Baldur’s Gate 3 Is Proof That We’re In a Golden Age for RPGs

ign.com:

Back in 2014, I interviewed Obsidian Entertainment director Josh Sawyer about Pillars of Eternity – a then-upcoming revival of the isometric RPG sub-genre that had been greenlit as part of the first wave of Kickstarter projects. Sawyer recalled the chilly reception afforded PC RPGs in the mid-to-late 2000s.

“[Isometric RPGs] just died for a very long time,” he said at the time.

The consensus in that period among western publishers was that old-school RPGs were too dense and esoteric for the average gamer. Mainstream developers like BioWare stripped out RPG elements from Mass Effect 3 while older developers faded away. Some developers claimed that RPG elements as we know them today were relics of a bygone era and that games were “growing up.”

It wasn’t until the advent of Kickstarter that classic Pillars of Eternity, Wasteland 2, and Shadowrun began to find their footing thanks to the backing of dedicated fans who never really went away. Out of this period arose another developer, little-known at the time but making major waves today: Larian Studios.

Last week, Larian Studios released Baldur’s Gate 3 after a lengthy period in early access. It quickly became one of 2023’s breakout successes, garnering rave reviews and hundreds of thousands of concurrent players on Steam. To some observers it seemed like an upset that an unapologetically dense and old-school RPG like Baldur’s Gate 3 should find such mainstream success. To me, though, Baldur’s Gate 3 is more proof that we’re in the midst of a new golden age for one of gaming’s oldest genres.

Led by studios like CD Projekt, FromSoftware, Bethesda, and now Larian Studios, the role-playing genre has lately managed to infiltrate virtually every part of the gaming consciousness.