„Baldur's Gate 3 does things that feel like they may not be allowed to get away with.” As a result, impact of Larian's game on the industry won't be as big, says BioWare veteran
A BioWare veteran believes that Baldur's Gate 3's impact on the RPG genre will be less than it might seem. He points out that Larian has done things that seem unacceptable to other developers.
Mark Darrah is a BioWare veteran who has spent over 20 years in the studio. The developer of the first three installments of Dragon Age runs his own channel on YouTube, where he discusses issues related to the gaming industry. In the latest video, he stated that the impact of Baldur’s Gate 3 on future games will be smaller than it might seem.
Baldur's Gate 3 is doing things that may not be allowed to get away with
All of Darrah's material aims to highlight the differences between high game sales and their impact on the industry. The dev cites the latest creation of Larian Studios as an example, emphasizing its huge commercial success, but also its "subdued" impact on the RPG genre.
Baldur's Gate 3 did change the landscape in terms of who was willing to look at an RPG. 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.
Darrah points out that the success of Baldur’s Gate 3 is made up of many factors that perfectly interact with each other, often also external ones. Unfortunately, in his opinion, many of other developers are not able to recreate that. He mentioned the D&D brand, to which the company Wizards of the Coast holds the rights.
Baldur's Gate 3 is able to do things that, at least from the developers' side, feel like they may not be allowed to get away with.
As examples of the above statement, he mentioned the silent main character and "simplified" cutscenes, which allow for the "existence of a much larger range of choices."
He clearly highlighted, however, that developers might be wrong about what they can "afford," but largely they see BG3 as a game that "very effectively accomplishes its goals - though it's not something many other games could manage."
So as a result, I don't think [Baldur’s Gate 3] it's going to have the impact that you would expect from a game that has sold as well as it has.
Baldur's Gate 3 is still a relatively fresh title, which just received its latest update with new content, so measuring its potential impact is very difficult now. However, looking at how great this game is, we could wish that more developers would take it as an example instead of calling it an "anomaly" out of fear of comparisons.
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Author: Martin Bukowski
Graduate of Electronics and Telecommunications at the Gdańsk University of Technology, who decided to dedicate his life to video games. In his childhood, he would get lost in the Gothic's Valley of Mines and "grind for gold" in League of Legends. Twenty years later, games still entertain him just as much. Today, he considers the Persona series and soulslike titles from From Software as his favorite games. He avoids consoles, and a special place in his heart is reserved for PC. In his spare time, he works as a translator, is creating his first game, or spends time watching movies and series (mainly animated ones).
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