Other game studios are already jealous and throwing shade at Larian for Baldurs Gate3

[bongowongo]

This all started with a Twitter thread by Strange Scaffold* head Xalavier Nelson Jr. (*the studio is best known for Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and the upcoming Max Payne-like shooter El Paso, Elsewhere).

He cited several things that separate Baldur’s Gate 3 from most RPGs in the market:

Long development cycle that started back in 2017;

-Two previous games, Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II, “worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from”;
-Successful Early Access period lasting three years that provided Larian with community feedback, bug hunting, and cash flow;
-Huge team of over 400 developers across seven offices;
-The license for one of the largest entertainment IPs (Dungeons & Dragons).

That’s why Nelson Jr. is concerned that Baldur’s Gate 3 could be considered a “raised standard” to the entire genre and applied even to teams that didn’t have the resources, tools, and experience that Larian did.

“This is not a new baseline for RPGs — this is an anomaly,” he noted, adding that trying to reach the same bar without the same experience and advantages “could kill en entire group fo studios.”

Nelson Jr. called for celebrating Larian and everything the team likely managed to achieve. But he noted that people who think other devs now have no excuse if their RPG doesn’t look or feel like Baldur’s Gate 3 are just creating “the expectations and conditions to ensure your favorite creators may never be able to give you the thing you love ever again.”


Grimlore Games (SpellForce 3) senior narrative designer Rebecca Harwick noted that while she expects Baldur’s Gate 3 to be a once-in-lifetime RPG, she hopes “no one expects a 10, 20, 40-person team to make one.”

Insomniac Games design manager Ryan McCabe urged others not to use a singular game to set expectations for everyone developing RPGs because it “isn’t useful and instead foolhardy.”

Obsidian Entertainment design director Josh Sawyer noted that “having the foundation set and the funding to build things on your own terms is invaluable.” This is not about downplaying talented people working on BG3, but about acknowledging this case is atypical for the games industry.

James Berg, senior technical program manager for accessibility at Xbox, noted that the amount of dev effort put into Baldur’s Gate 3 could equal 2-3 other games in the RPG genre combined. “It’s Rockstar-level nonsense for scope. Only a few studio groups could even try this.”

Felipe Pepe, editor of the CRPG Book project, compared the situation around BG3 to what BioWare did with Baldur’s Gate II. Equipped with the engine and the right team, the studio “spent two years crunching and made one of the biggest RPGs ever.”


Diablo IV senior designer Chris Balser also agreed with Nelson Jr., saying that it is important to remember that not all studios operate under the same conditions. He compared Baldur’s Gate 3 to Ultima VII, the favorite RPG of Larian founder Swen Vincke — “that’s a game that had 12 years of prior games feeding into it.”

https://gameworldobserver.com/2023/0...genre-opinions





A ton of damage control by other studio's to preempt discussion that their games will never reach the scope and ambition of Baldurs Gate 3 ... Not surprising since most of these CRPG heavyweights (Obsidian / Inxile) have suddenly turned away from this genre and are creating "AAA" first person games. Not to mention a lot of these game companies have strayed away from true RPG elements to include more "cinematic action" such as Guerrila's Horizon, CDPR with Cyberpunk etc

Of course nobody reasonable would expect a smaller studio to create a game like BG3 ... Solasta was pretty cool, but nobody expected that game to be like DOS given the size of the studio, but people still liked it.

Seems a bit wild all these studios and people are suddenly coming out of the woodwork to try and chit on Larian studios.

It's also wild that we can't expect to hold other studio's to the bar that Larian will HOPEFULLY set .... CDPR did with Witcher 3 and now Larian will hopefully do it with Baldurs Gate 3. It's almost like we as consumers can't expect studio's to do better.

Lold at Josh sawyers quote .... Bro allowed his company to get absorbed in by MS and has access to an infinite source of time, manpower and budget theoretically and all his company had to show for all that was that lame-ass showing of Awowed which didn't "wow" anybody ...... While Larian has managed to stay independent this whole time and have literally come to this point by their own hard work and dedication.

[phaginator]

Just more proof that Larian is king of RPG's right now.

CDPR failed (although the seem to be on a path of redemption) and Bethesda is just janky open world sh*t that are barely actual RPG's.



The other "rpg" studio's make mediocre games at best. Obsidian is a joke and Bioware has been dead for years now sadly. Still have some respect for the indies like Owlcat but literally nobody comes even close to Larian.

[bongowongo]

I dont think Obsidian are a joke, they're still one of the best companies MS has gotten .... But yeah, their last couple of titles are just meh

Outer Worlds was a nice concept, but it was severely underbaked and clearly the team didn't have a budget.

