Dante9 said:
HoloDust said:
They are not dead, they were always niche (if we're talking CRPGs, that usually have tactical combat). Even back in the heyday of CRPGs (pick your era, whether it's Ultima, SSI's Gold Box, or first renaissance spearheaded by Interplay/Bioware) they were mostly niche genre for audience that wanted P&P RPG experiences converted to video game format. BG3 made a mainstream splash since it was riding the massive mainstream success of D&D 5e, it's (on the paper) sequel to CRPG classics that are BG1&2, it's made by makers of D:OS games (which have their loyal following), and last (but nowhere near least) had massive media hype (backed by Hasbro). |
I think what made the difference was the actual acting and face to face interactions with the characters. It made it much more appealing to the mainstream than just tiny characters with text above their heads. I wonder how popular Larian's previous games would have been if they did that earlier. |
Yeah - I kinda went over mentioning AAA budget, but yeah, that's certainly one of the major reasons for its mainstream success. Not that high production value in those departments make it better game (as a whole it's way more shallow than BG2, let alone Arcanum), but that's certainly what makes it more appealing to mass market.
