“We believe RPGs are big … So we always believed the audience was there,” says Adam Smith
The first game in ages where it actually feels like the company/ developers actually put in effort and released a complete product. It’s not that hard to understood why consumers are flocking to it. People are just fed up with the garbage EA and ubisoft have been putting out. Honestly, I’d be fine with ubisoft dissolving and going out of business.
It’s the same as when Elden Ring dropped. Even people who never played Souls games prior were picking it up because it was just a complete, solid open world RPG.
I’ve never played Baldur’s Gate before, but I’m probably gonna pick 3 up to play with my roommate in splitscreen.
I haven’t played it yet but would like to so no spoilers please, but from what little I’ve seen it just looks like reskinned and slightly upgraded D:OS2.
DOS2 is one of my favorite games of all time and i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated and relatively unknown by comparison. Can anyone who has played both games weigh in on this?
And if it is the case that gameplay is very similar, is it just the setting / writing that is much better in BG that makes it stand apart or was it just coincidence / hype that made this game succeed harder?
It has been a while since I played Divinity: Original Sin 2, and I’m still in Act 1 of BG3, but from memory:
D:OS2 has fewer bugs and better performance. This isn’t surprising, of course, since it has had more time for polish.
From what I’ve seen so far, BG3 has:
- More balanced battle mechanics. In particular, battles aren’t dominated by excessive surface/cloud effects or telekinetic barrel drops, and I haven’t yet had a fight where I felt unfairly disadvantaged by my party lacking one specific ability.
- Far fewer instances of the targeting UI lying to me and causing frustration in battle.
- More world to explore.
- Richer lore, as told through books and journals all over the world. It reminds me a bit of Elder Scrolls in this respect.
- More interesting writing. (This might be subjective, but I would be surprised if most people disagreed.)
- More character depth.
- More immersive voice acting. (For example, the voice actors almost always understand the context of their lines. They often didn’t in D:OS 2, which I found distracting.)
- Better character animation (outside of cut scenes, some of which are a bit awkward).
The gameplay is indeed similar, of course, as it’s the same kind of game, from the same studio, using a revision of the same engine. But this one is IMHO better in almost every respect, and I think I’m more likely to play it again when I’m done.
i am somewhat suspicious that people think Baldur’s gate is some novel masterpiece
Novel? Not really, except maybe to people who haven’t played its predecessor, or good BioWare games, or D&D. More like an improvement on what came before it.
when really it’s that Divinity is super under rated
Where in the world have you seen D:OS2 underrated? I sure haven’t.
and relatively unknown by comparison.
Well, yes, that’s to be expected. D:OS2 didn’t have half a century of role playing game history or Hasbro’s marketing budget behind it.
Hasbro’s marketing budget behind it.
Agreed on all points except this one. Swen said that they had to pay Hasbro to use D&D and that Hasbro didn’t provide them with any funding.
To be fair the game still had a huge fucking budget. You don’t have that many voice lines and get them all to also do mo cap and make a CRPG with that much content on a small budget.