Pentiment was great

Awowed looks ok

Outerworlds 2 hopefully is better and with that MS cash they can hopefully do a better job.


POE2 was the best title they've released in recent years, but it was marketed horrible and just sold poorly so they said they wont pursue it anymore... Which is a shame because the genre isn't dead and BG3 will prove it.





But yeah, Josh Sawyer is clearly high on copium. Since there's not much difference between Obsidian and Larian prior to the acquisition.

[phaginator]

POE2 was okay but their old games are still best. Seems they went backwards though, Outerworlds was garbage imo.

Larian is playing on another level.

That said hope the other studios will level up too like Larian, I still remember when Larian was almost bankrupt and had to beg for money on kickstarter to fund DOS...

[phaginator]

Btw, watch this



Amazing what they had to do to keep their head above water

[bongowongo]

Btw, watch this



Amazing what they had to do to keep their head above water

In. Gonna watch tonight.

[wasp9166]

Just started dos2 because of mention in the other thread


Skyrim and witcher 3 are in my top 5

Don't know how it slipped under my radar but

Jc,I won't get to bg3 for prob 6 months lol

Easily boots Uncharted 4 from my top 5

Let's hope larian doesn't crumble like everyone else and sticks to this genre

Dragons dogma 2 is the only thing I see in the race

I have almost 0 confidence in es6

I hope I'm proven wrong because this is my gaming niche

[angelfire2005]

lmao at blizzard saying don't expect this quality from them. yeah no ****, after warcraft 3 refunded, diablo immortal and diablo 4/10, no one expects anything but disappointment from them.

Just started dos2 because of mention in the other thread

put 80 hrs into it over a winter holiday when it released years ago. game is amazing.

[ohiostate124]

“Larian please stop making us look lazy”

Fuk those other developers lol. Same thing happened with Elden Ring.

[phillipsanchez]

They're right though.
It's unreasonable to expect most RPGs to have the time, money, resources, and experience thrown at them that this game has gotten.

It's shaping up to be one of the better RPGs of the last 5 or so years.

Smart move too brining the release date forward so it's not at the same time as Starfield.

[baldbrah]

It's a night and day difference from pathfinder. The opening act in this is much more interesting, graphics are way better. Voice acting and story are leagues above. Gameplay is smoother, no clunker clicker.

I haven't seen so many other devs hating on the competition since elden ring.

[chrsschb]

I can understand why the developers at say blizzard hate being compared to developers at better studios, but in reality it's more their management and shareholders than the developers themselves. Larian cares about their end-product, Blizzard doesn't. I can remember a time when Blizzard had that same, "it'll ship when it's ready" mentality Larian has.

[JayJ350]

I can understand why the developers at say blizzard hate being compared to developers at better studios, but in reality it's more their management and shareholders than the developers themselves. Larian cares about their end-product, Blizzard doesn't. I can remember a time when Blizzard had that same, "it'll ship when it's ready" mentality Larian has.

I think World of Warcraft ruined Blizzard and it's culture forever. It was an odd case where something became far too successful, in the sense where it changed the way they approach games. That was when they went from releasing well-polished games to pumping out online-focused games that are meant to be continuously worked on and updated after they release.

[bongowongo]

They're right though.
It's unreasonable to expect most RPGs to have the time, money, resources, and experience thrown at them that this game has gotten.

It's shaping up to be one of the better RPGs of the last 5 or so years.

Smart move too brining the release date forward so it's not at the same time as Starfield.

It's not unreasonable for consumers to expect games of this caliber from known studio's that have an insane amount of money and are well known in the AAA circles. Teams like CDPR, Bioware, Bethesda etc are all RPG developer's that are either backed up publishers with a lot of money (or just very rich like CDPR) .... There are expectations of them to create a certain type of game but when they release barebone games with none of the "RPG" of course it's gonna get called out.

Fallout New Vegas was one of those few where there was so much systems/mechanics and choices/consequences mattered .... It's still the best fallout game, but Bethesda screwed over Obsidian just because the game didn't reach a certain metacritic score.



If anything it should signal to these publishers affording their dev's time/money/manpower to create games rather than just forcing games out the door.

Of course it's unreasonable to expect these from smaller studios or other indie studios ... Studio's like Owlcat create amazing rpg's, but I think most people are reasonable enough not to expect such a visually polished title.

[BraneyGumble]

They're right though.
It's unreasonable to expect most RPGs to have the time, money, resources, and experience thrown at them that this game has gotten.

It's shaping up to be one of the better RPGs of the last 5 or so years.

Smart move too brining the release date forward so it's not at the same time as Starfield.

Yep.

