The Long but Epic History of Baldur's Gate 3...

in this video I'm going to take you on a journey through the past a history of balers Gate 3 starting all the way back at its announcement trailer in 2019 for many fans the leadup to bg3 is launch was actually just as special and exciting of an experience as when the game fully [Music] released laran Studios is not your traditional studio in this time period from June 2019 to August of 2023 was filled with excitement and fun moments and most of this I would say was due to Early Access showing a very solid foundation for an Innovative game but also Lan's approach to marketing seemed to combine the feeling of them being this extremely professional capable studio with access to AAA resources while also being a company that comes across as down to earth or shall I say relatable here's Bobby who was the CEO of Activision Blizzard for 32 years I think they were great great results I think we had a good quarter and if you look at all the metrics that we measure uh you know we think that we've established a great pathway for growth and here's Sven vinka laran studios's owner founder and creative director in balers gate 3's First everever Community update I know you want to make the perfect game but this is not the way this is the way behold the secret source of Dungeons and Dragons see the difference but you know who else has the secret sauce Factor especially with this loaded bacon shredded chicken meal yes thank you to factor for sponsoring this video getting sick of always prepping food when you're just trying to spend the little free time that you have gaming well that's where Factor comes into play or perhaps you're like me and you don't even know how to cook or prep food in the first place and that's when Factor really comes into play or maybe you're even more like me than I thought and you absolutely hate cleaning up well factors got you covered and the greatest thing about it is that these meals are fresh never Frozen dietition approved and are delivered right to 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trailer started with an aerial shot of the city of balder's gate in seemingly good condition until the camera dropped down into the war torn streets the first thing that fans spotted was a white symbol plastered on a wall in the city and this symbol we would later learn was a symbol for the cult of the absolute but at this time all that we could get out of it was that it seemed to contain the iconography of three evil quasi deities collectively known as the dead three ban ball and Merkel we then witnessed a flaming fist guard morph into a mind flare in a matter of seconds which prompted many questions as the process of seram morphosis typically takes around a week little did we know this trailer was actually clever foreshadowing for the final chapter of balers Gate 3 many of us fans although extremely excited we were also a little worried that the mighty city of balers gate was going to be in an apocalyptic ruined State and that we would be denied that experience of walking the bustling Market Streets just one day later we were then graced with the first ever balers Gate 3 Community update and this was the birth of Sven in his armor set of which I might add he did wear to the game awards in 2023 in this community update we got to watch Sven attempt to convince Wizards of the Coast that his studio is worthy of obtaining the balers Gate 3 license after he unsuccessfully had already attempted this in the past Sven then got yelled at by the front desk manager at wizard of the coast for touching things that are not his sir please don't touch that sorry about that sorry to which he responded by stealing said item the magical iron flask which can hold powerful creatures within look it's a no not a dragon got a dragon yeah sorry about that he's got this thing in his head so it happens from time to time Sven was granted an audience and Wizards of the Coast laid out what would need to be done if they were to give this license to laran Studios what what is this going to take this is got to be big I mean this has got to be a grand invention this it's got to be true to D and D lore can't have you just Reinventing things but we're not looking okay players have to feel that their choices matter it's not uh you know it's not fake choices it's real real decision yeah got it player agency you know and furthermore I mean you know the creativity the freedom the graphics I mean just across the board we're going to need to see just the best version that anyone's everever expected we set the bar pretty high over delivery okay and we got one more requirement I think we need to really feature the process of ceremorphosis in this game I think if we do that that will bring everything together and make it a true D experience SES eh after the meeting was over and in fear of getting denied once again Sven took matters into his own hands by bashing uh Mike from Wizards of the Coast on the head what the thing in the eye can you point that out trapping him into the stolen iron flask and then escaping back to Lan Studios where he would then work on the game regardless now that of course was all fun and jokes F and Wizards of the Coast did Grant laran the license to work on this game I'm almost positive that it was