Boulder's Gate 3 (there maybe Droobs ahead)

Didn't we have some similarly pissy comments (especially from Ubisoft) around the time of Elden Ring's release? And, on a more positive note, developers being flabbergasted about Tears of the Kingdom's physics (I remember a Bloomberg article in particular with gems such as "biggest programming flex")?


Seems like the big name developers are just a little bit angry that some uppity "lesser studios" ("lesser consoles" in TotK's case, I suppose) are getting the spotlight instead of their latest big dick, quintuple-A release

To me the AAA space is just a dearth of anything except system-pushing graphics and a smorgasbord of monetization systems required to justify executive and shareholder payment schemes that have little to do with the actual game itself, except to diminish it in tiny increments.

Few of my modern favourite games sit in that sphere. What seems to happen is that smaller teams have the good ideas, and then the amorphous entities just 'borrow' them, shackle them to their MTX, Season Passes and whatever bullshit they're into, and throw money at marketing to make them big*. It may work, but its mind-numbingly uninspiring to me.

*Excepting, sort of, Nintendo.

As far as general production values go (graphics, voice acting, size of world, etc), this would be a pretty unreasonable standard for most studios outside of the AAA space. But I hope it sets a standard and expectation for good writing, which is something that any studio can achieve if they prioritise it.

I mean Dragon Age often has good writing. But the last 2 the quest structures rarely deviated from "Go to X kill Y" or "Collect X of Z", it's the systems and player creativity that's completely missing.

I just hope they all don't follow Larian's militant woke agenda.

When you level up, do you get to assign points or is it automatically assigned? Because when I levelled up last night on my character (the pre-made rogue) I couldn't figure out what to do in the level up screen. I was on controller though so I'm thinking perhaps something was missed as the controller inputs/UI seems very unfinished.
I ask because I was just reading a review and it mentioned dumping points into X stat, when I didn't seem to have that option.

As far as I know, "dumping points into x stat" just means using your feat selection to increase your ability points. There's a few of them that do that.

On that note, the only downside of this game so far for me, is that there's not quite enough to choose from when leveling up. I know that's D&D, and that you can always multiclass, but sometimes you level up and it feels like you don't get anything.

Well yeah, you can get points from feats. Aside from that, I'm not certain where the "pump points into x ability" thing comes from.

Though I suppose there is a respec option from a guy that turns up at your camp, maybe that's what they mean. *shrug*

It's okay... I don't have another way to play so I'm sticking with it. Battery is truly woeful but I get a solid 30fps and dropped the settings down a bit to try to get a bit more playtime.

The controller support is actually fine for me (although I'm sure inventory management would be much easier with a mouse!)

Good point re inventory management. Think that might be a killer for me. If I'm going to spend half my time in menus, it needs to be swift.

I'm finding inventory management a bit much even on PC, but it's somewhat my own fault for being a hoarder who picks up everything and has trouble selling anything that might come in useful while also being anal about keeping my inventory and stashes somewhat in order. At least I've resisted the urge to go on pickpocketing sprees and I'm not stealing much.

Man the Underdark is scary. Maybe I should come back after I've done the goblin camp stuff.

About the whole 'Every AAA game needs to have the same level of ambition and level of content as BG3' debate. I don't personally buy into it, not every game has to have it and nor is it prob fair to expect it. I've read accounts from devs that say they get imposter syndrome when something like Elden Ring or Nier Automata comes out, which is a straightforward game but with fantastic combat, story and insane production values to back it up. It sounds like the people making that argument are the same dull people that only buy AAA games. They say that modern games are all cash grabs but some of the best titles this year are single player games with no predatory practices and also fairly well polished. It's a false narrative.


The ambition and willingness to experiment is still there, you're just not gonna see it an any big franchise. BG3 an outlier in this regard in that it a couple of things going for it that people didn't know about. Larian had experience building out similar games in Divinity 1 and 2 which sounds like a lot of new BG3 fans hadn't played before. The game was in early access for years which would cut down on the amount of bugs on release and seemingly backed up by people passionate about the project and want to see it succeed from every level. Not every game can do that. The hope is it will inspire other devs to make CRPG's. More games is always a good thing. And maybe it'll make the big publishers put some time and effort to letting devs do the best they can and deliver a complete game that's polished on release without making some apology tweet that it'll get fixed eventually. Doubt it tho

Thats where I am right now and it's such a cool bit.  This game is awesome