A lot of big games came out this year, and we, as gamers, should be grateful for everything we’ve gotten to play. The twist is that there are still things coming out, and the farther we get from other releases, the more we will see the “cracks” in their armor or compare them to other releases to determine “who did what better.” Two big games that are serious Game of the Year Contenders that have been widely compared are Starfield and Baldur’s Gate 3. Both are deep adventures full of customization and choices, but the teams’ behind them had different philosophies when it came to deciding what players experienced.
Starfield design director Bruce Nesmith brought this up in an interview with MinnMax, where he said that both games were good, but the focus that Larian Studios had with their game was different than Bethesda had with theirs:
“They’ve come out and said quite bluntly, ‘We don’t care if only 1% of the players will ever see this. Those 1% that do are going to be happy, and they will tell the other 99%, who will then be happy the option existed.'”
That’s a fair way of thinking about it because with all the build options and ways you can interact with characters, some people will go “off the beaten path” for a certain route and enjoy that while others may take the “main path.”
In contrast, Starfield wanted to have things where EVERYONE could experience everything:
“You can get to be the head of all the guilds, you can be friends with all the companions, you can go to all the places. Nothing is off-limits. Every decision [in Baldur’s Gate 3] feels highly meaningful. Very few decisions in a Bethesda game feel highly meaningful. You maybe get to make three or four of those – and we try to make those really big and important.”
This is an interesting revelation for many reasons, not the least of which is that many players have enjoyed the Larian Studios title because they WANT to dive back in and see things they didn’t see before. But in contrast, the latest Bethesda game has been getting flak from a growing number of players because of its “massive universe full of nothing important” and how they have to slog along at times to get to “the good stuff.”
Oh, and Baldur’s Gate 3 lets you romance characters easily and have huge romantic scenes with them. Bethesda didn’t do that with their game. Just saying.
