None of what you listed is "new". Also, Morrowind wasn't actually "strange" in the slightest. Plenty of fantasy RPGs had elements of sci-fi and weird bug shit (see: Wizardry and even Might and Magic) and the "you can screw up the main quest" was similarly common at the time. Planescape I'll give you.

Which is also true here. BG3 is not "strange", It is literally the third Baldurs Gate game and continues most of the same themes and concepts. Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).

And KCD2 is one of the most bog standard power fantasy games out there.

Like most articles of this variety, this is just a fancy way of saying "people should make good games"

[–] Mendicant_Bias@feddit.uk 2 points 1 day ago (1 children)

Yeah, it is a whole lot more gay but even that is not out of the ordinary for CRPGs at this point and had been pushed by companies like Larian, Obsidian, and Owlcat. Hell, the Mass Effects and Dragon Ages deserve a LOT of props for how horny and gay they were and normalizing the idea of picking the right dialogue options for a sexy card cutscene (also see CD Projekt Red).

Haven't played BG3 yet, but I'm interested to read this because I've noticed a lot of discussion seems to be about romancing characters, and I don't remember that being a prominent feature in the first two. That said, I was a kid, so maybe that just went over my head at the time. Or is that something that Larian brought in from their other games?

[–] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 2 points 1 day ago

There were no sex cards, but if memory serves you could "romance" Jaheira (while effectively standing on the still warm corpse of her husband), Aerie (I remember that being kind of fucked but it has been 20 years), Viconia, and one of the boring dudes.

The "romances" weren't particularly well written but... they honestly aren't much better these days. We mostly just, as a culture, have moved on from needing everything to be a storybook romance and understanding that sometimes you just need a bang. Which makes "romance" in games a hell of a lot easier.

But also, since BG2 (well, NWN), Bioware have basically made their entire thing "romance options" and so forth. Similar to how Obsidian and Owlcat decided the real culture war was Turn Based versus Real Time With Pause. And Larian realized that we could do all the environmental nonsense that was originally only an option for tabletop games with GMs who didn't know why you were asking when it last rained.

[–] melpomenesclevage@lemmy.dbzer0.com 3 points 1 day ago

none of what you listed is new

yes that's exactly the point. two of these are from the 90s, one is from like 2001. old enough to have good credit and cheap car insurance. im making fun of the title.

morrowind isn't really that weird

no, but it blew a lot of people's minds so i put it on the list.

continues lots of the same themes

citation needed. not that I dislike it, it just feels like the name is tacked on to an otherwise lovely CRPG.