laran that came up with the grand ideas for balers Gate 3 and then they pitch those ideas to Wizards of the Coast versus Wizards saying you need to do XX and X now the reason why this community update was so important goes further than just us getting new info on an upcoming game this update gave us a glimpse into the passion that laran Studios has and clearly that passion stretches all the way up to perhaps the most passionate of them all the owner of the studio this was a very nerdy some may even say cringey community update and you know what I wouldn't have it any other damn way trust me I'm familiar with the cringe most importantly Jimmy I'm a dumbass there's really no class out there for a man like [Music] [Music] that I can be a fighter and apparently laran Studios was just getting started as that Community update would be the start of a marketing campaign unlike any other let's now head to February of the following year 2020 this was the PA East balers Gate 3 World gameplay reveal where we got to see an early version of The Character Creator play as a human play as a gani can play as a dwarf we got to see a big chunk of the game's opening cinematic which would leave us fans speculating for years to come you the player is seemingly being held prisoner on a mind flare ship and one of those damn space octopuses puts a tadpole in your brain what the hell are we going to be turning into mind flares in this game the nautilo chip then gets chased by a group of GIF yane Red Dragon Riders which makes sense because in the lore the GIF Yan race is on a mission to eradicate mind flares from existence due to a rather rough past as the nautiloid ship flies over the city of yartar which is Northwest of Boulder's Gate it zaps up people bringing up even more questions and then it jumps to an entirely different plane of existence known as The Shadow fell only to teleport away right as it appears to take massive damage all right so an alien invasion by space octopuses that are being attacked by a bunch of ETS and we're on a space octopus ship apparently about to turn into a space octopus ourselves Not a Bad plot idea but wait larion also released a statement telling us that the Mind flares are not actually the main antagonists of the game we find ourselves on the center stage of a comp plot hatched by none other than the dead three the gods of murder tyranny and death okay okay how how in the nine Hells did the dead three Gods connect to the Mind flares and the gith Yankee nice job Lan because most of us had no idea and the theories that would ultimately Come Close were never theories that people were fully convinced of even the theory Crafters themselves such as the king harbs NBS hi guys harbs NS here larion did a great job introducing some plot elements while also leaving it shrouded in an exciting mystery although I will say as the game came closer to Launch laran revealed a bit too much for my personal liking with that said it probably worked in their favor marketing wise but perhaps most importantly at P's East we got to watch Sven play a very early version of the game and witnessed him summoning magean to then slap an intellect devour off a platform my Mage hand is bad at many things but it's very good at throwing stuff uh so I'm going to just slap it there you [Music] go uh this was really fun and exciting to see as us viewers were starting to see that player agency in this game was going to be a primary focus no two players would likely ever handle an encounter in the same exact way make things even better Sven then tpk let's hope that this one's going to go right man and then after reloading he proceeded to attempt to climb on a few boxes that he stacked but accidentally stabbed Shadow har in the back do that oh this gameplay reveal also showed us players the amount of dialogue choices that we're going to have access to and how above and beyond laran was going for cutscenes with the animations and the voice acting it was fun chaotic unpredictable and simply above and beyond especially for a game in the crpg genre this was only an early version of the game another really important aspect of the game that was revealed to us here was that we can enter into turn-based mode outside of combat which would make activities such as navigating traps and stealing things a bit more tactical and easier as you get to go and then the world will take its turn after you go this was a really cool Innovative mechanic although overall this presentation was very positively received the most prominent criticism to come out of it was the the game looking very much like divinity original sin 2 with the user interface and just overall General Aesthetics for myself I really had no problem with this as I love dos 2 but it's also just very normal for companies to use assets from their previous games as placeholders and of course as foundational building blocks to build upon this was also when the criticism of bg3 not being a balers gate game started to appear some fans of the original seem to be very angry at how balers Gate 3 was looking as it gave off much more of a Divinity Vibe versus a true balers gate game Vibe which was made by BioWare back in the 90s and early 2000s I mean the fact that balers Gate 3 was revealed to be turnbas Combat versus being real time with