What would you think if Larian makes Arcanum 2 next?

[VerSacrum]

just imagine if BAizuo game journos discover about how Arcanum portrait Gnomes.

Or edited photographs of CSA generals as player/NPC portraits
Or edited NSDAP posters
Or the "wheel clan" dwarves using a swastika as clan symbol

etc.

 

[Nikanuur]

What I think is I'd get permabanned from Steam forums very quickly

God of Gaming forbids them from getting their brutally clownish claws on this magic-meets-steampunk jewel. Virgil would've been remade a lizard necro-lesbian searching for his gendernalia, fireballs would leave surfaces, and instead of an almost noir-like atmosphere, we'd have half-ogres delicately clutching roses while listening to Britain's Got Talent Tier C level of love song praised by the community as if Mozart and Beethoven's baby's got resurrected.

 

[Serus]

If it contains sex with bears and, hopefully, other animals, I would be ecstatic. Imagine the amount of butthurt on the Codex. And it would be the righteous, well deserved kind of butthurt - makes for best threads!

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Follow Tim's original plan: make it Fallout 3 with flintlock pistols.

 

[deuxhero]

Follow Tim's original plan: make it Fallout 3 with flintlock pistols.

Spoiler

Spoiler

Yes, I know it's a caplock in 76

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

there you have it. todd-sama... i kneel...

 

[Froila]

It will be Arcanum with good combat and bad writing. Something like a compliment to original game. Arcanum′.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

 

[luj1]

Whatever they make it's probably going to be the same engine, so expect cinematic rubbish.

 

[jaekl]

I would think that it's time to kill everyone in Belgium

 

[Cologno]

What I think is I'd get permabanned from Steam forums very quickly

God of Gaming forbids them from getting their brutally clownish claws on this magic-meets-steampunk jewel. Virgil would've been remade a lizard necro-lesbian searching for his gendernalia, fireballs would leave surfaces, and instead of an almost noir-like atmosphere, we'd have half-ogres delicately clutching roses while listening to Britain's Got Talent Tier C level of love song praised by the community as if Mozart and Beethoven's baby's got resurrected.

Add to that all the meme shit to market to the BG3 base, influencers, and the Reddit crowd (though, IDK, that place is dying off and becoming irrelevant). Sven might turn himself into a pussy again to sell the thing.

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

inb4 its just tim cain

 

[lukaszek]

looking at dos1 -> dos2 -> bg3, larian kept butchering their crafting system.
As thing stand I cant imagine them adding a lot of clutter to already horrible inventory ui and introduce structured recipes in horrible console like ui that we currently have.

However, maybe its an opportunity to fix one of their weak points?

Also gentlemen you keep forgetting that arcanum didnt have toilets in their world, something that larian would fix for sure

 

[502]

I'd expect sheep sex, bear sex, golden bear sex... Plus lazy storytelling through "funny" item descriptions.

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Wouldn't they go for a new Ultima?

 

[Cat Headed Eagle]

Wouldn't they go for a new Ultima?

Do you think they'd add Lord British and Swen as killable NPCs?

 

[Feyd Rautha]

Why not?

 

[Skinwalker]

Must they rape EVERYTHING?!

Arcanum was kind of pro-modernism and proto-woke to begin with, lots of RAYCISM IS TERRIBLE and MUH FAKE RELIGION themes in the game. I can only imagine to what depths of propagandizing THE MESSAGE this would be taken in the hands of woke studios like Latrine or Foulcrap.

Of course, the (((gnomes))) side-plot would be the first thing to never be mentioned or acknowledged.

 

[Hydro]

For some weird reason I don’t find this to be that bad of an idea. That would require them going into the territory of being subtle though, which in turn would require Larian to fire 75 percent of their staff including Swen Vinke. Other than this they should be fine and surely will elevate the visual side of the universe.

 

[luj1]

I doubt anyone could replicate such a bleak, melancholic version of steampunk. No way in these SJW times. Maybe some solodev with passion.

 

[Gibson]

What would you think if Larian makes Arcanum 2?

 

[luj1]

Imagine Larian's goofy touch on something like Arcanum lol. Swen Cucke should have a skill called "Teletubby touch" - immediately renders any IP to use E rating

 

[Peachcurl]

My immediate response to this would be to make sure to get cremated after death, lest some Belgian guy spoil my corpse.

