It’s previous entries, Baldur’s Gate 1 & 2 were both epic computer RPGs that more or less redefined the genre on PCs decades ago when they came out (BG1 more so, but BG2 was just as good). For me personally, I sunk countless hours into both those and a few of the offshoot titles that came later (using the same engine I think?).

You have to have played other RPGs at the time before BG1 came out to get an idea of how much simpler they were before. I don’t want to say “bad” because that’s just what the tech allowed for at the time.Then BG1 came out and it was a beautiful painting, it made everything else look like crayon drawings in comparison.

And now along comes Baldur’s Gate 3, decades later and it has some seriously big shoes to fill. It’s been in early access for a few years now I believe, it couldn’t possibly live up to the hype, right? No, it’s good, it’s really good. The full version just launched on Aug 3rd after the developer pulled the launch date up by a month (we normally hear about delays, so an earlier release is somewhat rare). I don’t know that it will have as much relative impact as BG1 had in its day, but it’s a worthy title to carry the name on, something that isn’t always true when we get sequels like this.

The difference between it and other cRPGs is the level of quality in the art/graphics, the faithfulness to the D&D rule set, the amount of freedom/options the game gives you to complete the story, the quality in the writing, and how much the developer listens to the players. It just has a great mixture of all that and they seemed to have knocked it out of the park with this. We’re used to seeing so much subpar shit come out nowadays, it’s refreshing to see a developer who really wants to make something special.