Positive surprise: How big of a thing BG3 became. It's not that different from Larian's previous RPGs, so what happened? The close-up conversations with characters and proper acting? I guess a little bit of presentation goes a long way.
Negative surprise: The absolute state of Insomniac, one of my favorite developers. Holy shit, they are ravaged by the woke virus right now, forget covid. Either that, or they have to play that tune because they have taken some of that sweet ESG money, which comes with certain conditions. Hope it's enough to cover for all the alienation that it will cause in fans. But hey, there's always the normies, they don't know anything. They just see Spider-Man on the cover and that's it, boom, sales.