Madflavor
Member
Because the game is truly phenominal, and don't let any contrarion try to tell you otherwise. The amount of freedom you have in the game, and in all the ways the game accounts for that freedom and plays scenarios out differently, is truly insane. It was also unique in that until BG3 released, CRPGs and most truly in depth RPGs in general were low budget niche titles. BG3 was the first AAA level full blown CRPG we've seen in a very long time.
I think also the characters of the game did serious heavy lifting as well. The main plot of BG3 is fine and not anything truly noteworth, but the characters and all their stories is what really elevated the story. People really connected with Shadowheart, Astarion, Karlach, etc.
I think also the characters of the game did serious heavy lifting as well. The main plot of BG3 is fine and not anything truly noteworth, but the characters and all their stories is what really elevated the story. People really connected with Shadowheart, Astarion, Karlach, etc.
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Gp1
Member
Lol to anyone saying that it was "marketing / "bear scene":
Baldurs Gate is basically CRPG royalty, (anyone that lived through that era knows how big Baldurs Gate 2 was for the PC gaming ecosystem. It's basically the PC gaming Crono Trigger 1-2 / Super Mario 2-3 moment with a Diablo 3 / StarCraft 2 level of hype.)
By the undeniably the best current WRPG/CRPG developer,
Using a still massively popular license, (which IMHO is one of the Achilles heel of the game, it's combat system. But we're taking about sales success here)
Massively successful early access, (2.5 mi only on early access so the reviewers already know what to expect+ the word of mouth)
Insane production value for the genre, (they changed even the voice actors career with that...)
"Perfect" execution, which lead to GOTY level scores,
Lariant after launch support, (huge things were add after launch, mod support, one of those great pro consumer moments in gaming)
The meme scenes + gen Z viral scene was merely an after thought in all of that.
Baldurs Gate is basically CRPG royalty, (anyone that lived through that era knows how big Baldurs Gate 2 was for the PC gaming ecosystem. It's basically the PC gaming Crono Trigger 1-2 / Super Mario 2-3 moment with a Diablo 3 / StarCraft 2 level of hype.)
By the undeniably the best current WRPG/CRPG developer,
Using a still massively popular license, (which IMHO is one of the Achilles heel of the game, it's combat system. But we're taking about sales success here)
Massively successful early access, (2.5 mi only on early access so the reviewers already know what to expect+ the word of mouth)
Insane production value for the genre, (they changed even the voice actors career with that...)
"Perfect" execution, which lead to GOTY level scores,
Lariant after launch support, (huge things were add after launch, mod support, one of those great pro consumer moments in gaming)
The meme scenes + gen Z viral scene was merely an after thought in all of that.
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Buggy Loop
Gold Member
diffusionx
Gold Member
keep denying reality
Keep digging, holy shit
ssringo
Member
The game launched in EA to nearly 74k CCU. Then over the next couple years it maintained a few thousand CCU up to June 2023. Then in July 2023 it jumped by nearly 30k CCU after the bear fucking scene was shown and went viral. Turned out to be a fantastic game and word of mouth spread like wildfire. Game launched in August 2023 and hit it's peak CCU.
Guilty_AI
Member
That being....?
diffusionx
Gold Member
read the approximately 2358923502935820 articles that PC Gamer wrote about it.
asdasdasdbb
Member
Furries
Guilty_AI
Member
Bear fucking? There are literally porn games where you play as a dragon and have explicit sex with both women and men and i haven't seen those take off. Yet you say a single joke scene in a 200 hour game that isn't even explicit is what caused this game to sell 20 million?
Heck, it was even a shapeshifter, just a 3 in the barbot scale
phant0m
Member
- Top-tier presentation
- Excellent characters overall (even if they're a little too horned up)
- Accessible gameplay - much less fatiguing/analysis paralysis than AP-based systems like DoS2
- Compelling story & writing
A huge part of the overall success was attracting a very significant female audience, largely through the reasons above.
![L*][*N*K](/data/avatars/m/842/842515.jpg?1756724107){kind=avatar}
StereoVsn
Gold Member
It has tremendous production values for a CRPG. It's fully voiced for its myriads of choices. Graphics are good (for cRPG). It has a metric ton of content.
And then it's an amazing game with great story, great characters and huge amount of choice for each situation.