paws like The Originals didn't help the case although most including myself were happy with laran innovating here and doing something different for balers Gate 3 as this game was being created 20 plus years after the originals and simply put the times change I could still however understand where a lot of the frustration was coming from I mean imagine if balers Gate 1 and 2 were two of your favorite games of all time and then another company comes in takes the license changes the combat system and maybe you're a player who didn't really like the Divinity series from laram because it is a different vibe it's a different feel from other crpgs I personally wouldn't be too happy about that this criticism however did not represent the entire original fan base and most of the criticism would actually die out when balers Gate 3 released as basically everyone realized that laran did something truly special here even if bg3 doesn't fit your Vibe it's clear that laran went above and beyond which I would say only elevated the balers gate name the following month in March of 2020 laran did a Reddit AMA where they answered a ton of questions with one of the most notable being that all D andd 5e classes from the player's handbook were planned to be in the game whenever anyone asked for a release date for Early Access or the full game the answer was always when it's ready since this video does aim to highlight some of the big changes in balers Gate 3 over the years take a look at Lan's response to a question about reactions the features and mechanics that allow a character to perform an action as a reaction will trigger automatically the players will be able to control which reactions they want to enable in anticipation of enemy actions example a wizard would disable their attack of opportunity but enable their Shield spell which will be cast automatically whenever the wizard is targeted by an attack or magic spell as many of you are aware when this reaction system was implemented into Early Access it was not that great it was far too binary and lacking in player control there was no pop-up box and using a reaction became more of a guess ahead game as opposed to reacting in the moment many for quite a while wondered if laran was going to be too stubborn to rework the reaction system well they eventually did despite their own initial feelings on it Lan gave us a full reactions menu and we could now enable reactions that pop up on our screen in the moment allowing the player to actually react versus how it was before where reactions would go off automatically or they don't go off at all depending on your settings this was a testament to how well laran uses Early Access and player feedback to help develop their games it wasn't until June of 20120 where laran gave us a fresh trailer showing some really cool shots such as this owl bear scene with will this trailer most importantly came with an early access release window for PC for fans who have been following this game up to at this point the hype was pretty insane and this was perhaps even more exciting than the official launch of the game over 3 years later while this Gate 3 was launching into Early Access in August of that same year but that actually got delayed to September 30th which got pushed to October 6 despite things up only 2 months later in August of 2020 the initial release window for Early Access laran launched the start of their panel from Hell [Music] series I don't know about you guys but just hearing that music again gets me really pumped up and these panels were designed to be these Community updat SL marketing campaign shows that in my opinion other Studios could learn a thing or two from this panel from Hell featured Sven and Adam Smith Lan's senior writer and they had Jeff Keeley host it with special guest Chris Perkins from Wizards of the Coast although this first panel from hell wasn't anything too crazy it was really cool to see Sven dressed up in in both Sven and Adam sitting in some balers Gate 3 movie looking set that clearly took a lot of effort to put together a lot of us were thinking this company's pretty cool during this presentation we got to see some really cool Snippets of new gameplay that only greatly added to the hype we watched the Ranger cast find familiar and then to our surprise we learned that you the player can take control of that familiar how cool we watched Lazelle rip a brain from a skull in a scene designed to show us not only dice rolls but also player agency in terms of dialogue choices and to expand on that even further laran had a voting system that let the twitch crowd vote for the player character to make a goblin kiss their feet but we also learned that you could kiss the Goblin's foot in an attempt to slide off their tow ring with your mouth to steal it uh but damn this game looks fun as hell then we got a demonstration of the speak with the dead spell how cool to have that in a game especially with it being represented with such fine animations and cut scenes and that was followed by one of my favorite scenes the approach into an owl Bear's Den laran certainly knew how to Hype things up and then the day finally arrived October 6 of 2020 balers Gate 3 launched into Early Access on Steam Gog and also Google stadia for a little quick wolfart lore this was