• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Baldur's Gate 3 is GAME OF THE YEAR 2023!

Senua

Member
It was never going to sell amazingly well on console but I think most people knew that. They just used it for console warring due to the hype around it. It wouldn't suprise me if sakes are like 10 to 1 in favour of PC.
2d2.jpg
 

SCB3

Member
I cannot disagree here, it is a fantastic game, worthy of GotY, its not mine (that being Zelda) but its in my top 3 this year after Zelda and Alan Wake 2 personally and even then its close with AW2 and could easily swap

Congrats Larian, fully deserved and cannot wait to see what they do next, it made me a fan thats for sure
 

nowhat

Member
It was never going to sell amazingly well on console but I think most people knew that. They just used it for console warring due to the hype around it. It wouldn't suprise me if sales are like 10 to 1 in favour of PC.
Uhh. It was at number two. It was never going to overtake NBA/nee FIFA in that month, nor would any game. Doesn't mean it didn't sell well and it plays very well on a controller.
 

Nobody_Important

“Aww, it’s so...average,” she said to him in a cold brick of passion
I'm so happy for Larian, and gaming in general. BG3 set a bar for CRPGs so high and such dedication it will be a real feat to top it, and that's why it won.
Oh its not even CRPGs they set the bar for. Without an ounce of hyperbole I think I can safely say this game has entirely set the bar for not only RPG's in general, but the bar for facial animations in cutscenes and dialogue. You go from this game right now to any other game released recently like Starfield for example it is a Night/Day comparison when it comes to dialogue. You have "robots with faces" in something like Starfield vs "this person has actual facial animations" in BG3 because they Mocapped all their VAs. And this is Larian Studios that did this. Not Blizzard, CD Project, or some other heavy hitter. Larian Studios.


RANT

I never wanna hear again that the kind of attention to detail that Larian did here is too expensive or too much work for a Triple A studio. If a relatively small time studio like Larian can do it then YOU can do it as well Triple A studio. You are making the conscious choice to not take the time or spend the money to do so. I never wanna hear any limp wristed excuses again from these places. Larian has shown what is possible with time, dedication, and a relatively modest budget. They even brought back all the VAs recently to record hours and hours of new lines for a new "Epilogue" mode at the end of the game. That is AFTER they had already added of other lines of dialogue from the main cast post-launch in order to wrap up storylines that players felt weren't quite finished. They did all of this while not charging players a fucking dime. Not a single cent. All of this since launch just a couple of months ago. Meanwhile some games can't get proper bug fixes in that same amount of time. Those same games sometimes updating their in-game stores before they fix the bugs.

That is why you had Devs panicking and saying BG3 shouldn't be the new measuring stick. It exposed them. It showed what is possible when you don't pinch every god damn penny and don't give a shit about your community or your workers. Not every game needs to be released in a 2 year window with crunch and drama. Not every game has to be released as an unfinished pile. BG3 has proven this. That is why the Devs were worried and speaking out.




/Rant


This game has exposed the entire industry as well as its self imposed short comings. Games can be genre altering, make enormous loads of money, and satisfy players if given time and the proper care. The industry has chosen to pretend that isn't the case and embraced cold hard cash. That is just the way things are at this point.
 
Last edited:

Robb

Gold Member
Not my pick but very well deserved for Larian. And also very cool to see an indie win as usual - but especially so when all the major publishers are firing on all cylinders.

What a year!
 

Denton

Member
Thank god. It may not be in my absolute top tier of RPGs, but in this competition, BG3 deserves it vastly more.
 
While I hope the industry makes more games like this after this win as BG3 is great I also hope that people like Owlcat don't stop making mechanically complex RPGs as BG3 is paper thin on that front.

A million low budget RPGs that have tried to prioritise presentation over mechanics sounds like a bad time.
 

nowhat

Member
While I hope the industry makes more games like this after this win as BG3 is great I also hope that people like Owlcat don't stop making mechanically complex RPGs as BG3 is paper thin on that front.

