A pair of Baldur’s Gate 3 weapons have a unique twist that future games should take inspiration from. It shouldn’t come as too much of a surprise: Baldur’s Gate 3 is full of novel ideas, from its singular approach to player freedom to its well-thought-out quests. However, the last place one would expect to find such innovation is in the systems of weapons, gear, and equipment. These are borrowed straight out of Dungeons & Dragons’ Fifth Edition, and as such, don’t contain many surprises. Unlike other borrowed mechanics, they’re not even subject to many of the differences between Baldur’s Gate 3 and DnD.
But as it turns out, BG3 snuck its very own engaging weapon mechanic in there, even if most players may never find it. It’s not totally new - the same concept has appeared in a lot of classic adventure games, and even featured in one of BG3’s fellow Game of the Year contenders. However, the way it’s implemented here is totally different.
Two weapons that feature in Baldur’s Gate 3, the Vision of the Absolute and the Masterwork Weapon, must be cobbled together from a variety of different parts scattered all throughout Act One’s maps. In a way, this is a nod to a common mechanic in classic point-and-click adventure games. In those, it’s exceedingly common to find broken pieces of important quest items lying about. These often can’t be used on their own, and must be combined to unlock a further area, or another necessary item. However, in a game with a map as big as Baldur’s Gate 3, this mechanic takes on a whole new character.
In the typical open-world RPG, crafting is a bit more of a slog. Player characters pick up tons of crafting items throughout the entire game, inflating their inventory weight past the point of utility. If they’re lucky, they’ll use a handful of them to make incremental upgrades to their gear, or to create huge stacks of important items they use regularly, like healing potions or weapon ammo.
This can make crafting feel like a chore: repetitive and unrewarding. Players are constantly scanning for a myriad of different types of tiny items, each of which is entirely useless on its own. But even when they are combined into useful items, the brief bonuses or slight upgrades they provide are disappointing in proportion to the effort required to obtain them.
2024-01-06 08:41:03
Original from screenrant.com
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