Plus it has super reactive combat that can involve the environment and spells that can result in crazy situations.
And all of the above can show great on YouTube.
Like some else above mentioned, you literally had other devs going "You can't expect us to produce BG3 quality game".
StereoVsn
Gold Member
Wait, you played P4-5 and you think BG3 is the one with the slow start….
If you got through those, you have nothing to fear from BG3. It kind of starts with a bang.
PlayStaytion
Member
Is it gambling? Idk.
Dacvak
No one shall be brought before our LORD David Bowie without the true and secret knowledge of the Photoshop. For in that time, so shall He appear.
The game is outrageously good, and playing through co-op with a friend was one of the best modern gaming experiences I've had.
I didn't buy into the pre-release hype. I had almost no interest in it. It wasn't until I started to hear directly from my friends (who know I don't like RPGs) that I would like it did I give it a try.
Man I'm glad I did. That game is just outstanding.
I didn't buy into the pre-release hype. I had almost no interest in it. It wasn't until I started to hear directly from my friends (who know I don't like RPGs) that I would like it did I give it a try.
Man I'm glad I did. That game is just outstanding.
gtabro
Member
That for once
for fucking ONCE
somebody remembered that actual RPGs are based on DnD, where all your choices would alter the campaign a bit or a lot.
And Larian did just that in a sea of fake RPGs with 90% unchangable stories.
Grildon Tundy
Member
Perfect storm of:
-Larian's pedigree, apparent genuine passion, and status as unbeholden to rotten publishers
-a respected license
-virality (be honest: bear romance got tons of eyes on this that otherwise wouldn't have)
-great characters/writing/choice/production value/polish
-word-of-mouth
-FOMO
-lack of microtransactions
-quick bug fixes
Everything about BG3's success was well-deserved. One of the GOATs.
-Larian's pedigree, apparent genuine passion, and status as unbeholden to rotten publishers
-a respected license
-virality (be honest: bear romance got tons of eyes on this that otherwise wouldn't have)
-great characters/writing/choice/production value/polish
-word-of-mouth
-FOMO
-lack of microtransactions
-quick bug fixes
Everything about BG3's success was well-deserved. One of the GOATs.
Hawk The Slayer
Member
High budget for a CRPG with lots of choices but I personally thought the game looks bad as none of the characters looks that appealing to me and not into the enemies and setting too. And this is coming from someone that usually likes the sword and sorcery type of movies from the 80s and games from the 2000s like the Elder Scroll games and Warcraft/WoW games.
Juja
Member
I played through it twice and loved it, but the "bear sex marketing" that people talked about definitely made me hesitant to play it. It turns out it's only specific circumstances with a character that I didn't even use, so it didn't affect my game.
Everybody talking about it and insisting that you MUST play it was annoying as well; I hate the whole "FOMO" thing people do with new games. The same thing happened to me with Rick and Morty. The fanbase was too annoying "Pickle Rick! Szechuan Sauce!" So, I never even watched the show until season 6 was out, and it turns out I actually like it a lot.
Anyway, I played it like a year and half later, and I thought it was great. I think what people are saying about the freedom to play the way YOU want to play is a huge part of why it was so good. Too many games force the developer's "vision" on you. That's why I'm not a huge fan of cinematic type games in general.
Everybody talking about it and insisting that you MUST play it was annoying as well; I hate the whole "FOMO" thing people do with new games. The same thing happened to me with Rick and Morty. The fanbase was too annoying "Pickle Rick! Szechuan Sauce!" So, I never even watched the show until season 6 was out, and it turns out I actually like it a lot.
Anyway, I played it like a year and half later, and I thought it was great. I think what people are saying about the freedom to play the way YOU want to play is a huge part of why it was so good. Too many games force the developer's "vision" on you. That's why I'm not a huge fan of cinematic type games in general.
Mister Wolf
Member
Great game with lots of story and gameplay choices. DND 5E is popular even in tabletop form. It has good looking companions with great voice acting.
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Zathalus
Member
Tsunami of CRPG fans? So that is a yes, then? Because CRPGs are extremely popular. The game had almost 80k players in early access day one, in which the game was pretty barebones. Dragon Age: Inquisition, a game that pales in comparison to BG3, sold 12 million. Divinity Original Sin 2, Larians previous game, sold 7.5 million, and that had way less hype and build up to it. Not to mention, the very name of Baldurs Gate had quite a bit of CRPG weight behind it. D&D at this time period was/is having a bit of a Renaissance due to online DM sessions like Critical Role.
