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From the developers of the Divinity games. Very little real info at the moment, apart from the just released teaser trailer below showing mind flayers as the bad guys. I expect we'll learn/see more at E3.
I haven't kept up with the changes in the Forgotten Realms from the 4th and 5th editions of D&D. Roughly how long since the original BG games (2nd Edition) would this take place? I saw some people mention 100 years? So, some possible references/cameos from the original games given the potential time difference. Anyway, I'm looking forward to it. I really need to get back to playing Divinity Original Sin 2. Should play BG1 and 2 again (again, again, again), too

I'm pretty reticent about the whole thing. From what I've seen of the Divinity games from these guys, they're very much "systems people" and not so much "story people".

Obsidian would have been a much better choice IMO.

Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.

1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.

2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.

So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.

3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances

Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.


As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.

It's set in Baldur's Gate, the city, so it has the right to call itself a Baldur's Gate game.

Baldur's Gate didn't stop existing after BG1, you know.

If this is an alternative to another Divinity game then that has me interested. Out of the latest two Divinity games I preferred Original Sin over Original Sin 2 in terms of its writing. Which as others have said, having followed Larian's Divinity series, their writing isn't great. Even Divinity Original Sin 2 felt really dated. Like an old isometric game just with newer graphics (and not one of those iconic games like Fallout, more of the middling tier you'd play, but just skip through all the dialogue to the fights).

Having them use a D&D setting rather than their own may help with the story a bit as they'll have material to work with. I can't say that I've enjoyed any of the settings in the Divinity series outside of Dragon Commander (and you barely saw any of it). Feeling rather incongruous - like a bunch of zones stitched together with random NPCs thrown about like in an MMORPG.

The trailer does nothing for me however. The Mindflayer's presumably an exaggeration for a trailer's sake, and the actual gameplay will be different. It did look pretty dumb from knowing how Mindflayers work, so I guess they're trying to appeal to another audience - "I like Divinity. What's this? Ooh that was cool. Hey I wonder what that was about? Cool!".

...Something to pick up in a Steam sale perhaps. Neither the Divinity or Baldur's Gate series particularly grabbed me. However at least I played most of the Divinity games. I barely made it out of the tutorial areas of either Baldur's Gate game (Pillars of Eternity does seem like a more appropriate successor. I didn't finish that earlier...).

Hmn, which is to say, I'll take another Planescape game. The original played similarly to Baldur's Gate, but as a setting it engaged me more. Baldur's Gate seems simple enough conceptually for a company for Larian to work with. I'd hate to see what they'd do with Planescape or Torment: Tides of Numenera released by them.

Also it's DnD 5e apparently so that makes it massively superior to the aged, broken crap that was DnD 3.5e and earlier.

Seriously I can't even play the original BG games because I hate having to put up with the broke-ass idiosyncrasies of adnd and the like...

Thoroughly enjoyed DS1 so if they can produce something similar/better, all good to me.

 Melissia wrote:
I
Baldur's Gate didn't stop existing after BG1, you know.

To this point, every single BG game has involved the Bhaalspawn arc. That includes Dragonspear. The franchise has been built on that narrative foundation, and suddenly going in a very different direction but retaining the name is, at face value at least, trading purely on nostalgia.

I love Larian's work, backed the Kickstarters for both D:OS games and have racked up ungodly playtimes on them. They do good work, and I have no doubt that this is gonna be a fun game, and I fully plan to get it, play it, and mod the ever loving crap out of it. But leading with "Hey there, we're making a sequel to one of the most important game series in this IP, never mind CRPGs in general, but it's gonna have absolutely nothing to do with that series beyond the name and geographic location" is...not a good look.

Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaalspawn (or Bhaalspawn-spawn), is certainly possible.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaslspawn, is certainly possible.

The ending of ToB puts the Bhaalspawn arc to bed in no uncertain terms. Which leaves one of two possibilities. Either BG3 is unrelated to that arc, or it breaks the established narrative. Both are terrible eventualities. (this is also not discussing the canonical Bhaalspawn in non-video game materials released by WotC who is dead)

All Larian needed to do to avoid this was to drop the "3", and add a post-colonic witty title. That's it. They get to keep their nostalgia, without needing to deal with any of the baggage that taking on the mantle of a direct sequel to a foundational game entails.

Sterling191 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaslspawn, is certainly possible.

The ending of ToB puts the Bhaalspawn arc to bed in no uncertain terms. Which leaves one of two possibilities. Either BG3 is unrelated to that arc, or it breaks the established narrative. Both are terrible eventualities.

All Larian needed to do to avoid this was to drop the "3", and add a post-colonic witty title. That's it. They get to keep their nostalgia, without needing to deal with any of the baggage that taking on the mantle of a direct sequel to a foundational game.

Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.

So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.

Precisely. The Bhaalspawn, the central nexus of the entire Baldur's Gate series, is unequivocally out of the picture (either by ascending in ToB or by getting shanked by a random party of players in a published adventure).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.

There are no more Children. Their job is done. They brought back Murder Pappy by getting massacred (which if you remember Alaundo's writings, is precisely what they were created to do).

Sterling191 wrote:

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.

Precisely. The Bhaalspawn, the central nexus of the entire Baldur's Gate series, is unequivocally out of the picture (either by ascending in ToB or by getting shanked by a random party of players in a published adventure).

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.

There are no more Children. Their job is done. They brought back Murder Pappy by getting massacred (which if you remember Alaundo's writings, is precisely what they were created to do).

Just because they are dead, doesn't mean their story is finished. The aftermath of their lives and actions are still ongoing.

Ehhh not sold on this one really, considering D : OS was far too comedic and slapstick in its storytelling for my liking. But the games looked nice and played well so if the story is rigth and same goes for the mood and atmosphere I will considering giving the benefit of the doutbt.

Sterling191 wrote:
To this point, every single BG game has involved the Bhaalspawn arc.

I find that completely and utterly irrelevant.

BG3 is...

1: Set in the same setting. In fact, the same city as the first game, and that city's name is Baldur's Gate.
2: Set in the same fictional history as the first two games.
3: Set after the third game chronologically, meaning it will have its story influenced by the first two games at least a little bit.


Finally, that the Bhaalspawn storyline is "over" (at least from our perspective, anyway) doesn't mean there can't be more stories to tell in Baldur's Gate.

Baldurs Gate 1 and 2 were following a single character who was a Bhaalspawn - they were a single story set in the city regions but the city was more the backdrop to that story rather than the focus of the story in itself.

So yeah Bladur's Gate 3 not involving that storyline will feel very odd. That said its been decades and a good partof me is happier that they aren't messing with that original story; it also frees them up a LOT from not having to try and re-create favoured characters from that series. Instead doing their own thing with the setting leaves them far more room to make something good



Also I'm really shocked at this, I've never liked Llarions writing and honestly found many of their games were very poorly written story wise. They failed to grab the player and they were very much more "game then story" driven games. Heck in the game where you turn into a dragon you make the biggest move in the whole game (that of starting to turn into a dragon) not by actually following a quest line or anything, but by becoming so bored and exploring the whole of the starting area that you stumble upon the pathway out that triggers it. This is also right after your lead character that you interact with specifically told you to "stay in the village". So the game not only instructed you, but set you up to not wander not explore and basically relied on you falling into it.


THAT said they excelled themselves with Original Sin 2. It still has some of the same issues, but the gameplay and structure is much closer to BG experience than many other 3D games have achieved in the RPG market as of late. They got that party feel; they got those different characters; sure they haven't yet got to the stage of having two of them fight it out to the death becausae they hate each other (normally just before you go to fight the end of quest boss). but they are getting there.
Honestly right now I'm interested, where as prior to Original Sin 2 I'd have been very sad to hear this news.
Which is me saying that they've come a very long way; still have some issues (they are not near the same league of story tellers in games that, say, CDProject Red are); but they might do it ok.

Well, not quite "closer to bg experience", it's massively better because it doesn't use the complete and utter mess that was ADnD.

I'm kinda excited for this, but they really need to get the look/feel/atmosphere right. This could end up really good or just be a complete fumble. So keeping hype in check until we see some gameplay.

the divinity/developers previous games are a bit stylized/cartoonish for my tastes. But i'm glad they are making it, imagine if bioware was doing it...oh the dread.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:

Sterling191 wrote:

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
Except... We don't know how it ties to the originals beyond the location. I have very limited knowledge of the Forgotten Realms since 3rd Edition, but I do know it's gone through at least one reshuffling of it's pantheon of deities, so a new story involving godspawn, if not Bhaslspawn, is certainly possible.

The ending of ToB puts the Bhaalspawn arc to bed in no uncertain terms. Which leaves one of two possibilities. Either BG3 is unrelated to that arc, or it breaks the established narrative. Both are terrible eventualities.

All Larian needed to do to avoid this was to drop the "3", and add a post-colonic witty title. That's it. They get to keep their nostalgia, without needing to deal with any of the baggage that taking on the mantle of a direct sequel to a foundational game.

Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.

So it can still be linked to Bhaal, his children and the aftermath of his re-emergence and reclaiming of the domain of murder.

Not.. really. The Bhaalspawn are all dead, and the major canon change that happened in the wake of the re-emergence of a bunch of gods is they're now more vague, distant, and don't show up as Avatars and wreck crap personally. So maybe a few NPC cameos and people/books will remark on past events, but don't expect more than that.

