‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ should not set the standard for role-playing games, warns game developers

Game developers have clubbed together to explain that Baldur’s Gate 3 should not create a “raised standard” for other role-playing games, due to the upcoming game’s large scale.

Xalavier Nelson Jr, accomplished independent developer and founder of Strange Scaffold, took to Twitter to explain that Baldur’s Gate 3 is an abnormal game. To exemplify this, Larian Studios began work on the new entry in the series in 2017, using seven different studios with over 400 developers, and benefitted from a significant volume of fan feedback in a three-year early access period.

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
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— Xalavier Nelson Jr. (@WritNelson) July 8, 2023

Additionally, the Belgian developer and publisher had learned a lot from the successful Divinity series as well as delivering the Enhanced and Definitive Editions of Divinity: Original Sin and Divinity: Original Sin 2, respectively.

“This is not a new baseline for RPGs – this is an anomaly,” argued Nelson Jr, encouraging players to “celebrate the achievement” of Baldur’s Gate 3 but not to consider this as the new standard for all RPGs.

Grimlore Games senior narrative designer Rebecca Harwick spoke in support of Nelson Jr’s statements. “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,” she said. “I hope Baldur’s Gate 3 is a generous once-in-lifetime RPG. I hope no one expects a 10, 20, 40-person team to make one!”

However, fans felt divided. Some said that the consumer decides what the new standard should be, while others agreed with the points about the unusual development of Baldur’s Gate 3 but asserted that fans would want games of their favourite genre to get better and better.

Baldur’s Gate 3 recently revealed that there are 17,000 possible endings for the game, which isn’t so surprising when remembering that there is triple the cinematic dialogue than all three of the Lord of the Rings books in the RPG.

In other gaming news, Sylvanas Windrunner might be back in World of Warcraft according to a new spell in the latest Dragonflight patch.