Link: BG3 teaser trailer on YouTube
Just thought this could use its own topic for everyone to share their reactions and thoughts if they care to do so. Because I certainly know I've had some of those after watching that.
My first thought was "Wait, illithids don't have big Mass Effect squid spaceships! And they don't incubate people, do they?" Well it turns out I was wrong on both accounts, as both their astral cephalopod ships and their... reproduction... methods... have apparently been established lore for about as long as illithids have been a thing. So the joke's on me.
Really the trailer is pretty cool, it looks great and the subject matter is deliciously disturbing, but I'm just getting fatigued of games where it's my job to save the world again. Maybe I'm just getting old and soft (or older and softer), but every time there's a new world-threatening villain planning to overtake the known universe, I roll my eyes with such furious apathy that I risk retinal detachment.
One of the things I've always loved about Baldur's Gate (the first one) is that it has such a great lighthearted atmosphere. Yes, there are of course issues threatening the Sword Coast, lots of them, and terrible things do happen throughout the game, but when you're on the road, in the woods, or in town, it always feels like you're on a grand adventure. It juggles dangerous and oppressive moments with calm and pleasant ones, and it does this very well. It has lots of humor, but doesn't overdo it, and it never inserts jokes where they would be inappropriate. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it takes itself seriously enough not to jeopardize the stakes of the story being told. It has threats great enough to warrant urgency, but it doesn't invoke tired genre tropes by putting the fate of the entire world on your shoulders. It walks the golden road, in many ways.
On the other hand, I don't think I'd very much enjoy an adventure that revolves around a mind flayer invasion in Baldur's Gate, as the setting seems pretty damn oppressive right off the bat. But maybe I just haven't thought about it from the right angle yet.
So it's a mind flayer invasion. Yeah, okay, illithids are pretty cool, but I do have a feeling they work better as a dangerous, mysterious and unknowable background threat rather than as the main antagonist. It's the Bobba Fett effect—they're very cool as side characters, but not quite as cool when you make a whole movie (or game) about them.
And since the teaser shows the entire city of Baldur's Gate as a war zone, I'm now concerned that it's going to be a war zone for the entire duration of the game. Developers don't like to put in extra work when they don't have to, and not having to design and develop two different versions of the city would spare them probably several lifetimes' amount of work in manhours. But maybe I'm just underestimating Larian's ambition and work ethic. We'll see.
All in all, while the teaser was very cool, I was probably more excited for the game before seeing it than I am after. Still, I remain interested enough to want to see more.
Just thought this could use its own topic for everyone to share their reactions and thoughts if they care to do so. Because I certainly know I've had some of those after watching that.
My first thought was "Wait, illithids don't have big Mass Effect squid spaceships! And they don't incubate people, do they?" Well it turns out I was wrong on both accounts, as both their astral cephalopod ships and their... reproduction... methods... have apparently been established lore for about as long as illithids have been a thing. So the joke's on me.
Really the trailer is pretty cool, it looks great and the subject matter is deliciously disturbing, but I'm just getting fatigued of games where it's my job to save the world again. Maybe I'm just getting old and soft (or older and softer), but every time there's a new world-threatening villain planning to overtake the known universe, I roll my eyes with such furious apathy that I risk retinal detachment.
One of the things I've always loved about Baldur's Gate (the first one) is that it has such a great lighthearted atmosphere. Yes, there are of course issues threatening the Sword Coast, lots of them, and terrible things do happen throughout the game, but when you're on the road, in the woods, or in town, it always feels like you're on a grand adventure. It juggles dangerous and oppressive moments with calm and pleasant ones, and it does this very well. It has lots of humor, but doesn't overdo it, and it never inserts jokes where they would be inappropriate. It doesn't take itself too seriously, but it takes itself seriously enough not to jeopardize the stakes of the story being told. It has threats great enough to warrant urgency, but it doesn't invoke tired genre tropes by putting the fate of the entire world on your shoulders. It walks the golden road, in many ways.
On the other hand, I don't think I'd very much enjoy an adventure that revolves around a mind flayer invasion in Baldur's Gate, as the setting seems pretty damn oppressive right off the bat. But maybe I just haven't thought about it from the right angle yet.
So it's a mind flayer invasion. Yeah, okay, illithids are pretty cool, but I do have a feeling they work better as a dangerous, mysterious and unknowable background threat rather than as the main antagonist. It's the Bobba Fett effect—they're very cool as side characters, but not quite as cool when you make a whole movie (or game) about them.
And since the teaser shows the entire city of Baldur's Gate as a war zone, I'm now concerned that it's going to be a war zone for the entire duration of the game. Developers don't like to put in extra work when they don't have to, and not having to design and develop two different versions of the city would spare them probably several lifetimes' amount of work in manhours. But maybe I'm just underestimating Larian's ambition and work ethic. We'll see.
All in all, while the teaser was very cool, I was probably more excited for the game before seeing it than I am after. Still, I remain interested enough to want to see more.