also the month that I walked away from my job to become a full-time YouTuber I was all in huge thank you to all of you that supported me before Early Access even came out you guys know who you are fathers Gate 3 Early Access launch was a hit and it broke Steam for a little while so if you were like me you also bought it on stadia so you could play it immediately it was reported that bg3 sold over 1 million copies in the first week on Steam alone which is very very very impressive for an early access crpg at the start of Early Access players only had access to an unfinished limited act one there was no mountain pass area that didn't come until launch nor was there the Grim Forge area yet we only had six classes to choose from with eight races a very limited character creator max level was only level four and yeah the overall game was far from perfect do you guys remember how janky some of those cutcenes used to be but truthfully all that really mattered at this time was that this game was fun as hell this was the foundation of what many of us could tell was going to be a fantastic Innovative game my footage of Early Access is a bit blurry as I'm using very old stream footage but I'm sure many of of you have already been noticing all of the differences the UI differences are very noticeable but balers gate 3's overall visuals were much more muted back then with less Vibrance and less and lower Quality Lighting this is what shadow heart used to look like it might I add Shadow heart used to be sassy as hell laran toned her sassiness down a bit during a much later patch keep in mind at the launch of Early Access us players didn't even have carlac we didn't know for certain that carlac was even going to be a companion she was just an NPC standing near the river with a much different appearance than what we have now what we did have at this time was a sassy Shadow heart aaram putting a knife to our necks Basel treating us like chopped liver will was kind of nice but his story was a bit different back then and he was more of an insecure fraud than anything else on release however Will's story was heavily Rewritten making him much more of an appealing character and will also had a voice actor change of course you can it just takes time I I don't need you to be like me and well gal was probably the nicest out of them all if you could handle his humorous arrogance at this time we had no idea if manthara was going to be a companion and her character also went through a ton of hairstyle changes and we had no idea what puny hellson was going to turn out to be let me point out a few quick mechanical differences from the start of early access to the game's official launch when EA launched you could gain advantage on an opponent by simply walking behind them you could do this basically every single turn ranged attacks made from High Ground also gave Advantage which would later be nerfed to a plus two to attack rolls advantage in early early access was given out like candy on Halloween and this upset the balance between classes because certain classes that have the really good class features spells abilities Etc that help the players chance to hit those abilities and features and spells kind of became irrelevant at the start of Early Access camp supplies were not even a thing you you could just long rest with no cost at all reactions basically didn't exist party members approval ratings would go off even if you didn't have that character in your party if they're back at the camp and you say something away from the camp they always would give their approval or disapproval cant trips used to always cause surface effects so shoot a Firebolt at an opponent and the ground also lights up super annoying and many of us were getting Doss 2 flashbacks for [Applause] sure magic Missile used to hit the environment all the time instead of your target shove used to not require a strength check so every character was just shoving everyone every turn it was insane stealth used to completely trivialize combat encounters the map looked like a termite Mound keychains did not exist so you would have like 20 confusing keys in your inventory that you didn't know if you've used them or not they're just they were just everywhere having dark vision or a source of light was much more important in Early Access when you're in the the darker areas of the game otherwise you would be attacking with disadvantage quite a lot and the dancing lights Canan trip actually launched in Early Access as only costing a bonus action youed to have to jump each of your party members individually as they would not follow you if you jumped over something toggle group hide was not a thing you couldn't select multiple items in your inventory and the list really just goes on feel free to share some more in the comments below the launch of Early Access was great but most of us assumed that Early Access would last around a year maybe a little bit more going off of Lan's previous game but nope Early Access lasted from October 6 of 2020 all the way to August 3rd of 2023 Not only was balers Gate 3 extremely ambitious the world also went through a few Global problems during these years there was also the theory that laran built their entire company below water table to discourage vampires from joining their firm