They've merely stated facts, namely that since Larian isn't owned by Bobby tier psychos and retarded publishers in general AND they could also afford leaving the game for 3 years in EA they are indeed in a very unique situation. Can't really think of any other AAA studios that are self publishing.

Studios are getting schat on - very deservedly - for releasing unpolished and unoptimized messes, now imagine if they released a fraction of the full game at full price and promised to add the rest a couple years later.

[Coal Man]

I don't have a strong opinion on the topic but personally I don't need a game with 100 systems and the deepest complexity that BG3 seems to have to be happy. I could have fun with that game and I can have fun with a lighter game that has its own thing going on when I'm in a different mood. Companies need to chill and just work on their own thing. Maybe stop being lazy kunts, polish your product and it will sell.

[phaginator]

[Barteh]

It's not unreasonable for consumers to expect games of this caliber from known studio's that have an insane amount of money and are well known in the AAA circles. Teams like CDPR, Bioware, Bethesda etc are all RPG developer's that are either backed up publishers with a lot of money (or just very rich like CDPR) .... There are expectations of them to create a certain type of game but when they release barebone games with none of the "RPG" of course it's gonna get called out.

Fallout New Vegas was one of those few where there was so much systems/mechanics and choices/consequences mattered .... It's still the best fallout game, but Bethesda screwed over Obsidian just because the game didn't reach a certain metacritic score.



If anything it should signal to these publishers affording their dev's time/money/manpower to create games rather than just forcing games out the door.

Of course it's unreasonable to expect these from smaller studios or other indie studios ... Studio's like Owlcat create amazing rpg's, but I think most people are reasonable enough not to expect such a visually polished title.

Interestingly enough I thought Larian was kind of a smaller/indie studio. Maybe they were when I bought dos1 back in the day and have grown a lot?

[BraneyGumble]

Interestingly enough I thought Larian was kind of a smaller/indie studio. Maybe they were when I bought dos1 back in the day and have grown a lot?

They were, then they blew up after D:OS2.

[slat11]

Will be picking up DoS2 like Mr. Wasp above due to the recommendations of this board. Thanks brahs!

[wasp9166]

Will be picking up DoS2 like Mr. Wasp above due to the recommendations of this board. Thanks brahs!

Time goes by like nothing ,that's called immersion

[Barteh]

Time goes by like nothing ,that's called immersion

Got clocked 560 hours on steam ayy.

[Vorago]

The game is so good that the other devs are mad that they have to do better in order to compete? Haven't played it, only watched the first trailers. Now I want to play BG3 even more than before. I'll be happy if it's better than BG1 and at least as good as PoE2. Lol, since Path of Exile 2 will likely be coming out next year, maybe I should clarify that PoE2 = Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.



Sailing across oceans on the world map and occasionally hearing your crew singing sea shanties feels pretty immersive.

[sooby]

the tl;dr

Studios: Please don't expect us to make quality games that don't fleece the suckers that buy our games! We'll lose money and die!

[BraneyGumble]

Sailing across oceans on the world map and occasionally hearing your crew singing sea shanties feels pretty immersive.

Trolling used to mean something.

Please stop trying to push that dogschit.

[chrsschb]

The game is so good that the other devs are mad that they have to do better in order to compete? Haven't played it, only watched the first trailers. Now I want to play BG3 even more than before. I'll be happy if it's better than BG1 and at least as good as PoE2. Lol, since Path of Exile 2 will likely be coming out next year, maybe I should clarify that PoE2 = Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire.



Sailing across oceans on the world map and occasionally hearing your crew singing sea shanties feels pretty immersive.

Better pirate game than the new pirate game from EA.

[Vorago]

Trolling used to mean something.

Please stop trying to push that dogschit.

Let me guess, you think Divinity: Original Sin II is one of the greatest CRPGs out there?

[BraneyGumble]

Let me guess, you think Divinity: Original Sin II is one of the greatest CRPGs out there?

Guess again.

Could only power through 5-6 hours or so of D:OS, a game paraded around as an RPG yet having zero writing/story/choices, but hey at least you get to spend 20 minutes per each battle against 3 bandits, because apparently fuking around with the terrain and barrels/boxes is fun.

[Barteh]

Guess again.

Could only power through 5-6 hours or so of D:OS, a game paraded around as an RPG yet having zero writing/story/choices, but hey at least you get to spend 20 minutes per each battle against 3 bandits, because apparently fuking around with the terrain and barrels/boxes is fun.

What? If we're talking about the second one that's just straight up wrong. I don't remember the first one too well as I've probably last played it nearly a decade ago but I remember it as being pretty good as well.

[Singularity7]

I loved the Divinity series but never played any of the Baldurs. Would it be fine to jump into the 3rd game?