Baldur's Gate 3 Will Surprise You

all right so with the official release dates announced for both the PlayStation 5 and the PC for Baldur's Gate 3. I felt it was time to talk to you guys about what I believe is not only 2023's game of the year but also a master class in game development I've been a part of the Early Access since 2020 and I have played through almost every single patch they've had played with every class that they have and I don't quite know how to articulate just how great this game is other than saying this is good if this is your first time to legendary drops welcome my name is Ian I like to cover topics around RPGs MMOs anime and just about everything under the sun in regards to gaming I work in construction I am not a technical expert I am not even a games journalist I'm doing this as a hobby I'm just a passionate gamer I am one of you and that's why I want to talk about just how special Baldur's Gate 3 is it's been a very very long time since a game was able to catch the Wonder and excitement that I used to feel when I played games when I was younger and Baldur's Gate is such a special game that it has been able to do that and it's crazy Baldur's Gate 3 features Immaculate Fidelity Lush environments to feel lived in in-depth character creation incredible effects superb voice acting gameplay that is as close as you can get to playing tabletop DND without actually playing the real thing and honestly this game has some of the best storytelling that I've ever seen in gaming period however I'm not here to talk to you guys about any of that any game can have those qualities while it is rare for those games to be able to have all of them in one I want to talk to you about what makes this game special what makes this game different and how developers across the world need to take note of how this game was developed there are two major components that are going to lead to the imminent success of layering in studios in Baldur's Gate 3. that is passion and community and it's something that this game has in spades first I'd like to cover the passion portion we Gamers can immediately recognize when a game is a passion project we can tell when it's not only the developers but also the top brass that deeply care for a game this is one of those games there are a few areas where larion's passion really shines and I think one of those is just how long it's taken to develop this game this game has been in development since 2016. seven years is a long time to develop any game maybe outside of an MMO extended development time has allowed them the freedom to make sure that this game is exactly how they want it to be when it's released to the players it has every detail and design and every story element that they want in this game one of the other things is just their attention to detail the developers have placed a lot of emphasis on creating this rich and detailed world you see it in their character design the motion capture the impact of narrative on no matter what character that you talk to the incredible depictions of spellcasts the many ways that combat can be resolved the variety of character builds the multitude of relationships that can be forged and just the depth of the story for every character that you meet speaking of the story this game has a complex narrative that features winding paths and different outcomes for just about every choice that you make whether it's the main story side quest NPCs that you talk to NPCs that you kill monsters that you kill things that you pick up everything has an impact not only on the story but even on your class and how your character progresses over time the amount of planning and implementation necessary to make sure that this is a cohesive experience speaks volumes about the dedication that larion shows to Baldur's Gate 3. this is something similar that we've seen with something like Hogwarts Legacy where a team is passionate about a game they love The Source material they want it to be a good game and because they throw that passion into it and that love into it it spells success now while larion's passion for Baldur's Gate 3 is definitely a driving factor to their success I believe the execution of their Early Access and by extension their Community engagement are really the two things that set them apart from just about every AAA developer under the sun far too long and far too often are we handed half finished games or products that just don't reach the target audience issues that could have been remedied if the gaming industry had a more open relationship with the fans of their games Boulder's Gate 3 was released into Early Access back in October of 2020. when they first released this game and still as it is right now in Early Access it was released as a vertical slice of the very first chapter of the campaign this allowed larion to be able to make improvements and changes based on player feedback and believe me they've been constantly listening whether they've implemented changes into classes or mechanics or just about everything else into the game it's kind of wild to see how it's ended up I still remember the Charming older days of when the game first landed in early development and how buggy and I'm sure most of you guys have probably seen the memes by now but again it's wild to see just how much this game has changed over time and it's because of the players I'm kind of tossing this in there after the fact but if you guys are interested in playing The Early Access for Baldur's Gate 3 it still is available on Steam and larian made sure to come out and say that the experience that we're gonna have when we play the actual release of the game is going to be nothing like what we've experienced in the early access the Early Access was this curated vertical slice they made sure that this was a specific environment for them to be able to test things on the game this was not actually part of the main story though some of those elements obviously do still exist in the main game throughout this entire development process larion has made sure to regularly post updates of the game's progress on social media forums and on their steam page they've also taken time out of their day to answer questions from the community provide insights on the development process itself and share concept art or other behind the scenes material most notably larion held a live panel from hell for every major content patch on their YouTube channel where they crafted skits joked around teased the audience with upcoming future updates and gave an update on where the game is in its current stages of development these panels were some of the most fun