Baldur's Gate III - Spoiler Edition (please read updated OP)

Ah, yes. That’s probably what he meant. I’d assumed he meant some kind of voiced narration * between scenes that the general public hadn’t heard. I agree that past tense is best used in books. It seems weird for choices you are in the process of making. I’d probably use italics or bold or something to clearly differentiate actions from speech as well, but that’s not a big deal.

Something in the gameplay demo I didn’t notice at first is that Astarion did have at least one line of fully animated dialogue, when they set camp. As well as various comments he makes as you play. At first I thought it would all be like the one sided animated conservations in DAO. However you don’t really have a silent (more accurately unvoiced) protagonist, at least with the origin characters.

I’m now curious if you’re silent in most of the dialogue trees, but could actually be voiced at certain key story moments. And if so could it be weird if you are used to not hearing your character and then they suddenly speak? I think it would be fine, since I didn’t even notice at first, but then I wasn’t actually playing. Also would custom characters have similar lines? So many questions..,

Personally I don’t mind whatever they do, as long as it’s not hugely jarring. But I do wonder how half voiced conversations will be received in general, now everyone is so used to fully voiced? Last time I replayed DAO, I’d actually forgotten it was like this.

* Speaking of narration, I hope they found a character for DOS2’s narrator to make an appearance. He was so good and had to carry all the things that couldn’t be animated. I don’t think there’s enough recognition for how much the narration added to the game. A little Easter egg of someone telling campfire stories or something would be cool.

Amusingly, the Twitter post for the recent trailer encourages you to "discover the dark, intense mood of Baldur's Gate 3". Bit tryhard, but I'm guessing they're catering to the "Larian's too silly crowd" and their bizarre delusion that the Forgotten Realms are a grimdark setting.

^Sounds exactly like DOS2, which is great!
I loved how reactive the world was to your choices in small ways. And how messing up could be fun.

Disco Elysium took this one step further and made failing part of the gameplay. The game expects you to fail a lot. No matter how many skill checks you messed up you could always progress in some way. This way no two playthroughs would ever be identical.

I wish more games were like that. Reloading is boring, just live with the consequences! Both games are proof that not playing perfectly doesn't have to deprive the player of anything. In most games failing quests simply means missing out on content. Which sucks. So you're kinds stuck playing good Samaritan it you want to see everything. Here you get either outcome A or B or C depending on how you approach the situation and resolve the conflict. You won't see 100% of the game either way. Maybe to some people that's a downside. But for an RPG I think it's great for replay value.

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I recognized Claudia Black as the narrator and Alix Wilton Regan as Laezel. It reminds me of DA:O somewhat with the camp and the silent protagonist, and I like that Larian reverted to the more standard responses. I wish I had the option to hide the dice-roll, it's a bit immersion-breaking.

I'm hoping to see a reference to the Bhaalspawn saga, but it's a stretch I guess...

There's quite a few things I liked about this. The verticality, using the environment to your advantage (shoving people over ledges, explosives, jumping, destroying bridges, stacking boxes to climb, etc.), opportunities to avoid combat (talking, hiding, etc.), being able to send one party member ahead to scout, throwing items for other party members to pick up. There's a lot of cool systems at work here.

My biggest issue though... using PnP rules for combat in a CRPG. It can definitely be a slog. It took him almost 10 min. to resolve one encounter with like... 4 or 5 goblins. After he was done I was questioning whether I even had the patience prerequisite to play this game.

You can go through the encounter way faster. Swen is just trying to show things instead of being efficient about it.

He also has terrible luck in demonstrations.

I've found I like this approach in theory more than practice. I'm replaying DOS2 now, and I'm remembering why I gave up after a while. That fight in the Blackpits with the white magister and  spawning waves of slug-looking monsters took over 45 minutes, and it was a boring slog. I like fights to be meaningful and interesting, but some of the high level fights in the Divinity games just went on way too long. Maybe D&D's slower level progression will actually improve this a bit, since you won't have crazy amounts of abilities or action points? Or maybe if I feel like the fight is going on too long I can reload and try a non-combat solution? That might actually be more entertaining!

Yeah that fight went on forever and not in a good way. DOS2 had a number of difficult and/or long battles that I wish had been shorter. And as somebody new to this type of gameplay it took me quite a while to get the hang of it and level my character and chosen companion up proper so I wouldn't suck complete. Good thing my co-op partner had a pretty good build so we didn't have to redo encounters often.

Uuuuuugh...Worst fight I saw in both DOS games. Made even worse by the godawful stupid actions of the NPC you try to protect - "Sure, why not leave this perfectly well defended high ground and run through a couple of reaction strikes, through fire and down a ladder just so I can smack a blob once with my knife...and expose myself to several more blobs in the next turn." I swear, If I ever replay DOS2, I am leaving this dude to die.

For those worried about the length of battles, I'd also say that BG3 is looking like it'll be less combat-oriented than D:OS2. At one point (maybe in the AMA a few months ago), I recall the devs even mentioned that you'd be able to go through the entire game without killing anyone, though it'd take some lucky dice rolls and/or save scumming.