D&D General New Baldur's Gate III Teaser Trailer

Larian Studios posted a teaser trailer for Baldur's Gate III on Twitter, showing off both apparent cutscene and gameplay footage.

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The trailer ends with the statement "Join us on the road to Baldur's Gate Starting June 6" This date is the first date of the Guerrilla Collective Indie Game Showcase, taking place online from June 6-8. Larian Studios is a participant in the event and previously promised Baldur's Gate III news at the showcase. This statement lends further credence to industry speculation that the big announcement will be the date of early access, and it may hint that early access will start on June 6. But it looks like we still have another week before we know for sure.

 

[doctorbadwolf]

The closest any Dragon Age game comes to true isometric RTWP is the first one, and even then only in tactical mode. By default, DA:O played similarly to an MMO, with DA2 being closer to an action game and DA:I falling somewhere in the middle.

I get that "MMO-style gameplay with pause" and "isometric RTWP" are distinctions without a difference, for the most part, but I think for a lot of people that "most part" makes a pretty big difference. I would never consider Final Fantasy XII a RTWP game, for instance, despite playing functionally very similar to DA:O (down the buildable AI scripts for companions and ability to pause to issue commands).

Of course, I say all this while:
*Liking the Dragon Age games quite a bit (yes, even 2, don't @ me)
*Not being a huge fan of FFXII
*Enjoying Baldur's Gate (well at least the first one) quite a bit
*Not enjoying POE1's gameplay at all (the stat system seemed great, also liked the VP/HP thing or whatever, but every battle was a chaotic slog and every AOE spell may as well be garbage)
*Loving POE's story and worldbuilding and characters a TON but having to stop eventually because I just wasn't having any fun
*Vastly preferring turn-based combat in isometric RPGs (playing through D:OS1 and digging the crap out of it right now)

I’m sorry but...it’s real time with pause. It isn’t even a distinction, they’re the same. The DA games aren’t like “WoW with pause”, they’re just rtwp.

 

[MonsterEnvy]

I like all of that stuff. And I also think BG III looks cool.

 

[Demetrios1453]

I was replaying BG1 for the first time in like a decade until recently, but I just got bogged down while going through the Siege of Dragonspear expansion - which I had never played, and is actually far more interesting than the reviews gave it. It wasn't because of the story, but that with RTWP, playing any class that has indiscriminately damaging AoE spells just gets to be no fun, as it's really hard to cast such spells without either missing most of the foes you want to target, or accidentally blasting some of your allies. Turn-based is just so much more tactically satisfying instead of dealing with a multitude of constantly moving pieces while you're trying to get a fireball off! I'm not sure how I ever got through the combat parts of BG2 all the times I played it back in the day!

 

[doctorbadwolf]

I was replaying BG1 for the first time in like a decade until recently, but I just got bogged down while going through the Siege of Dragonspear expansion - which I had never played, and is actually far more interesting than the reviews gave it. It wasn't because of the story, but that with RTWP, playing any class that has indiscriminately damaging AoE spells just gets to be no fun, as it's really hard to cast such spells without either missing most of the foes you want to target, or accidentally blasting some of your allies. Turn-based is just so much more tactically satisfying instead of dealing with a multitude of constantly moving pieces while you're trying to get a fireball off! I'm not sure how I ever got through the combat parts of BG2 all the times I played it back in the day!

Maybe it was a mod, but I recall being able to set BG to pause automatically at the start of every turn.

 

[Paul Farquhar]

Maybe it was a mod, but I recall being able to set BG to pause automatically at the start of every turn.

Pretty sure it was always there. It also has "no friendly fire" on "standard" difficulty setting. Although I generally play on "core rules".

The trick is to treat fireball like a grenade - you toss it into the room before you go in. It also helps if you make sure everyone in the party has a ranged weapon equipped so they don't go rushing in. The same tactic also works well in DA:O. PF:KM has some rather handy spells and class powers that protect the whole party from [damage type]. Set one of those up before the fight and you can drop your AoE onto the scrum. Most of the AoEs in the PoE games don't do enough damage to make it worth bothering with.

 

[Gradine]

I’m sorry but...it’s real time with pause. It isn’t even a distinction, they’re the same. The DA games aren’t like “WoW with pause”, they’re just rtwp.

None of them played a single bit like an old school isometric rtwp game. DA2 in particular was explicitly more action-oriented.

Of course I played them all on console so that factors in, but DA:O again felt most in common to FFXII to me, which are just not rtwp.

 

[Gradine]

Maybe it was a mod, but I recall being able to set BG to pause automatically at the start of every turn.

No that was always an option iirc

 

[Paul Farquhar]

"Isometric" and "RTWP" are two separate things.

 

[Reynard]

I would just like to point out that RTwP is really messy and not particularly fun for some people (me!) and I am really glad that turn based has made a powerful resurgence as of late. Between BG3, Solasta and Kingmaker getting turn based, it's a veritable Renaissance.

 

[Demetrios1453]

Maybe it was a mod, but I recall being able to set BG to pause automatically at the start of every turn.

Yep. Using it. Still doesn't help the issue due to having to aim when starting to cast a spell, and things having changed by the time the spell goes off...