I've ever had watching a developer update and I honestly cannot think of any other developer that has done anything similar to this whether it was the creative director's fan coming out dressed in full armor the skits that they all put together the elaborate sets that they had the corny jokes they made the musical performances or someone's head literally exploding foreign [Music] you could feel just how excited and how much fun this team is having developing Baldur's Gate 3. you can see how much they want to share that fun with their fans if you haven't watched any of the panels from hell I highly suggest you do even if you are not interested in playing Baldur's Gate 3 this is a wild chronicling of a development process and I feel like these panels from Hell very specifically made the community feel like they were a part of this process stepping away from Community engagement there is one thing that I really think a lot of developers could learn from and that is how to have an effective Early Access period Baldur's Gate 3 has been in Early Access for three years which is a relatively long time for a game to stay in Early Access honestly there's not a lot of games that come to mind that have been in Early Access for that long especially ones that actually get a release date I think one of the major strengths to Baldur's Gate 3 in Early Access is the funding I've seen some sites estimate that the game is already sold over 2 million copies in Early Access alone that's crazy that's without pre-orders that's without it being available on anything else other than Steam one of the things you have to think about is that anytime a studio is creating a new game or developing a new IP one of the things that they always get hampered by or run down on is because of the fact that they're just afraid to do anything too different or too risky mostly because they're afraid to lose the money think about how healthy of a work environment it makes when you have so much confirmed interest in a game so much added funding put forth to be able to make sure that that game is good one of the other added benefits is quality control through Early Access larion has leveraged the community to get feedback from the players before the game is fully released larion has identified bugs and other issues as well as just gotten a good sense for how players are reacting to mechanics the story and just the overall experience many developers want to put every mechanic and idea they can possibly have into a game however they have no idea how those players will play the game until it's fully released larion is leveraging Early Access to allow themselves something that most AAA developers only get to see until it's too late maybe there are some systems that the players use to exploit the game maybe there are some aspects of the game that the players completely avoid interacting with because it's a nuisance this is the major difference between fans and actual Gamers or QA testers see the fans of the game are incentivized for the game to be good because they actually are the ones that want to play it while we still need QA testers for the technical issues because they know the things to look for and they also know ways to be able to fix some of that stuff being able to have Gamers play your content before it ever reaches beta is a huge factor in a game's success far too often do we have games released themselves in beta access where some things are already baked into the game where they're fundamental to the game and how it plays and there's no way the developer can go back and fix that in this situation where larion has given people this early access these early builds they can fix some of those fundamental issues before they become a problem when the game is fully released it's difficult to know how people are going to play your game larion has already figured it out I know I've already harped on the community aspect of Baldur's Gate 3 in Early Access however one of the things that larion has allowed themselves to do is they've actually allowed themselves to build a community around the game already what this does is not only generates the initial buy-in but it also generates excitement outside of themselves and their marketing it's like free marketing like what I'm doing right now all right look larion this video does well you owe me like a statue or something okay like please while gamers are hungry for great games I've learned that due to the age of live service titles many gamers stay stuck in one place and it's difficult to develop a community around a game that's newly released due to Baldur's Gate 3's long Early Access they've already developed that base community that helps them to ensure the success of their game overall Early Access can be a valuable tool for developers to build a community get feedback and refine their game before it's released it can also provide additional funding and free marketing larion has done everything that they possibly can to ensure that this game is not only good complete but also a game that players are going to love for a very long time similar to games like Baldur's Gate 2 or Divinity 2 original sin this is going to be something that's going to be played for probably decades look I'm really happy to have been able to share my love for Baldur's Gate 3 with you guys I'm really interested to hear your opinions I thank you guys for watching by the way every Sunday we do a podcast on this channel a live podcast at 2PM PST I'm trying to do my best to be able to get out as much content as I can to you guys and stream and whatnot but do keep in mind I do work a full-time job outside of this so yeah um outside of that I really appreciate all the support that I've been getting from you guys lately I'm really loving the nice comments and and everything else and the people that have been sharing the content too um it's just been really cool so um yeah that's it see you guys next time have a good day bye by the way in case you guys were wondering where the cat is

Channel: Legendary Drops

Views: 76,802

Keywords: baldur's gate 3, baldurs gate 3, bg3, CRPG, 2023 rpg games, 2023 crpg, Best Steam RPGS, RPG, Larian Studios, Larian, Panel From Hell, baldur's gate 3 gameplay, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, Baldurs Gate 3 story, baldur's gate 3 review, baldur's gate 3 classes, baldur's gate 3 character creation, baldur's gate 3 release date, Baldurs Gate 3 xbox, baldur's gate 3 playstation 5, baldur's gate 3 pc gameplay, baldurs gate 3 ps5, ps5, xbox, pc gaming, Legendary Drops, Legendarydrops

Id: PAZdnKRgfZQ

Length: 13min 11sec (791 seconds)

Published: Sat Mar 11 2023