Baldur's Gate 3, the gameplay preview
Illithid victim After a brief appearance at the Guerrilla Collective, Baldur's Gate III returned to action on June 18, tested once again by the founder and artistic director by Larian, the friendly Swen Vincke. In this case, the tested build seemed to be ready for early access on Steam, scheduled for the end of August. The introductory film should be sufficiently famous, but we summarize it for those who had missed the previous episodes: the protagonist is inside a nautiloid, a kind of dirigible of Mind Flayer, and has been infected by a larva that, in the span of a week, will transform him into the terrible psionic monster. Escaped from captivity thanks to the attack launched by a group of wives, he must first of all avoid the completion of the Ceremorfosi process.
Unfortunately, it was missing the stage of character creation , a step (as you well know lovers of D&D) is nothing short of essential in any role-playing game worthy of the name. In the hope that the customization system is satisfactory (has been promised fifteen races and eight classes), you have to break a lance for the editor of the physical characteristics and saw that the elf used by Vincke, created from scratch, it was so well done as to seem like one of the characters preset; it lacks, however, the work on the facial animations, seen that the expressions are always very similar regardless of the situation in which we are located.
the first Act, the second part The live began with the character of the third level and have a party, already numerous, presenting itself as the continuation of the tried February . In that case, the first steps after the crash of the ship was made by one of the characters created by the programmers, the elf/vampire/thief Astarion . In the field set up for the night we then found the beautiful and his descendant Shadowheart (the first to join the group) and the magician Gale , to which it is united Lae'zel , the zhai, the protagonist of the introductory movie. You are immediately able to appreciate the radical changes in the choice of the dialogues: while in the demo of February, the style was that of Original Sin, with options descriptive and generic, now it reads exactly the sentence that will be pronounced.
A good sign towards the fans that were pressing for this type of setting, much more emphatic; for the moment it still lacks the voice acting of the main protagonist that we hope can be added in the future. Another element of strong visual difference compared to the first demo version was the placement of the camera, in this case much closer to the subject. As we know, during the explorative phases in real time, you can use two ways : that isometric top-down (which reminds a bit the one of the first episodes) and the one positioned at the shoulders of the protagonist, along the lines of Dragon Age .
Improvements on all fronts During the fighting, the first thing that catches your eye is the user interface, completely revolutionized and made less confusing than the first build, as the number of icons on the screen (some of which are taken from the previous chapters) is still quite high; on the forums, the community asks for a further refinement and is said not to be happy with the result. A fight began, however, also emerged a fundamental change in the system of the initiative. At Pax East, the player controlled all the party members until you run out of action points, and then leave the round to all opponents. Now, however, each pawn on the chess board acts according to their own initiative; the characters that are neighbors and have similar values may be used in combined to give life to attack cross. The battles have confirmed a nature tactic that makes them particularly long. Those who remember the Phase Spider of the first two chapters knows that to get rid of it was a relatively quick; in this new episode, a duel in which they took part two Ettercap took about seven minutes, due to the attention needed to leverage the environmental variables, both at the large variety of attacks available. Numbers that confirm the generous amount of time required to finish the title (a hundred hours).
Who has time do not waste time Vincke has shown for the first time, the inspiration , the basis of which it will be possible to throw the die again in situations where it is required (for example during certain dialogues). The points of inspiration you will gain by completing certain side quests. The direct lasted around an hour and a quarter, and showed, in addition to the fighting, other key stages, such as the exploratory, in which you can appreciate the versatility of the physics engine, and the dialogues. From the point of view of the chart Baldur's Gate III seems to be already at a good point: the progress in relation to the alpha of February were evident even to the less experienced eye, although of course there were bugs and details that deserve further work, such as the exaggerated pools of blood that formed beneath a lifeless body.
The level of detail is remarkable and gives vitality to both the village with the windmill as the Underdark, another legacy of the old Baldur's Gate II . This area of the map, not required for the completion of the game, I would have been completely inaccessible if the party had not agreed to help the poor gnome tied to one of the blades of the mill and held hostage by a group of goblins. Other consequences of your choices can be evaluate in the conversation with the other NPC introduced, and the devil, Raphael, apparently the only one able to stop the process of Ceremorfosi. Unfortunately, at this time, you are given the comments of the other members of the party about the decisions taken by the parent company. At the end of the presentation Vinke has confirmed that the first act (or at least a good portion of it) will be available on Steam towards the end of August, and that, from the point of view of content, it will be more generous than the pre-release version of Divinity: Original Sin 2. We remain in waiting for what promises to be one of the most interesting role playing games of recent times.
This new preview of Baldur's Gate III has shown all the potential of the game of Larian: the combat system of the critically acclaimed Divinity: Original Sin 2 is adapted to the rules of the fifth edition of Dungeons & Dragons, while the dialogues are very deep and the characters seem to be endowed with a great charisma. The level of detail is remarkable, and there is also bet on the amount of content: in short, they just have to wait until the end of August for a trial version to early access
CERTAINTIES Excellent combat system, The improvements made testify to the listening of the players to the Unparalleled charm of the licensed Dungeons & Dragons-CONCERNS For some this will be too similar to Divinity: Original Sin 2 Some other will not accept that the third chapter of Baldur's Gate III is not developed by the programmers original