Anyway, according to the interviews (of which there are quite a few at this point), it isn't a direct continuation of any kind. It'll have Spelljammer ships in it, but the old story done and in a box.
There will be 'references,' but the new story was built in tandem with the Descent to Avernus PnP adventure this summer and will play off the back of that.

And the giant invasion of mind flayers and their ancient spaceships, which should seriously be a continual TPK. In groups, they're super-geniuses (which should mean clever tactics and use of their OP abilities) with domination and stun lock abilities and can just plane shift out when things are troublesome. A group of several can just stunlock and murderize adventurers with great ease.


https://www.gamespot.com/articles/e3-2019-baldurs-gate-3-seeks-to-do-what-no-other-r/1100-6467440/

Is three a reimagining? A straight sequel? How much are you taking from the originals?

SV: The previous Baldur's Gate games were based on Dungeons & Dragons 3.5. We're now Dungeons & Dragons fifth edition. A lot of stuff has happened in Forgotten Realms. A lot of stuff has happened in Baldur's Gate, so this is going to be a new entry.

There will obviously be references to everything that happened in the first and the second, but this is very much its own story. You needn't have played the previous Baldur's Gates to understand what's going on, but if you have, you will recognize the references. For example, if you just look at the teaser trailer, you will notice the guy's from the Flaming Fist, he has a flaming fist on his chest.

So, this game is more keeping in the tabletop lore than it is directly coming from Baldur's Gate 2.

SV: Yes. It's very much set into Forgotten Realms and where the universe is at now, but it is its own story. We worked very closely with Wizards, they actually adapted certain things for us so that it would work in the video game also. They've been very, very flexible in that. There are adaptations that we had to make to turn it into a video game, but it features a lot of the iconic stuff that people love about Dungeons & Dragons.

If 'Flaming Fist because a Flaming Fist is on his chest' is the depth of the references, my eyes are going to be rolling forever.

What you're doing in Baldur's Gate 3, is that now influencing the tabletop version of the world of Baldur's Gate?

SV: Yeah, and we worked very closely with Wizards on this and the people that worked on what used to be called Eclipse, Baldur's Gate: Descent Into Avernus. They spent a lot of time with us and we spent a lot of time in their offices.

There's been close collaboration on planting the seeds of what we needed in Descent Into Avernus, which starts just before Baldur's Gate 3 the video game. There's a lot of stuff that you will find in there that you will see referenced back inside of the game and vice versa. There's seeds planted for stuff that will evolve into the video game.

At another point early on, he mentions the basic script outline was done back in 2017. Larian has been working on this before D:OS 2 got release, interestingly enough.

We'll see.

But the fact that this is - so far as I'm aware - made by a team that has no affiliation whatsoever with the original group that made the earlier games means that the name isn't making me particularly disposed to buy it. If anything, it might hit my cynicism just right to act as a negative inducement.

 A Town Called Malus wrote:


Bhaal has been resurrected in the Forgotten Realms, following the death of the last of the Bhaalspawn, during which one became the Ravager and went on a rampage throughout the city.

How did Bhaal recover his portfolio from Cyric?

Cyric is mad powerful right now, let alone mad. The character is annoying though, evil Mary Sues get my goat, though he isn't an evil Mary Sue to a fraction of the extent of Nagash. Cyric was merely successful as an evil ascendant deity, Nagash has extra portions of fiat while being as complete unremitting dick to everything and everyone. The Nagash story arc was difficult to read for this reason, I suspect Cyric's will be like that


Automatically Appended Next Post:

Voss wrote:

Not.. really. The Bhaalspawn are all dead, and the major canon change that happened in the wake of the re-emergence of a bunch of gods is they're now more vague, distant, and don't show up as Avatars and wreck crap personally. So maybe a few NPC cameos and people/books will remark on past events, but don't expect more than that.
.

Not sure on that. Indications are Imoen had a long an successful career as an archmage/guild boss with enough rogue levels to be of special utility to Khelben Blackstaff and Elminster. If she survived the spellplague there is good reason to give her candidacy as a replacement Chosen of Mystra, who were for Elminster to choose.
She gave up her active divine powers so she can be trusted with Chosen status. A solid choice for a Bhaalspawn with longevity well into the new timeline. Other characters from the original story, particularly those with elven blood, should still be kicking around if set in the 5e timeline.

If set sooner the new game will more easily get to channel Minsc, which is an opportunity I doubt they will want to miss, and will disappoint fans if not included.

People saying the name is just for nostalgia and marketing sake because Baldur's Gate original story is done remember me of all the people saying that the new God of War was just using the name of Kratos to generate sales, that isn't was related like at all because Kratos story had ended.

