All expectations. Since the EA version, after more than 3 years of transparent development (EA testing), under the influence of various irresistible forces, many masterpieces have chosen to skip tickets to take refuge, but it has maintained a stable content output until the release, which is reliable and distressing.
After its release, although it bears the label of CRPG "niche hardcore", it has created a breakthrough in 2023 with its amazing volume and top quality, bringing CRPG, a once brilliant but now niche category, to the public's field of vision. Whether it is in deeds or in mind, the best of the year is well deserved.
Maybe at some point in the future, we will mention CRPG again, and in our memory, in addition to that glorious era that has been dusty, we may remember this "Baldur's Gate 3" that recasts the glory of CRPG.
And for Larian, the mountain that seemed unattainable in 2017 is now creating the highest point of the game's grand occasion in 2023 with himself.
This is not only a vow for the diligent Larian, but also a vow for the players who stick to the CRPG.
The degree of freedom created with massive details is a big test of the immersion of CRPG
In fact, as early as 2020, when "Baldur's Gate 3" opened the EA test, the author entered the game and experienced it. Maybe it's because it's only the first chapter.,After the end of the exploration, I still feel unsatisfied.。
But the tip of the iceberg of this Pang ** poem still immersed me in it for more than 30 hours. This is not simply a huge amount of linear main content, but a huge amount of information constructed by countless small details, which can make the characters of different camps operate reasonably and consistently.
I'm ashamed to say that under the combined influence of the amount of information and the complex rules of DND 5E, the first 5 hours of the author are almost ineffective exploration for the main content (repeated exploration and trial and error in the ship battle between the Mind Flayer and the Demon Commander at the beginning, and in the monastery near the crash), but it is still enjoyable.
To be honest, it took me an afternoon to kill the Mind Flayer and the Demon Commander with a barrel of dynamite in the prologue.
Perhaps for the author of CRPG newcomers, this kind of aimless exploration and repeated trial and error is the best tutorial for novices. Because these seemingly meaningless exploration and collection of information points at the time, under the catalysis and connection of various plot developments later, they have become part of a huge plot network (for example, the information of the three gods of death in the original monastery has become one of the veins of subsequent content development).
The reason why "Baldur's Gate 3" can produce such an effect is precisely based on the huge DND world view behind it, as well as the operating logic around the world view, the countless directional settings and designs are mapped to many, and then the system rule of "quantitative change produces qualitative change" is formed, and the emergence of interaction can be realized under the premise that the game gives rich interaction and does not interfere with the player's free behavior.
In fact, this can be seen in the player's choice of origin - in addition to the preset 7 protagonists, players can customize around the 5 categories of race, subspecies, class, subclass, and background. Each of these choices will have a real impact on the player's subsequent exploration behavior (combat, interactions, conversations, and even the attitude of some NPCs towards the protagonist, etc.).
The same is true for each NPC character in the game, who also belong to 5 categories. Under the framework of the story of Baldur's Gate, the relationship between different racial forces is intertwined and complex, and different stories are interpreted under different character settings. In the face of different character events, players can not only set their favorite according to the strength background, but also use clever words to deceive them, or they can directly start a war and slaughter all the ghosts, snakes and gods.
Even the reaction to items has a similar effect, for example, in the "Between Strategies" dungeon, the player will encounter a chess puzzle, and the level requires the player to defeat the Black King's piece within three moves - the player can either beat the Black King's piece in three moves according to the rules of chess, or use the weak electricity attribute of the chess piece to directly use "Electrocution Waiting".
But the running group game is never a one-person stage, and in the end, the remaining 6 preset protagonists except for evil thoughts can join the team as partners, and each person's origin, race, occupation, and background are different, so far, the game gives players more room to choose.
Another way to implement more emergent solutions is that the game can be turned at any time.
Frankly speaking, as a fan of action games, the turn-based combat of "Baldur's Gate 3" American war chess was really dissuaded to the author at first, especially the various resource actions and a variety of spell skills, which composed of a slow-paced battle with a huge amount of information, coupled with the dice that seemed to be "not possessed by the chief", a set of silky small combos at first sight almost made the author break the defense.
However, in the game, turn-based is not only used as a combat expression in Baldur's Gate 3, but also as a "tool" to refine the player's operations - he allows the player to command and operate multiple characters at the same time at a certain point in the game. Under the player's brain, it is completely possible to achieve things that are difficult to do in instant games, and even some crooked ideas.
For example, the player can command a charismatic character to talk to NPCs while directing teammates to steal from him. And it just so happens that the game will not deliberately prevent your "crooked" behavior, and even choosing an evil origin will encourage you to engage in these malicious behaviors, and the only thing that can hinder the player may be the player himself.
When I mention this, I can't help but think of the old guy who collected all the NPC corpses.
As a player who has never been exposed to DND before, it is "Baldur's Gate 3" that allows the author to see a degree of freedom that is different from other games - a system that fills in with a large number of content and details, rich choice space, and does not interfere with the player's behavior or even lead you to do evil, even from a top-down perspective that is not conducive to the immersive experience, it still makes the author feel the immersion of the game from a spiritual level (of course, the large part of the cinematic narrative content in the game also contributes).
New adventures continue
It is precisely because of the massive content design of Baldur's Gate 3 that it is difficult to experience the full content of the game in a single week. Even in order to be able to realize the "camp nine-square grid" of the DND multiple experience lines, "Baldur's Gate 3" added the origin of "evil thoughts" in the game, in addition to the conventional good and evil lines, and derived two completely different experiences of evil thoughts and good lines, evil thoughts and evil lines.
