They had an engine & team ready, then spent two years crunching and made one of the biggest RPGs ever. What’s interesting is that this is basically what Baldur’s Gate II did too. Equipped with the engine and the right team, the studio “spent two years crunching and made one of the biggest RPGs ever.” Only a few studio groups could even try this.”įelipe Pepe, editor of the CRPG Book project, compared the situation around BG3 to what BioWare did with Baldur’s Gate II. 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. ![]() If Larian wants to make a smaller game next time then that should be fine! Games do not need to increase in size or technological complexity forever, that is just a narrative created by technology companies. “Games do not need to increase in size or technological complexity forever, that is just a narrative created by technology companies,” he said.Īlso, frankly, even the concept of a “baseline” is a damaging concept. Nic Tringali, game designer at Lunar Division ( The Banished Vault), thinks players should always take into account labor hours and other resources spent on a game before judging it by a certain standard. Having the foundation set and the funding to build things on your own terms is invaluable. This is in no way a slight against the game or the people working on it, who are clearly passionate and talented. The conditions under which BG3 was made are atypical. 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. 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.” I hope no one expects a 10, 20, 40-person team to make one! I hope Baldur’s Gate 3 is a generous once-in-lifetime RPG. This whole thread! You can’t be appalled about how much big games cost to make AND make those lavish productions the standard by which all games are judged. Nelson Jr.’s thread went viral, with many developers from AAA companies and indie studios stepping in to support the main point.įor example, 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.” How did other developers react to this take on Baldur’s Gate 3? 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.” called for celebrating Larian and everything the team likely managed to achieve. “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.” Like a lot of people, I’m deeply excited about what the lovely folks at Larian accomplished with Baldur’s Gate 3, but I want to gently, pre-emptively push back against players taking that excitement and using it to apply criticism or a “raised standard” to RPGs going forward 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. The license for one of the largest entertainment IPs (Dungeons & Dragons).Huge team of over 400 developers across seven offices.Successful Early Access period lasting three years that provided Larian with community feedback, bug hunting, and cash flow.Two previous games, Divinity: Original Sin and Original Sin II, “worth of tech and institutional knowledge to draw from”. ![]() Long development cycle that started back in 2017.He cited several things that separate Baldur’s Gate 3 from most RPGs in the market: (*the studio is best known for Space Warlord Organ Trading Simulator and the upcoming Max Payne-like shooter El Paso, Elsewhere). ![]() ![]() This all started with a Twitter thread by Strange Scaffold* head Xalavier Nelson Jr.
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