A million low budget RPGs that have tried to prioritise presentation over mechanics sounds like a bad time.
...how is BG3 not mechanically complex? Let me just shove you out off that hill. Not to mention the narrative complexity.
 

Senua

Member
While I hope the industry makes more games like this after this win as BG3 is great I also hope that people like Owlcat don't stop making mechanically complex RPGs as BG3 is paper thin on that front.

A million low budget RPGs that have tried to prioritise presentation over mechanics sounds like a bad time.
Seinfeld What GIF by HULU
 

AV

We ain't outta here in ten minutes, we won't need no rocket to fly through space
Wasn't even close. Best game in 19 years. Something like this won't happen again for a long time.
 
...how is BG3 not mechanically complex? Let me just shove you out off that hill. Not to mention the narrative complexity.
You can go through tactician with the worst designed characters possible and it's still a complete cakewalk. There are no hard decisions to make at level up as it barely matters - try that in Pathfinder and you will die in every encounter. Just a side effect of using B&D 5e as it is very simplified.

I can see why people like easy RPGs where your build choices don't really matter as it allows you to focus on the narrative stuff which BG3 does better than anything I've played but I like tough choices too.

I just completed Colony Shop and the difference between a well designed character and a poorly designed one is whether you die 10x times in every fight or just make it through and I just started Rogue Trader and had no clue how to build my character as there are millions of choices but I personally love that feeling when you finally understand what works and start overcoming stuff that was impossible beforehand while there is none of that in BG3 as it essentially doesn't matter what you pick.
 

Wildebeest

Member
You can go through tactician with the worst designed characters possible and it's still a complete cakewalk. There are no hard decisions to make at level up as it barely matters - try that in Pathfinder and you will die in every encounter. Just a side effect of using B&D 5e as it is very simplified.

I can see why people like easy RPGs where your build choices don't really matter as it allows you to focus on the narrative stuff which BG3 does better than anything I've played but I like tough choices too.

I just completed Colony Shop and the difference between a well designed character and a poorly designed one is whether you die 10x times in every fight or just make it through and I just started Rogue Trader and had no clue how to build my character as there are millions of choices but I personally love that feeling when you finally understand what works and start overcoming stuff that was impossible beforehand while there is none of that in BG3 as it essentially doesn't matter what you pick.
BG3 is probably a more realistic representation of how people play modern pen and paper games than Pathfinder. A lot of people who said they were "very experienced" with tabletop said that Pathfinder CRPG were too difficult and punishing for them. Most generations of RPG gamers have come along after the 80s boom, where all RPGs were "dungeon crawler" games and were expected to have punishing gameplay.
 
BG3 is probably a more realistic representation of how people play modern pen and paper games than Pathfinder. A lot of people who said they were "very experienced" with tabletop said that Pathfinder CRPG were too difficult and punishing for them. Most generations of RPG gamers have come along after the 80s boom, where all RPGs were "dungeon crawler" games and were expected to have punishing gameplay.
Yeah and it's great tbh. I said so myself in the OT that I loved the fact I could just pick up BG3 and start playing without watching 100 build guides. It's way closer to pen and paper as it feels more organic and less like a game.

All I'm saying is I hope there is still room for brutally punishing CRPGs and that every low budget studio doesn't try to replicate the BG3 style of presentation and blow their budget on voice acting and motion capture.
 

Wildebeest

Member
Yeah and it's great tbh. I said so myself in the OT that I loved the fact I could just pick up BG3 and start playing without watching 100 build guides. It's way closer to pen and paper as it feels more organic and less like a game.

All I'm saying is I hope there is still room for brutally punishing CRPGs and that every low budget studio doesn't try to replicate the BG3 style of presentation and blow their budget on voice acting and motion capture.
Yeah, that "punishing" type game is probably more appropriate for "solitaire" play than trying to keep a group engaged around a table. I'm not sure that inspiration is coming from tabletop any more, since Pathfinder 1e itself was based on the old 3.5e system, and even they have left it behind to make a more firaxis xcom inspired system. Maybe someone could make a Dungeon Crawl Classics game.
 

