Dungeons&Dragons 50th Anniversary: Introduzione a Baldur’s Gate 3

2024/04/14

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English version

An introduction to Baldur’s Gate 3: further technical details and its long development genesis

Fabio Ciaramaglia

Una schermata di BG3, all’interno del nautiloid all’inizio del gioco. Immagine utilizzata solo per fini divulgativi. © degli aventi diritti

Despite in the previous articles we have already provided bits of information as far as Baldur’s Gate 3 is concerned, in this and in the next ones we shall enter deeper into details. Being a rather recent product, it is possible many people are still playing it or are planning to play it for the first time soon, so we warn about possible and important narrative spoilers which may be given from now on in order not to spoil its enjoyment.

As far as the technical details and the D&D Edition are concerned you can refer to the last part of what we have already seen in https://www.fumettomaniafactory.net/dungeonsdragons-50th-anniversary-il-viaggio-venticiquennale-di-baldurs-gate/. We can however add something here too.

To start with we have to mention there is a relatively low “level cap” for the game which is 12 (out of the possible 20 in D&D), thus it may happen while playing that, though we still earn experience points, our character will not mechanically improve any more, and this may happen long before the final stages of the gameplay. This is nothing new because other video games of this genre have the same system and its reason lies in matters of gaming balance: in this specific case it is likely that some of the spells and special skills of D&D rules could make the final part of the game too complex to be correctly balanced. Moreover, though BG3 follows the rules of the 5^th Edition, in some cases some general changes have been applied by simplifying, adding or removing something, and this is always related to the game experience but also to the too complex video game rendering of something in particular. Nevertheless the experience stays within a range of a good immersion, very similar in this way to a “live” Dungeons&Dragons campaign.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a creation of Belgian studio Larian, yet it is not the first attempt to have a sequel of the saga, since in the first half of the 2000s there was already a work in progress on a third instalment by Black Isle Studios, Baldur’s Gate III: The Black Hound. Having the studio of the first two games, Bioware, at work on Neverwinter Nights, thus no more directly linked to the development of Baldur’s Gate, it is with the experience of Black Isle on the Icewind Dale and Dark Alliance games that the project really was likely to be completed. Unfortunately because of several reasons both legal (expiration of the license of use of the name) and technical (the attempt to develop the game not with the Infinity Engine of the first BGs but with the Aurora Engine of NWN), the development of BGIII was finally cancelled in 2003. Adding to this, at this stage Black Isle studio was shut down by its owner company Interplay (they revamped the studio in 2012), but many of its members joined again their forces in Obsidian Entertainment and eventually they went back to the development of video game based on Dungeons&Dragons with Neverwinter Nights 2. The little we know of the never born BGIII is that it was completely unlinked to the story of the first two games and that, in theory, it had to be the first part of a new trilogy. Obsidian had a plan to try to adapt it as a DLC for NWN2 but this has never happened.

In the first half of the 2010s, Obsidian itself, and as a competitor Beamdog (the studio which made the “Enhanced Edition” of the first BGs and produced the DLC “Siege of Dragonspear”), tried unsuccessfully to persuade Wizards of the Coast to provide the license for the development of a third game. Also the “young” studio Larian tried to persuade them, more or less in the period of their first important game, Divinity: Original Sin (2014), but since they were considered too new in the industry, at first Wizards of the Coast rejected the proposal. Nevertheless, after the success of Divinity: Original Sin 2 (autumn 2017), Wizards of the Coast was the one to get in touch with Larian for a prospect development of a third instalment of Baldur’s Gate, and they were finally persuaded by some samples the Belgian studio provided with the use of an improved version of their own Divinity Engine 4.0. Among aborted operations and vague ideas never fully seriously considered, finally that is the moment when the long genesis of Baldur’s Gate 3 begins and it is finally complete with the release of the game in the first week of August 2023. However, since autumn 2020 a partial version of the game had been already available in a so-called “Early Access” period, a strategic move which probably has been quite successful: on one hand, a strong interest of the audience was teased by making it feel part of the development, on the other hand the game was already in a “Beta-Stage”, thus the developers could collect a lot of feedback of the users on how they could keep on with their work and on how to fix possible unresolved problems. Not all classes and races were available in “Early Access”, same it goes for spells and special skills, but since that stage covered most of the first act (of three) of the game, from a narrative point of view the players were further teased with the beginning of the adventure and its mysterious background to investigate on and discover. The dedication of Larian to this project is confirmed by the next release of several “patches” which were coded not simply to fix system bugs, but also to improve, graphically and mechanically, their own product.

The long genesis and the dedication carried along a lot of gold, both for the sales and the professional video game criticism. As we write, that is about five months after the release of Baldur’s Gate 3, the game has sold a variable number of copies spanning from 5 million to 27 million: in time this wide difference should be reduced once the sale data analysis are better examined, specifically those related to digital copies (it can happen that some purchases figure doubled because if you buy it, let’s say, on Steam that copy may result as “sold” also on other platforms, such as GoG, once you import the game on that). However even if they were “just” 5 million, we are dealing with big numbers, considering that right now the average price is about 60 € and the the number of sold copies may increase once the price is reduced. As far as the specialistic criticism is concerned, BG3, currently, has won seven Golden Joystick Awards (one for Game of the Year and one as best story), six Game Awards (again Game of the Year and story among them) and two Steam Awards (Game of the Year, best story). Thus, this game has been considered by many professionals of this industry the best of 2023 from many perspectives but most importantly from the point of view of its excellent narrative.

Speaking of this, differently from the cancelled Baldur’s Gate III: Black Hound, despite Baldur’s Gate 3 has its own independent story which is enjoyable even without any previous knowledge of the first two games, its storyline is enriched with several references to them. For instance, there are three companions of the first games starring as NPCs (Jaheira, Minsc and Viconia) and they are not in simple cameos: they are in fact protagonists of important subplots and two of them can even be hired as companions in this game too. More importantly, there is a sequel of the “Bhaalspawn” saga, that is the core plot of the first two games, which can actually be fundamental whether we decide to use The Dark Urge as a protagonist (we shall speak deeper of this in the next articles). This clearly marks a desire to lovingly tribute the past games, but also a good lore of the setting and of the general story which, as we have seen, are both linked to the D&D material which has been published during the development of this game (Infernal Tides, Mindbreaker and Descent to Avernus).

In the next article we shall analyse in further detail the plot and the protagonists of Baldur’s Gate 3.

Biography

FABIO CIARAMAGLIA

With an M.A. degree in English Literature, with a dissertation on Shakespeare and comics (2000) and a Ph.D. with a dissertation on Shakespeare and Italian TV (2004), I have always tried to deal with the complex relationship between literature and other media.

I have written for comics magazines, such as Fumo di China and Fumettomania (in its previous printed version), but also translated into Italian a couple of American comics for the publisher Magic Press and some poems. Meanwhile I have begun teaching English language at High School, at first in Rome and then, after 2015, in Trieste.

I have never lost the nerdy attitude even as a teacher, but since 2006 videogames have attracted me more and in some of them, maybe for a personal inclination, I have found several elements which are worth of being analysed, though before this year I had never dared approaching more seriously.