The bear drama helped give some additional press, but the game was already widely marketed and heavily featured by basically every single gaming outlet and YouTube channel out there.
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MMaRsu
Member
As if PC Gamer is anything to go by
nobody reads that shit bruv
semiconscious
Member
i think that the odds of good games getting noticed increase proportionally to the amount of mediocrity present. &, this gen? there's been a lot of mediocrity...
Walliwallipaloo
Member
Simple answer: it's a quality desert out there. People actually don't want these endless low-effort multiplayer slop games. It's just what we're being given.
BG3 sold by simple virtue of being a complete-package AAA RPG experience (that didn't suck, unlike Failguard). At the time, there literally was nothing else like it.
It's the same reason why people hoovered up copies of Elden Ring. What else ya gonna play?
BG3 sold by simple virtue of being a complete-package AAA RPG experience (that didn't suck, unlike Failguard). At the time, there literally was nothing else like it.
It's the same reason why people hoovered up copies of Elden Ring. What else ya gonna play?
Neon Xenon
Member
As if PC Gamer is anything to go by
The only few recent times that I've seen PC Gamer shitpieces making the rounds, it's simply having a stupid Twitter Bait headline for easy clicks (which unfortunately works, but I'm still going to give any outlet shit for doing it).
So Idon't see PC Gamer as anything better than Diet Kotaku. Hopefully, they go out the same way.
1) Strong word of mouth from the Early Access period, which indicated there was a lot of potential in the actual game. Some of those people also trusted Larian because of their previous RPG works.
2) Current popularity of D&D as well as good memories regarding the previous Baldur's Gate entries. They had been very successful and so reviving the series would appeal to a lot of folks.
3) Excellent marketing! Crazy things could be possible and the bear was only one example. Not an infinite amount of choices, mind you, but there's a bunch of ways of approaching many situations (mainly in Act 1, but also later on).
4) Solid writing and characterization (by and large), which in turn also provided a lot of opportunities for romance and investment. That's a selling point and not a small one, if you can pull it off properly.
2) Current popularity of D&D as well as good memories regarding the previous Baldur's Gate entries. They had been very successful and so reviving the series would appeal to a lot of folks.
3) Excellent marketing! Crazy things could be possible and the bear was only one example. Not an infinite amount of choices, mind you, but there's a bunch of ways of approaching many situations (mainly in Act 1, but also later on).
4) Solid writing and characterization (by and large), which in turn also provided a lot of opportunities for romance and investment. That's a selling point and not a small one, if you can pull it off properly.
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NeoIkaruGAF
Gold Member
To elaborate: it's hilarious that the game's stans don't even want to consider that maybe, just maybe, that one thing (and all its ramifications and variations in the game) could have been, for once, exactly what the "modern audience" was looking for and would actually buy a game for, instead of hyping it and ultimately not buy it. Admitting it would require thinking that you've played a good game and have to share its enjoyment with an audience that you'd want to stay as far away as possible from the games that you like.
diffusionx
Gold Member
There is this weird tendency on NeoGAF and other sites that are similar ideologically for them to declare a game they like "not actually woke" despite all evidence to the contrary instead of just saying they liked a woke game.
To elaborate: it's hilarious that the game's stans don't even want to consider that maybe, just maybe, that one thing (and all its ramifications and variations in the game) could have been, for once, exactly what the "modern audience" was looking for and would actually buy a game for, instead of hyping it and ultimately not buy it. Admitting it would require thinking that you've played a good game and have to share its enjoyment with an audience that you'd want to stay as far away as possible from the games that you like.
Y'all like the same game a bunch of degenerate perverts liked. It's not that big of a deal.
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Bry0
Member
I'm not really into crpgs but I did play all the way through bg3 and enjoyed it a lot. It's just got amazing roleplay potential and quality.
Gp1
Member
Like if the 7.5M copies sold for Divinity 2 before Baldur's Gate 3 launch (minimum, because we are inferring DOS2 sales though DOS1 sales) wouldn't qualify for bringing the genre to mainstream.