 

[v1c70r14]

Arcanum was kind of pro-modernism and proto-woke to begin with, lots of RAYCISM IS TERRIBLE and MUH FAKE RELIGION themes in the game.

Liberal, you're smarter than this. I'm not saying the developers weren't making the game with some of these intentions or mindset, although according to Tim Cain many developers didn't fully agree on what they were doing and didn't share the same vision and that's how you got so many different themes in there. Troika was located in California after all, so no, I'm not going to say you're entirely wrong. What you lack is nuance.

Let us examine your take on the religion as depicted in Arcanum for example. There are altars which you can visit and get tangible boons from, there are sorcerers that have a highly developed cosmology and a system of functioning magic, you can literally speak with the souls of the dead. So as far as all that is concerned it's not a materialistic setting. What you probably have in mind instead is the Panarii religion that you get tangled up in, where it is revealed the guy you're supposedly a reincarnation of is actually still alive and what he said at the time was ritualized and misunderstood over time until thought divine. Maybe that's fedora tipping, or maybe that's Lucius Caecilius Firmianus some three hundred years after the death of Christ writing about the pagan gods being kings that were deified. Was he a modern? There is objective and measurable good and evil in this setting, that plays into game mechanics, without the superfluous order and law dimension of D&D, and the villain or potential nemesis turned ally, goes on a gnostic rant about how manifestation is inherently evil and how he found this to be the case after descending into the Hades or Hell/Heaven of the setting.

The issue of racism is likewise not very straightforward. Some races have higher INT than others, for example, and the game tends to portray racial archetypes, even if there might be a twist or two on that, so as not to have us suffer bland characters. Like the dwarf companion Magnus that is alienated from his people due to urbanisation, but at the end of the day is a dwarf first. I remember that the first time I played the game I left a quest alone for long enough, and I think it was Tarant that had been laid waste by Orcs, and they had mass murdered everyone. Dark elves are evil, orcs are stupid but strong, gnomes are really plotting and scheming, Humans were all White. Of course there are stances presented within the game against racial tribalism, but that does also go with the period, I don't know if you've read many books from the Victorian era, but that's not anachronistic. It's more of a problem that with the benefit of hindsight, looking at what London for example turned out like, or even California, after following these humanist and progressive egalitarian principles to their logical end led to, you now find it unpalatable.

But isn't that what the game is all about? It's your Tolkien-esque fantasy world at dawn of an industrial age with all of what that entails, and the shrines to the old gods lie forgotten in the dark corners of the world. It's a world of displaced dwarves and orcs and of fading magic. Tarant the cosmopolitan urban metropolis thrives even as a large part of the city is falling into criminality with racial gangs in its slums, meanwhile Dernholm is falling into neglect, with its armoured knights and more feudal way of life, the world of Tolkien dying out and being replaced with rationalized and efficient living. But towards the end of your adventure you've already seen what lies waiting no matter how much progress there is, when you visit the sunken ruins of Vendigroth, laying buried in the inhospitable sands, echoing the buzzling streets of Tarant but now silent, faded and rotting newspapers spelling their fate.

Arcanum isn't a game about religion being fake, or racism being bad, it has so much more heart and soul than that.

 

[Skinwalker]

Skinwalker, you're smarter than this. I'm not saying the developers weren't making the game with some of these intentions or mindset, although according to Tim Cain many developers didn't fully agree on what they were doing and didn't share the same vision and that's how you got so many different themes in there. Troika was located in California after all, so no, I'm not going to say you're entirely wrong. What you lack is nuance.

Explains the shizo plot that bounces you around between twenty different mystaries that all get abruptly cut and redirected to something else. It's like the aftermath of a writers' battle royale. Oh, and the final conclusion? Muh morally gray super-sekrit villain who wants to DESTROY ALL LIFE IN THE WORLD coz muh suffering or something.

There's a reason that the specifics of Arcanum's plot are not as fondly remembered as that of Fallout, Planescape, or even Baldur's Gate. Or VTM:B, for that matter. There's a lot of good stuff in there... just blended together with a bunch of preachy liberal bullshit.