And I don't know here, but with GOW4 they couldn't had been more wrong.

Well, since one of the people saying it isn't building off the original story is one of the lead devs/designers for Larian (in interviews), I'm pretty sold on that stance,.

If anything, I suppose I'm just excited to have a D&D video game coming out from a developer that has done some good RPGs recently. We haven't really had any at all since 3E D&D.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
If anything, I suppose I'm just excited to have a D&D video game coming out from a developer that has done some good RPGs recently. We haven't really had any at all since 3E D&D.

Plus the Llarion team are well used to making team based rpg games. A lot of the more recent RPG games have been pushing for much smaller to solo RPG games. That's fine, there's nothing wrong with that at all, but it never works well for a DnD style game. It really spoilt Neverwinter Nights that you only had a really tiny party because you had so many options and classes and skills, but you could only use a very small number in any one party. Whilst that meant you had to be picky it also kind of broke things in a game engine that was sort of designed to have large enough parties to have a "healer, fighter, mage, thief, etc...." kind of setup so that you had specialists, but overall a broad base of skills within the party.

 Tannhauser42 wrote:
If anything, I suppose I'm just excited to have a D&D video game coming out from a developer that has done some good RPGs recently. We haven't really had any at all since 3E D&D.

I'm with you on that sentiment.
The Pathfinder one is finally in a finished state (barring a few new bug from the last DLC), but as RPGs go (choices, consequences, storytelling)... it's pretty lacking. And while the rules/mechanics are (largely) done correctly, the encounters lean toward either super easy or over-buffed.


And while I'm annoyed they're trading on the BG name, I'm actually glad they aren't rehashing that story- 'Chosen One' godspawn nonsense isn't particularly interesting, even if the side quests were.

--

I'm just uncertain Larian's writing and mechanics will be up to snuff, or at least up to my tastes. Neither impressed me with OS 1, and I wouldn't buy 2 on a bet.

D:OS was great and so was 2 so I'm excited to see what they do with BG. Haven't seen Mindflayers in awhile so that's different - I imagine they'll tie in why they're bothering with surface dwellers.

I kinda wish they'd gone for a simple Forgotten Realm title instead of BG, since yknow, BG's story is done. But, then again, BG is a setting for lots of goings on in FR, so who knows.

I'm guessing its been so long since a big DnD game of that style that they felt sticking "Baldurs Gate" onto it in some form was going to be a big marketing pusher and bigger than perhaps using Icewind Dale or many of the other "in setting" locations.

BG is the big daddy of DnD games in terms of sheer popularity and market awareness.

Voss wrote:
Yeah, heard about this. I'm... dubious, for a couple reasons.

1) I don't really like Larian's writing. D:OS tended toward goofy and the narrator in D:OS 2 made me not buy it.

2) The BG1/BG2 story is done. The timeline has moved on (dunno if its a century or not- 4e FR was made of nonsense and so was fixing what broke after 4e), and most importantly, Bhaal came back sometime during the time between 3rd and 5th. The story of the Bhaalspawn is over- one or more of them served their purpose and Daddy came home and became the god of murder again.

So this is a 'sequel' in name only, with a completely different team and an unrelated story in a completely different edition of game rules.

3) Mind flayers are simply salt on a pile of worries. Yeah, yeah, iconic and everything. But they're BS monsters with game breaking abilities. A DC 15 Int save or be stunned for a full minute just snaps player agency in half (that's 10 combat rounds of doing jack/squat), particularly since that's hard for any character without an Int bonus and proficiency in Int saves (which is to say... everyone not a wizard). Then they autokill you if you drop to zero HP (and they do about ~55 damage per tentacle grope in those circumstances

Plus... Mind flayers don't do what the trailer has them doing. They don't bother surface cities. They go to other planes and raid for brains there so they don't risk reprisals. They certainly don't implant their young in people wandering around the blood soaked streets of surface cities- they do that safely at home, with other planar kidnap victims.


As much as I want to see a 5e computer game (it's well suited for it), I like nothing of what I see here. Lore breaking name only sequel in and a studio with a writing style that doesn't agree with me.

1: What does the narrator have to do with writing?

2: How do you know the story is done? It could be a continuation or this could just be about the city Baldur's Gate.....

3: Mindflayers are not that bad and ANYBODY can get around their DC saves with the right enchantments on items or buffs. Just be better at the game. Also I have never read anywhere about Mind Flayers not bothering surface cities. They do operate primarily in the Underdark or on other planes, but they go where they get brains.

So uh, what are you on about here?

My solution to Mind Flayers in BG2 was to summon a metric fethton of Skeletons (thanks, Viconia!) and send 'em in.

Can't eat brains if they don't have brains <headtap.gif>!