Lan's headquarters flooded far too many times I I will admit during this time period larion also opened up a few new studios in different places around the world this was certainly not a dead time though although there were periods in there where a lot of us players kind of stepped away to try to revitalize our interest in the game but larion continued dropping new patches with more and more content and the panel from Hell series also continued and it not only served as just a general update on the game but also as patch announcements for Early Access let me take you on a rather nostalgic Journey the panel from Hell 2 took place on February 17th of 2021 and it served as the announcement for patch 4 for Early Access us viewers started to learn that if there were not any technical difficulties it wouldn't be a true panel from hell you got a camera problem there you are all right you destroyed the camera well it's the mic then the camera it's the magic what can I say technology on Magic doesn't work together this was when the panels started getting a bit crazy as laran went Above and Beyond in their set design and performances although clearly they weren't professional actors we even learned that Nick pinan Lan's lead systems designer was a cow but actually a druid who wild shaped into a cow and this was the announcement for the Druid class being added to Early Access David walgrave Lan's executive producer was a Le silence is a really good term right now so I'm just going to get over there we have more stuff to talk about so as we just move over and thank you very much David for this very clear update uh I know that you couldn't talk about what you wanted to talk about and laran had on special guest Jeremy Crawford a lead designer over at Wizards the panel from Hell 3 a most noble sacrifice was July 9th of 2021 and holy crap laran did this crazy production where the camera shot was a first-person perspective of someone playing basically IRL DND in convum how did you die lightning everywhere and we the viewers got to vote to make the player do things the production was crazy but it wouldn't be a panel Without Tears In The Weave we'll give larion a pass on this one though because they rented out a literal Castle this panel announced patch five for Early Access which introduced camp supplies mini camps to better represent environments inspiration points Shadow heart's story got more mysterious and much much more oh yeah and one more thing salamis could now be used as melee weapons the panel from Hell 4 was in October of that year and it was more gameplay focused and it announced patch six which came with the sorcerer class and also an entirely new area for us players to explore Grim for this was a huge patch and many of us just couldn't believe that all this content was part of the game's First Act the panel from Hell 5 in February of 2022 laran actually flew me out to Belgium and I got to partake in it as a barbarian although I kind of just look like a less handsome version of Jon Snow and also how the hell can I be a barbarian when larion also had Belgium's strongest man come to the panel that must be Jimmy Jimmy's back jimy back all right Jimmy we're over here Jimmy Jimmy we're here Jimmy we're here Jimmy Jimmy Jimmy no decapitate Jimmy no Jimmy what did I tell you not to get called up in your roll as you can see larion also hired some ice sculpture artists to sculpt a mind flare for it to then be decapitated this was really cool and so much fun because although I wasn't the biggest Creator ever I had been covering this game thoroughly since its announcement trailer in 2019 but aside from that this was the announcement for patch 7 which came with the Barbarian class and the ability to throw weapons and use improvised weapons we got to watch them in creative player agency as Nick wild shaped into a cat reducing his weight and then Sven proceeded to Chuck the cat over a Chasm all right you're all buffed up this should be fun Nick how are you feeling um lightheaded uh well here we go all [Music] right ah look at that uhoh what happened oh you th into battle what are you in combat I am in combat really with who oops then Sven and I had it off to go rescue Nick if you would like to watch a video of my experience over in Belgium and at Lan's headquarters I'll leave a link down below the panel from Hell six in July of 2022 we got a rock concert from Lan's executive producer David [Music] willar and this panel was also the announcement for patch 8 which was one of the most fun patches as it brought us players The Bard class and maybe even more importantly the performance [Music] ability we also got new hair shading models swarm AI which was really needed as the AI just took forever before this feature came to the game and much much more just before the next panel laran dropped a Twitter post trailer that in my opinion was one of the most hyped trailers that they've done and also one of the most well done trailers that I've seen scene as it was a bit of a lore video and it showed Minsk being unpetrified at this point in time we didn't know what companions from the original games would be seen or make it into balers Gate 3 the panel from Hell 7 the Holy Night took place in December of 2022 and Jeff Keeley came back and also Santa Claus made an appearance