally beautiful) 2d paintings.

Still better than "exploring" in DOS which just means going through linear corridors.

 

[Swen]

Some people need to learn how Early Access works, at least for Larian. If D:OS EA is anything to go by, what we're seeing now is veeeery different from the final product. And most people treat it like it's a full release :smh:

Yea, the engine is D:OS2, so it's not gonna win over any DOS haters. However, the system itself is quite different, so it's just presentation. Or is the Codex judging games on visuals over gameplay these days?

Oh, and while the guy from Ars Technica gets extra points for being edgy, most of his actual complaints are idiotic, so there's that.

They'll be going after the legions of Critical Role fans and hipster "nerds" with this. Such people have zero interest in the originals.

Which makes complete commercial sense, as there's probably several times more of these people than fans of original BG / IE games. And the game does try hard to capture the tabletop feel.

Please stop using common sense and reason, we are on the codex.