Wrath of the Righteous vs Baldur's Gate 3

This is kind of a review, but its a review of specifically how these two games compare with each other in a couple key ways that I think let Baldur's Gate 3 (BG3) become one of the most successful RPGs ever made, while Pathfinder: Wrath of the Righteous (WOTR) was just successful. There's a couple obvious points of comparison that I want to layout first, and all of them are contributing, but not the main thrust of why I think they succeeded at different magnitudes:

WOTR's character building is significantly more complicated. BG3 adapted a much simpler system, which just... a lot less happening on a stat to stat basis. Keeping a relative cap of 20 on every stat, with minimal ways to grow outlandishly powerful, and therefore less ways to outright fuck up your character. You can build a fucked up fool of a gnome in BG3, but the system is more forgiving. The default stat distribution and early party members all set you up for success if you follow the pattern. WOTR has 5 defaults you can use, which is great, but the benefit of any RPG like this is the ability to create a cool custom fella. There are so many options and it is so easy to pick a drastically subpar option without knowing. Oh you want to be an Elvish knight using their cool big Elvish Swords? Turns out all the best swords are Two Handed Regular swords, have fun being specced wrong 40 hours in. Of course there are respecs, but it is catastrophically easy to fail at the very beginning in WOTR. That is a rough place to start.

There's very few hyper difficult encounters in the first 20 or so hours of BG3, with only Auntie Ethel, Grym, and Nere taking serious effort IMO. Not to say there aren't other hard fights, but from my cultural understanding those are by far the biggest meat gates in Act 1. Importantly, all of these are optional, so if you're suffering you can just get through each encounter in a passive way, or avoid them altogether, with Grym especially having a free win button if you choose to use it. WOTR on the other hand lets you royaly fuck up your character trivially, and then at about the 5 hour mark throws the inn fight at you, along with assaulting the Grey Garrison a couple hours later, both of which are grueling endurance matches that force you to understand the system to an extent or suffer through it. To put it lightly, BG3 is designed to be approached by beginners, with simpler systems helping you out, while WOTR gives you all the tools for greatness, but does not guide you into it, allowing you to fuck up more drastically in the game's early hours.

Building off of the stats and the encounter design, combat is just simpler in BG3. Again, this is better for public success. If you want a crunchier game with more expressive mechanics, you might feel suffocated by BG3. But its so much easier for someone who doesn't play CRPGs regularly to pick up BG3, understand they have two kinds of actions, have ever action clearly marked, and have all of their actions in a hotbar ready and understandable. Having to understand move actions, standard actions, swift actions, free actions, and full round actions is asking a lot of the common folk. I am and continue to be down for it, but like, people need to get it. BG3 does get substantially more complicated as it goes on, but it starting so simple and staying simple in comparison to WOTR is huge for public perception.

Okay time to talk about the big one. I know I've seen other people mention this at times, but I think people need to understand this: BG3 being a 3D game means it can succeed in the eyes of the public. I mean this sincerely. But Ryan, WOTR is 3D, you can turn the camera, and go up stairs! No you fool! When I bring up Camellia's character sheet in game, she has 2D ARTWORK. When I bring up Shadowheart, I can spin her around like a fucking doll. People go crazy for that shit. Every piece of gear (except for rings) are modeled and visible on my character. I make a handsome drow? I can see him EMOTE IN DIALOGUE. I CAN SEE HIM HAVE SEX WITH SHADOWHEART. BG3 could have been 5x more complicated, 2x harder, and it still would have had a chance at success, BECAUSE THEY MADE A HIGH QUALITY LOOKING VERSION OF A FANTASY SETTING. No matter how simple or easy to pick up WOTR was, it would fundamentally never be able to get far outside of it's niche audience because it simply looks so so so much worse in terms of "expected" quality than BG3. Larian made a very good game yes, but importantly, they made a pretty game. And the prettiness is what people see first. The rest keeps you there. The simplicity may make help people once they start, but I can nearly guarantee that if BG3 had WOTR's visual fidelity, it would have been successful, but moderately so. I genuinely believe making a game pretty with a down to earth marketing campaign (looking at you immortals of Aveum) will get your foot in the door. Of course the rest must be good, but goddamn man, people want to fuck the 3D goth cleric and the 3D suicidal vampire. Let them see them, and use that to draw people into the rest of the good stuff.

For the record, if Owlcat makes another Pathfinder game, I actually hope it is nearly exactly like WOTR in scope and scale (except for Crusades please god), but we can never expect WOTR to succeed in a way like BG3. The cool thing is, it doesn't need to. Both are great, and can succeed at the levels needed for them. And we can be happy with both.

Ryan's Thoughts

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