huh what's that what's this I hear something I hear something is that coming thing from the roof oh who's that oh oh we have a visitor oh Santa Santa s this panel was the announcement for patch nine which included the popular Paladin class and also a level cap increase to five which was huge as level five is when players get extra attack and level three spells we also got the reaction system overhaul that we had all been longing for the craziest thing about this panel though was the trailer that it came with but actually this trailer was dropped I think a week before the panel and in this trailer we got to see jira and Minsk jira was actually the narrator for the trailer both of these characters are two of the most iconic companions from the original games this trailer also finally gave us a release date idea as laran announced the release month was going to be August of 2023 also during the panel to everyone's surprise Matt Mercer from critical role made an appearance showing us all that he was going to be the VA for Minsk you point I punch villain his face meet virtuous fist in February of 2023 laran dropped their release date announcement trailer which revealed the mighty cck thorm whose VA was the legendary actor JK Simmons balers gate 3's release date was going to be August 31st 2023 for PC a few months later in June we got the reveal of Jason Isaacs vaing for Gort another one of bg3 antagonists this trailer also showed us a bit of the city of balers gate which was Major hype but just a few days later laran actually gave us a full trailer called returning to the city after 20 years it was looking phenomenal and it wasn't until the following month July on the 7th of 2023 where laran put on the final panel from Hell show this was the release showcase and larion invited quite a few gaming press Peeps and also content creat including myself to go watch it live all of us that were invited we also got to play the release version of the game for a few hours and Sven gave us a private presentation of the game which had some really cool stuff in it I didn't even tell you guys because I didn't want to spoil anything this panel from Hell showcased the dragon born race and half Orcs And we got to see the Monk class in action but perhaps most importantly this was the reveal of the dark urge customizable origin character we also watched helson turn into a bear and yeah you probably know the [Applause] rest this was one of the greatest marketing tactics of all time in my opinion as Lan Studios was the talk of the industry for weeks to come it didn't cost him a thing craziest thing about this panel though was the reaffirmation that laran was moving up balers gate 3's launch day to August 3rd for PC from what was previously announced as August 31st although I don't know for sure if I had to guess this was a response to Bethesda announcing starfields release date just a week after bg3 is initial planned release date lar and then dropped the Orin trailer which only increased the hype as it was just nuts to see such a psychotic antagonist and then the game finally released for PC on August 3rd September 6 for PS5 and December 7th for Xbox Ballers Gate 3 would then go on to win more Awards than I can count including Game of the Year at the golden joysticks Awards the game awards the dice Awards and more the voice actors became absolute stars in the industry many of them started streaming balers Gate 3 and some of them had never really played video games in the past and almost everyone seemed to be rooting laran on it was a phenomenal success especially for a game that many would categorize in the crpg category which can be a rather Niche gaming genre bg3 even reached number nine on the steam charts for most concurrent players as it reached a peak of 875,000 don't forget that's just steam players Lan Studios is the current definition of a large consumer friendly company in my opinion they deserve every bit of success that came and continues to come their way the panel from Hells were such a great idea to show us fans how much they care about their game and making it the best that it can possibly be larion also showed us what can happen when a company stays free of greedy outside influence and hopefully they Inspire some other Studios to stay independent or strive to become more independent in the future thank you all so so much for watching this video took quite a while to put together which is why I really appreciate having sponsors on the channel such as factor and also of course all you channel members and patrons and this allows me to spend more time crafting a single really high quality video versus putting out just a ton of content of lower quality if you're interested in supporting the channel there will be links below and I'll catch you all on the next [Music] one

Channel: WolfheartFPS

Views: 39,088

Keywords: baldurs gate 3, baldurs, gate, baldurs gate 3 gameplay, baldurs gate 3 classes, gameplay, classes, races, baldurs gate 3 beginners guide, balders gate 3, baulders gate 3, boulders gate 3, rpg, upcoming rpg baldurs gate, crpg, wolfheartfps, wolfheart fps, larian studios, rpg 2024, baldurs gate 3 history, larian studios history, baldurs gate, dungeons and dragons

Id: iXUkm73AbsI

Length: 33min 44sec (2024 seconds)

Published: Mon Mar 04 2024