In this regard, I would even throw out a controversial argument that a week might be considered a "hundreds of hours of tutorials" for Baldur's Gate 3 - just to let the player know the necessary information about the whole process. And the multi-week adventure may be the real adventure of Baldur's Gate 3.
When it comes to the differences in experience between different weeks, how can you not mention this love-hate dice?
In fact, when it comes to the part of the dice, the author is also quite a headache, after all, there have been two consecutive throws of the "big failure" experience, various behaviors in the game need to be checked by the dice, for the author of the "non-chieftain possession", it may be the ultimate enemy of the game.
However, fortunately, "Baldur's Gate 3" can be saved before the dice are rolled, which retains the last trace of decency for the author's early game experience, but those dice that cannot be saved at a fixed point (such as damage judgment in battle, abnormal status verification) also made the author suffer in the early exploration.
But fortunately, although the dice sometimes roll out outrageous points unreasonably, most of the time they will also be affected by the character's attributes, environment and other factors, for example: when the character performs the "hidden" behavior, the level of "overcheck" points will be affected by the character's "agility" attribute, and the "hidden" judgment adjustment value will be corrected according to the strength of the ambient lighting.
The difficulty of "overchecking" is affected by the character itself and environmental factors, but it is also similar to the controllable and random characteristics of "rogue", and players can make up for luck through the acquired character development and the strategic choices before or during the battle.
Of course, although it gives the player "controllable" space, it is impossible to completely control the "randomness" after all, and at some point, the luck is bursting, and the mage can push the half-orc warrior off the cliff with one palm;It may also be extremely unlucky, and when you encounter a miscellaneous soldier, the protagonist group can be beaten half-dead.
One of the joys of Baldur's Gate 3 is the uncertainty created by "rolling the dice" – it's hard to replicate the same experience even with the same background preset. The phenomenon of "OOC", which can even be spawned to a certain extent, has brought a dramatic effect to the direction of the game.
In addition to the randomness, another place that magnifies the difference between the player's multi-week experience is the "network narrative" structure woven by a large number of different plot lines.
Unlike the branching of the tree narrative structure, the network narrative structure has a high degree of correlation between events, for example, if the player obtains a key mission item in a mission, if the player chooses not to turn it in, there is a high chance that a new story content will be triggered.
It is worth mentioning that in Baldur's Gate 3, it is not just a few missions that are highly related, but almost all of the story content, which requires Larian to cover the plot of various possibilities.
Among them, there is an incident that impresses the author, in a certain area of the Furnace of Vengeance map, there is an NPC with a rune explosive barrel next to him, threatening to ignite the explosive barrel if he gets closer, and if the player does this, the NPC will decisively ignite and detonate the whole field. If the player manipulates a teammate to steal the explosive barrel in dialogue (which is where a "turn-based" multi-threaded operation tool is required), a new plot line will be spawned - the protagonist smiles mysteriously, and the NPC is stunned to find the explosive barrel disappearing out of thin air.
Although it is not exhaustive of all possibilities, at least "Baldur's Gate 3" covers far more plot content than the author imagined, and has designed a complete and self-consistent story content for different possibilities. This also allows players to advance the game's plot no matter how it unfolds, and is compatible with the vast majority of players' possibilities in terms of story content.
This required a terrifying plot design, but Larian still did it, and the final effect was beyond the imagination of all players.
Let the new generation of players leave behind their prejudices and witness the arrival of legends
In fact, as a CRPG, the "hardcore" label on "Baldur's Gate 3" is difficult to polish. This is also the main reason why CRPG is not conducive to popularization.
Just like the souls-based games with unique expressions, with the help of the dividends of the ** era, it is easier to fade the cold coat and show players a unique soul outside of the "hard core".
The reason why Baldur's Gate 3 was able to form the current sound is that the excellent water quality of the game itself is naturally the key to the key. But I think those self-leading authors who are willing to create for it are also indispensable members (the author's parallel goods are obviously not among them). Interesting**Let more players discover its shining points, and the strategy ** helps more new players to better open up the wasteland, they let more players know about this game, and the transformation has given birth to a new generation of CRPG players.
The author is according to the up master, the lame knight boss, to complete the purpose of the week.
The reason why it is enough for players to spontaneously create for it, I think that in addition to the fact that "Baldur's Gate 3" itself is hard enough, there is also the word-of-mouth effect accumulated by Larian Studios in "Divinity: Original Sin" and "Divinity: Original Sin 2" CRPG masterpieces.
Looking back at the development of Larian Studio, it was the launch of "Divinity: Original Sin" that saved Larian Studio, which was on the verge of extinction. Swen, the founder of Larian Studios, once said that "if there was no support from players at that time, 'Divinity: Original Sin' would probably not be known, and Larian might have died quietly."
Relying on the 'excellent' quality of the product to attract the support of players", perhaps became Larian's creed at that time. Since then, Larian has been one of the most famous independent game studios in Europe.
In 2017, Larian launched "Divinity: Original Sin 2", which won unanimous praise from players and **, with an average score of 93 points and sales of up to 1 million units, far exceeding the 500,000 sets of the previous work "Divinity: Original Sin";This year's Baldur's Gate 3 has been praised by many players as the ceiling of CRPG, with 800,000 players** after its release, an average MC score of 97 points, and sales reached a new height of 5.2 million. It should be pointed out that in addition to these achievements, Baldur's Gate 3 has brought the CRPG category back to the top after decades in the form of video games.
The author believes that for Larian, Baldur's Gate 3 is not the end. Perhaps now it's ready to take the next step. Perhaps at that time, video games will finally usher in the heyday of CRPGs.