Preview Baldur's Gate 3 Gameplay Reveal, Previews and Interviews

[Infinitron]

Tags: Baldur's Gate 3; Larian Studios; Swen Vincke

Seven months after its announcement, Swen Vincke finally unveiled Baldur's Gate 3 at PAX East today in an extended 85 minute onstage presentation. The game begins with an impressive opening cinematic in which your character escapes from an illithid vessel right after being gruesomely implanted with one of their tadpoles. You wakes up on a beach, and from that point on it becomes what one might have guessed from the screenshots leaked earlier today. Baldur's Gate 3 really is a higher budget Divinity: Original Sin 2, with character origins, exclusively turn-based combat, and dialogue sequences that look like something out of Dragon Age: Inquisition. Combat seems fairly challenging - Swen actually loses his entire party at one point and is forced to restart. The game also seems to have a stronger emphasis on environmental traversal and verticality.

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Soon after the presentation began, the press embargo expired and a whole bunch of websites published their previews and interviews. Here's a list of them:

CNET
Comics Gaming Magazine
Den of Geek
DualShockers (Interview)
Eurogamer (Interview)
Fextralife
Game Informer (Part 2)
GameSkinny
GameSpot (Interview)
Gamepressure
GamesIndustry
GamesRadar+
IGN (Part 2, Part 3)
Kotaku
Mashable
Metro
Mirror
PC Gamer (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)
PCGamesN (Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5)
PCMag
PCWorld
Polygon
RPGSite
Rock Paper Shotgun
Screen Rant
Shacknews (Interview, Part 2, Part 3)
The Mercury News
Tom’s Guide
Trusted Reviews
Twinfinite (Interview)
USgamer (Part 2)
VG247 (Interview, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4)
VentureBeat
Vice
Windows Central
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As many outlets reported this week, Baldur's Gate 3 will be out on Early Access later this year. Of course, we've known about that since Swen revealed it to German GameStar magazine last year. What do you think, folks?

 

[Glaucon]

Feels a bit weird that dialogue options are written as if a player were describing what their character has done.

 

[Kem0sabe]

Same shit zoom out distance from DoS2... this looks barely above a reskin job.

 

[croitav]

What an atrocity!
We went from this in 2000:

https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-HUi-ez4u...cB/s1600/upload+AR0700+waukeens+promenade.jpg

to this abominable 3d shit with rotatable camera 20 years later.

No 2d, no paper dolls, no prerendered gfx, no fixed camera, no rtwp

Hideous 3d gfx and hideous UI
And fucking rotatable camera

 

[polo]

Looks more like Dragon age / nwn than BG tbh.

 

[NJClaw]

Two hours of gameplay: Swen just dies everytime and plays a dozen times the first 10 minutes.

Nice masterplan.

 

[skycycle]

Visually and audio-wise it's quite impressive, but there's some stuff in there that I'm not liking. The clunky UI will be fixed by release, and I can ignore the rotating camera by sticking to fixed isometric view - but those first-person text descriptions are just awful, why would they switch that all of a sudden?

All in all, so far it looks and feels more like a cross between D:OS2 and Dragon Age: Origins than a sequel to BG1/2. Not necessarily a bad thing, mind you, but probably not what many were expecting...

 

[Volourn]

Subpar 'BG' game. At best, it'll be playable, but it will not be as good as BG series, NWN series, DA series, or even TOEE since TOEE - shit story and writing aside - wanted to be D&D. The creatrors of BG3 HATE D&D and believe it sucks. LMAO

 

[Jedi Exile]

I wondered today if Volourn will come back and post something just because it is BG3. And it did happen :D

 

[Reality]

I just had an hour and a half long blackout. Sorry for the inconvenience.

 

[Darkforge]

Turn based so good. Very glad they didn't choose to go with the original RTWP based system that simply does not work in D&D. Ill reserve further judgement until its released.

 

[vorvek]

Everything looked so cartoony. Those explosive waves when jumping, and non magical attacks that look like laser beams really killed the presentation for me. It's a shame, because it looks like it has some fun mechanics.

 

[Zed]

it was very fun watching all the fails and bugs. game looks like a mash between DOS and DA. not super enthusiastic at this point.

 

[Falksi]

BG had a distinct authenticity & charm, largely rooted in it's UI & isometric artwork. That played a huge part in giving the games their distinct "classic" feel & vibe.

This has absolutely none of that at all. Folk are comparing it to DA:O, but it's way more like DA:I in it's modern, bright, bulky, bullshit approach.

A fucking disgrace all round. Awful pacing too. Every real battle & trap seemed to take an age.

 

[Zed]

also gonna be fun seeing all the kids choosing dark goth half-vamp and in the prologue have it revealed that they're fags hahaha
(PC half-vamp says something about seducing a guy the other night)

 

[zaper]

This must be how my parents felt when I was born

 

[zerotol]

it just looks like an expansion for Divinity OS, what in their pov makes this a Baldur's Gate game?

 

[CRD]

Well, this is nothing like Baldur's Gate, not even remotely close. This is divinity 3 with another name, an expansion of DOS2 if you prefer as they even use a lot of assets from the old game.

said that, my mind will call this game DOS3 ignoring anything about BG, and as long it doesn't have the armor system I will have fun playing it.

And to scratch that itch of a more in depth combat system, we will have Pathfinder.

 

[Vapid]

 

[Ausdoerrt]

BG had a distinct authenticity & charm, largely rooted in it's UI & isometric artwork. That played a huge part in giving the games their distinct "classic" feel & vibe.

Well, at least you still have Pillars of Eternity and BG: Siege of Dragonspear, amirite?

 

[Obsequious Approbation]

It looks, sounds and plays exactly like D:OS2. After putting over 60-70 hours into that (and the first game), I'm not sure I can stomach playing another game that's a near-exact copy.

 

[Crispy]

Start all over, Swen.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

This could be the first good Baldur's Gate game. Cautiously optimistic.

 

[The Bishop]

I wonder what happened with all the 'fixes' to the system like no rolls to hit? Where is that super interactive environment and all the other stuff they talked about in the interviews? Was it all just a bait to make people obsessively post for 300 pages? If so Swen is a very good baiter. A master even.

Anyway, this looks like a rather straightforward mix between DA production values and DOS gameplay. Targeting disgruntled DA:O fans that didn't like the direction Bioware taken with the rest of the series actually seems pretty smart. I don't think they look to attract a lot of BG fans with this. The title is only there to message the potential customers that this game is a throwback to 'good old times' of pre-EA Bioware.

 

[Bruma Hobo]

You really thought they were going to make a 2D isometric RPG with such a big brand name? This is called "Baldur's Gate 3", they just couldn't just risk to directly compete with Pathfinder, Pillars of Eternity and the like, that would have been madness. Yet Larian decided to take the traditional turn-based route.

You people should be really thankful.