Summary
Baldur’s Gate 3has unquestionably raised the bar for RPGs. Thesheer amount of contentand player freedom just cannot be quantified. With a great story, memorable characters, and high replay value, it will undoubtedly go down in history as one of the best games ever made. Anyone making a triple-A RPG will surely look to it for inspiration.
That being said, there’s no real way to quantify the impact the game will have on the industry.With patch 8 now out,Larianwill bemoving on to its next project, but the impact that the game has had will be seen in the next few years. However, BioWare veteran Mark Darrah says that the impact may not be as powerful as we think it will be.
Baldur’s Gate 3 Won’t Change The Games Industry In The Way We Hope
Anyone who has been following the game since its announcement will know that Larian took its time with the game. The beta was drastically different from the final product and was riddled with issues. Thankfully, the studio was given the time, budget, and freedom to perfectly capture its vision. That freedom will not be afforded to others in the industry, says Darrah in a recent podcast (viaVideoGamer).
Known for his work on the Dragon Age series, Darrah says that all the conditions were perfectly aligned to Larian to create one of the best games of all time. However, it’s unlikely that other studios in the industry will be given those conditions to create their game. While the developers may look to Baldur’s Gate 3 for inspiration, they may not have either the time, budget, or freedom to create anything close to it.
“Baldur’s Gate 3 did change the landscape in terms of who was willing to look at an RPG,” he said. “It broadened the genre space quite significantly, which is awesome. But I think its impact on the way that games are actually developed is going to be more muted than people who are outside the video game industry might be expecting.”
He explained that a major part of the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 was due to “a perfect storm of factors” which is not the way most of the industry works. Baldur’s Gate 3 is the exception. “What it’s trying to do isn’t something that a lot of other games would be allowed to do,” Darrah continued. “So as a result, I don’t think it’s going to have the impact that you would expect from a game that has sold as well as it has.”