Soltype

Member
Yeah and it's great tbh. I said so myself in the OT that I loved the fact I could just pick up BG3 and start playing without watching 100 build guides. It's way closer to pen and paper as it feels more organic and less like a game.

All I'm saying is I hope there is still room for brutally punishing CRPGs and that every low budget studio doesn't try to replicate the BG3 style of presentation and blow their budget on voice acting and motion capture.
I'd like to see them try d&d again, this time a little more faithfully. My biggest issue with a lot of other d&d games is that the presentation is still lacking to the point that my imagination still does a lot of the lifting. Most d&d games are still isometric, so we don't get the most rich visual representation of d&d.A lot of the creatures and the world are so realized in bg3 that you can let your mind sit back a lot more since the game has done a lot more of the heavy lifting. I feel if they did another game they could really make it more true to pen and paper, and keep the high fidelity.
 

Gaelyon

Gold Member
Yeah, that "punishing" type game is probably more appropriate for "solitaire" play than trying to keep a group engaged around a table. I'm not sure that inspiration is coming from tabletop any more, since Pathfinder 1e itself was based on the old 3.5e system, and even they have left it behind to make a more firaxis xcom inspired system. Maybe someone could make a Dungeon Crawl Classics game.
You have tons of indie roguelike dungeons crawlers on PC that are really hard and complex.
 
It's hilarious how the game of the year was a playstation console exclusive because MS released the shitty underpowered Series S.
Weird how they admitted that the existence of the Series S further helped improve every other version of the game and thus you have the Series S to thank for all the performance updates.
 

DenchDeckard

Moderated wildly
Weird how they admitted that the existence of the Series S further helped improve every other version of the game and thus you have the Series S to thank for all the performance updates.

I know, it's a great turntables situation!

From
"SERIES S IS A PIECE OF SHIT!"
to
"Thanks series S for me having a better performing game now...."
 
Last edited:

BlackTron

Member
Yeah it’s pretty weird. I hate woke shit just as much as anyone, but BG3 doesn’t force an agenda on the player or anything. All those characters feel natural and well defined as just their own characters. Other games that put diversity on their checklist ran that shit down the players’ throats which is what makes that stuff so unbearable.

I haven’t thought about gay black minority woke anything while playing BG3. The characters are just who they are and that’s it. The way it should be.
I never got a woke vibe from BG3. This thread is the first time I’ve heard it too.

You guys played the game, which is nothing compared to widely gossiped Internet events

baldurs-gate-3-squirrel.gif
 

BlackTron

Member
I've played the game, In the first ten minutes you can see a few woke touches here and there..

Doesn't stop it being good but to say it isn't there is complete bullshit I'm afraid.

I haven't played it yet so I have no good reason to perpetuate this debate taking place. I thought it had things like, options in an RPG game though. Is that the extent of it?
 

Guilty_AI

Member
I haven't played it yet so I have no good reason to perpetuate this debate taking place. I thought it had things like, options in an RPG game though. Is that the extent of it?
You can also find other stuff if you dig deep enough. The worst of it i saw was one particular minor character who is a trans woman who goes on some rant about 'finding out who she really was' (who is also voiced by one), but you need to ask her and won't know what she's talking about unless you read some notes.

So basically its there but isn't shoved down your throat like Spider Man 2 for example.
 
Last edited:

RickMasters

Member
it was always gonna be between this and Zelda….. but I quietly hoped Fromsoft would pull off a back to back.



All in all I got reminded that we really did get a lot of great games this year.
 

Dr.Morris79

Gold Member
I haven't played it yet so I have no good reason to perpetuate this debate taking place. I thought it had things like, options in an RPG game though. Is that the extent of it?
It's the usual farce in modern entertainment, gender guff and what have you during the character creator, nothing that goes overboard

Ten minutes later mind you You're pulling a talking brain out of a skull that has been taken over by the same parasite you have in yours. It grows legs and wants you to go to the ships bridge with it, or you can kill it at anytime. It talks creepy. I might just kill it next time I'm on..

So there's that, too.
 
Last edited:
Top Bottom