As I play throughDragon Age: The Veilguard, I find myself sharing the same complaint I see most from other players online: I feel like I have very little agency to shape my Rook. I customized her look, and as I get further in, I have decisions to make about who she romances.
But in every conversation, I’m choosing between three dialogue options that, essentially, mean or express the same thing. It’s helpful that the game places a fist, smiling mask, and thumbs-up icon next to each conversation choice because otherwise I’d have trouble distinguishing them at all.
BioWaremade a calculation with The Veilguard, and it seems to have paid off withstrong salesand alargely positive reception on Steam. After the failure ofAnthem, it served up a down-the-middle action-RPG that anyone could pick up and enjoy. The combat is fun, the gameplay is straightforward, and it has none of the rough edges that can make it difficult to get into a meaty RPG like last year’s Baldur’s Gate 3.
What Made Baldur’s Gate 3 So Special
But that’s the thing:Baldur’s Gate 3was a massive hit that grabbed the zeitgeist in a way few games do. And that was, largely,becauseof the features that are often perceived as rough edges. Though Act 3 will always follow Act 2 which will always follow Act 1, each of the game’s three sections is mostly non-linear, allowing players to miss huge swathes of content if they choose.
It’s choice-driven to a fault, offering up tons of dialogue options in nearly every conversation. Its combat is tough and strategic, its autosave unforgiving. It is a game that can kick you in the teeth, but offers such a rewarding experience that you don’t even mind.
Baldur’s Gate 3 revealed a gigantic appetite for crunchy RPGs. This isn’t too surprising if you’re aware of the long tail thatDisco Elysiumhas had since releasing in 2019. But Baldur’s Gate 3 broadened the appeal by incorporating the cutscenes and presentation we expect from a more streamlined game into something sprawling and complex. It wasMass Effect-level production values, but in a far less linear game.
The only problem is that Baldur’s Gate 3 is done. Larian is still putting out small updates but has said that it’s not making any expansions. We don’t know how long, exactly, it will take for Larian’s next RPG to hit the market, but there were six years between Divinity: Original Sin 2’s 1.0 launch and Baldur’s Gate 3’s 1.0 launch. We probably won’t be waiting six years for Larian’s next game to enter early access, but if history is any indicator, we’ll be looking at a few years between that launch and the full release.
What’s The Next Baldur’s Gate 3?
In the meantime, I’m looking for something to scratch that itch and The Veilguard just isn’t it. That’s fine — BioWare was going for something different — but I’m left waiting for that next big thing. And, on the horizon, Avowed looks like the most likely candidate. Obsidian’s last RPG, The Outer Worlds, was the game that kicked my love for this kind of RPG into overdrive. I grew up with games like Pokemon, Final Fantasy Tactics, and Shining Force, but it took The Outer Worlds to show how deep the role-playing aspect of a role-playing game could be.
Since The Outer Worlds, Obsidian has released Pentiment and Grounded, but Avowed will be its first RPG in nearly six years when it launches in 2025. And, the gameplay we’ve seen from it looks great, with deep, flashy combat, interesting exploration, and lots of weighty choices. The last of those matters the most to me. As BioWare has moved away from interesting decisions in its latest releases, Obsidian and Larian are the two studios carrying the torch for my favorite kind of RPG. Given how long we’ll be waiting on Larian, Avowed has a lot on its shoulders. I bet Obsidian delivers.
