The story chief of Baldur’s Gate 3 thanks BioWare. It is one of the reasons why Baldur’s Gate 3 has turned out so well.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is as successful as no one could have imagined. Neither the players nor the critics or even the developers would have believed in this huge success. Nevertheless, the story chief behind Baldur’s Gate 3, Adam Smith, remains humble. He believes that we owe a lot to “BioWare of the 90s”.
What was said? In an interview with PCGamer magazine, lead writer Adam Smith talked about the doubts that existed at the beginning at Larian Studios. There was concern that they might not be up to the big shadow and, thus, the responsibility of making a successor to Baldur’s Gate 2.
After all, Baldur’s Gate 2 was back then one of the highest-rated PC games of all time – and still is today.
It’s easy to forget that because our game has now been released, but when we started working [on Baldur’s Gate 3], it was a gigantic task. [Baldur’s Gate] was such a big shadow. We asked ourselves: Can we even look okay in this shadow? There was a lot of concern about that.
Especially at the beginning of the early access phase of Baldur’s Gate 3, there was a lot of criticism. Again and again, people said it was just “Divinity: Original Sin 3 and not really Baldur’s Gate 3.”
The criticism was taken to heart and worked on:
We told ourselves: ‘No, we love Baldur’s Gate. We want to create Baldur’s Gate 3.’ And there was a reason for that, because so many of us grew up with it.
Why do we owe something to BioWare? Even though BioWare has somewhat fallen out of favor with players in recent years – especially with Mass Effect: Andromeda and Anthem – the studio was considered an absolute exception in the field of RPGs in the past.
Especially the first two “Baldur’s Gate” games and their expansions come from the old BioWare, and that is exactly what Smith refers to.
Especially the character Jaheira, whom veterans may remember from the earlier games, was close to Smith’s heart. He always wanted the character to appear in Baldur’s Gate 3 because the story takes place about 100 years later, and it is exciting to have a character who has experienced so much suffering and loss and then reappears after a century to prepare the next heroes.
That is exactly what Smith is particularly proud of when he receives praise:
It means a lot to me when I see someone who had something to do with the original [Baldur’s Gate] games and is satisfied because we owe them a lot, and I hope we made them proud.
If you look at the ratings of Baldur’s Gate 3 and the current playing times on Steam, then you might well conclude: Yes, it worked.