BG3 maintained a "stable few thousands" through the EA because Larian didn't added content through the EA access past Act 1.
Of course the the bear scene helped with sales and even Swen admitted that, but saying that was the only factor, as some were implying, is a little too much. It was, as always, multi-factorial.
The game launched in August 3 on PC (and September on PS5 and December on Xseries) with multiple 10/10 reviews and a 98% Open critic.
Even without the pre marketing launch (as a hole) it would be, in the worst of the worst case scenario (because BG3 pedigree, production value, etc was incomparably bigger) at least at a Disco Elysium/Wasteland/POE/Divinity 2 level of hype for the PC launch + the entire PC hype and mouth to mouth, insane open critic, etc, for the console launch..
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ssringo
Member
genesisblock
Member
Allow me to explain an an example of my playthrough:
1. Enter a seemingly friendly territory.
2. Follow an NPC to the chamber to discuss shit.
3. Noticed a lot of guards outside the area.
4. Suspects something may go wrong.
5. Observe surroundings and mark a flaming chandelier at the top of the ceiling outside the door.
6. Tells friend (coop) to dump oil outside the door and place an explosive under the chandelier *just in case
7. Talks go well with the NPC inside the chamber but one bad skill check caused the conversation to go awry and he runs outside alerting all guards to attack. (I knew it)
8. All guards rush into chamber but slipped on that conveniently placed oil.
9. (Looks at nice chandelier dangling above explosive) then shoot it down hitting the explosive killing pretty much everyone in the radius.
10. Gang up on poor straggler who got caught in the blast and win without losing taking any damage.
Most CRPGS quality is usually determined by writing. For gameplay it's the usual rock-paper-scissors formula that becomes routine and stale after awhile. BG3 takes the extra step of environment manipulation as well as taking the imm-sim approach (if you can think of it, you can do it philosophy) which makes every encounter unique based on how pro-active you are.
There is also the the many, many secrets that can appear just about anywhere, the discovery of locations from deceptively normal areas, multiple scenarios to deal with a boss battle, etc. BG3 to CRPGS is like Red Dead Redemption 2 to open-worlds. The amount of attention to detail is insane for a game. That's why it wins GOTY and it should be selling more than 20m.
Durin
Member
- Larian basically has the fun ambition of a eurojank rpg developer, but they used crowdfunding/early access to FAR greater effect to actually smooth out the jank of these games.
- They use their own engine they've had years of experience with, so no major technical problems (only bugs I ever heard were funny ones).
- They offered more accessibility, difficulty options, and convenience features to make the game easier to play for the normies.
- They offered high difficulty options, deep-enough systems and mod support for the hardcore audience.
- They sexualized everybody, so the blue-hairs got their dumb fetishes, and the male-gaze could still exist.
- Larian didn't attack the audience, but if you didn't like a character they let you kill them.
- Continously added content post-launch for free, and then after saying they'd be done...then added more each time putting them back in the news cycle.
- Larian implement co-op (split-screen & online) better than any of the other modern CRPGs I've seen.
I've watched Bethesda, Bioware and every other western dev I can think of that do the choice-based rpgs only lower player agency and systems depth as production values grew...Larian is the ONLY one that just increased everything. BG3 gives me Mass Effect close-up conversations, more than red/blue choices, better consequences for said choices, and no one's face is tired. They had their Elden Ring moment.
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bitbydeath
Gold Member
Local co-op can go a long way and bring in huge audiences.
simpatico
Gold Member
I think you gotta have both to cross over like that. You gotta have the game, and you gotta have the bear. Every bear is different though, some bears aren't even bears.Lol you have to be special to think this
As if a tsunami of cRPG fans were just waiting for bear scene, are you for real? The early access of the game was so successful that Swen described it as "insane". BG 3 early access was more popular than their previous most successful title, Divinity original sin 2.
Certainly the hype for launch is not the 96 metacritic score and wide industry praise to it being one of the best RPG in 2 decades, no
"Its the bear"
balls of snow
Member
Reactivity.
Usually reserve for sandbox games is actually the entire point of a deep involving wrpg.
Usually reserve for sandbox games is actually the entire point of a deep involving wrpg.
digimaster7
Member
the character isn't hideous looking like in flopguard or concock
there's still bikini armor in this game believe it or not
there's still bikini armor in this game believe it or not
