I can not wait to play this game....or actually I have, far too long. I've been waiting since I finished Divinity original sin 2 before it was even announced. Divinity OS2 being my second favourite game and this has a proper chance of dethroning my No.1 The Witcher 3. I have a few short weeks left to go before I buy a ps5 and I anticipate this game more so than the release of GTA6. I'm so happy Larian studios exist cause the western RPG scene is such a mess these days and they are hoisting it on their shoulders alone.

I can't believe it's more than a year old, I wanna read the OP but also don't wanna dilute my upcoming experience or get overly hyped today.

Nice one. 7 playthroughs and still emerging choice content, that's excellent. Your comment has me so hyped again, I'll have this game in my hands in less than a month. I can't fucking wait. 😫 

If you like D:OS2, you will thoroughly enjoy BG3 as well. Cause this is Divinity: Forgotten Realms megadungeon crawler, not really Baldur's Gate CRPG.

As for Larian, they are great at a niche they do - but at making fully-realized CRPG world, they are very much not.

I actually also just started BG3 (finally), am about seven hours in - but I think it's not for me. It's awesome what they have done with the story and the characters, the world where it feels like encounters are just happening naturally and could go in any direction, and even though it annoys me when my dice rolls don't go my way and the game thus forces me down a different path then I wanted to take, I get why that is an interesting mechanic. But I really can't get over the combat, I hate it. And I don't want to put in hours of research to "git gud" and see whether that would make a difference. Story/characters kept me playing until now, but everytime I step into a battle it annoys me so much I just feel like stopping playing. Still happy I got a glimpse of why it's a special game and many people love it so much, but as of now I'll call it quits at hour seven.

Great to hear.

I thought the lore and world setting in the Divinity OS games was quite good, maybe not so deep as Bethesda or CDPR but interesting enough and I like the comical tone which makes up for what it lacks. I'd rather get a sense of the world through character dialogue and exploration than throw random books scattered across Skyrim or item descriptions in Souls. I get what you mean though, the world feels small for some reason even though the maps are large there isn't much of a journey or feeling of adventure in the world. I'll give ya that. 

Maybe a difficulty issue? You could get more fun out of it on lower difficulties and it might move faster... but, I'd say stick with it anf don't lowrr the difficulty. If it's anything like Divinity it takes a long while to get into the hooks in you of gearing up, itemization and class and party building, mid maxing and all that. For me I found them decent off the bat, not really impressive but the more time played the more thr addiction grows and it doesn't stop growing. When you start looting higher teir gear and what not there's a cool gameplay loop, it's just 10- 20 hours In to really get going. Again, only experience with Divinity games. I've yet to play this masterpiece. 

Pretty much all their games feel like theme parks, and not actual worlds - BG3 is just the latest example.

Which is fine, there is a place for that as well, especially if they went for depicting much smaller areas than BG3 is supposed to cover. That's the reason, why I said (back then, not knowing they will move away from D&D) that they should do Castle Ravenloft/Curse of Strahd next - size and self-contained character of that "world" would play to their advantage, and I can easily see such game being their opus magnum.

But for actual full-fledged fantasy worlds - yeah, no...so far at least.

Yeah I suppose I agree. But it is intended to simulate the taple top experience and their games do exactly that. I've never seen a DM do any grand open world, it's also small on foot strolls like in these games. I would like to see what larian could do if they could bring in their branching paths to something with the scope of Slyrim/The Witcher 3 and perhaps even real time combat in the way the outer worlds or the new Xbox exclusive by obsidian does. My fear though is they'd have to make too many sacrifices but if anyone could do it, it'd be them. They've already went with full cutscenes the next step is getting an over the shoulder camera and a combat system working... God, Imagine how great Divinity Original Sin 2 was remade into a real time action game like those titles and kept all it's intricacies intact. 😍 

This is actually a reason why I haven't played their games in single player. You get SO MUCH more enjoyment out of their games when you're playing with friends because it's a simulation of the tabletop experience. 

Larian truly is a special studio in that regard. Swen has already said their next game may release by 2028, which I feel like would be a short amount of time if their next game doesn't continue the types of games they make. I feel like their games are too large to be able to properly bring that experience to the scope of a Skyrim or Witcher 3. 

My dream Larian game would be an isometric Fallout game! I would lose my shit if that happened

You gotta have friends to play with friends 😆 but I imagine it would be alright and yeah, I hold no hope they will go that direction, it would indeed be much complexity to make work, they'd be patching bugs for years.