Either way, agreat RPGgame hits different.
Recently,Elden RingandBaldur’s Gate 3have both been landmarks.
Not to mention the enduring sweep ofThe Witcher 3: Wild Huntand theMinesweeper-esque ubiquity ofSkyrim.
What turns a niche into a phenomenon?
What goes into creating a great RPG?
And what makes the genre so special to people?
Turns out that last one is a big question to ask.
See, even between us, talking about the things were finding.
You dont get that in any other genre, he points out.
Its kind of weird this is a genre, says Darrah.
Youve got aDragon Age, which is all about characters.
A Zelda, which is all about exploration.
Youve got a Skyrim, more about my own personal identity, building the character I want to play.
Trying to draw a thread between all these games, I think its maybe about people.
About how each RPG is approaching what people means.
That’s quite a task.
Creating and sustaining that illusion, says Keenan, is monumentally difficult.
You have to create a lot of material and assets that any given player probably wont see.
Something like a BG3 is definitely very cleverly doing a lot of tricks, says Darrah.
Now, often, the things theyre doing are relatively shallow.
If a player cant tell, who cares, to a large degree.
Theres truth to that.
Certainly, one of the places that freedom comes from is just masses of content.
Thats just the nature of the beast.
And the game doesnt literally crap its pants as a result.
But this kind of design does come with drawbacks.
It allows for more actions to be taken because the design holds together.
Thats how things in BG1 are done for the most part.
Fidelity, continues Darrah, is a death cult.
Allowing the individual pieces of the narrative to be self contained is just more open ended, more robust.
I need to railroad you through the story, because thats all the story understands.
Like a DM thats a bit too in love with their own planning, then?
Arguably, thats what most modern RPGs are… a bit too in love with their own story.
For Pepe, BG3s presentation is whats allowed it to catch on in such a huge way.
We were playing and loving Pathfinder: Wrath Of The Righteous.
Its a similar ruleset.
In terms of reactivity and crazy things that can happen, theyre basically the same game, he says.
The difference is that presentation.
It combines the complexity from traditional CRPGs with the presentation of a Witcher 3 or Dragon Age.
It wouldnt work if it was isometric.
We have very well written isometric games, but they dont land the same way.
But then you see Larian pulling this off.
you could literally grab a man and hit an enemy with it, and you have animations for it!
Its just something we didnt think was viable.
So it really feels like youre combining lineages, and bringing together the two audiences.
But Darrah brings up something easy to overlook from a nostalgia bubble.
I think Larian was expecting modest success.
Instead they got a massive break out.
Thats not from the title.
It might be because its DnD, but its not because its called Baldurs Gate 3.
And, honestly, probably better spending your money somewhere else.
Its a formula that rings true for last years Elden Ring, too.
