This is a really good interview. tl;dw is…
- their next game was going to be D&D, but they changed course and are doing something else now
- Vincke has a vision for “the one RPG to rule them all”, and each of their past three RPGs is a step closer to it
- the next game is not going to be that master vision but one step closer toward it, with their previous 3 RPGs proving out emergent design/multiplayer, story and consequence, and personal stories/performance capture, respectively
- Vincke would like to have this next game done in 3 years compared to BG3’s 6 year development cycle, but realistically expects 4 years, as long as there isn’t something like COVID-19 or a war in Ukraine to impede their progress
What if you’re imprisoned on a cart and attacked by a dragon? Or just released from prison on a boat and dropped off in a swampy beach town? The fantasy RPG genre requires starting as a convict or prisoner, you see.
Just once I’d like to start a D&D video game like a real D&D game: in a tavern trying to get wasted and then someone barges in saying something about goblins or some shit, and I’m about six deep so I say, “Fuck it, we ball.”
I love starting in a tavern and having some run in in a panic screaming “UNDEEEEEEAD!!” and just drop a horde on the table. No time to think, no time to explain. The story starts later, right now you have to fight for your life together with whomever is able to hold at least a table leg.
Allow me to introduce you to Solasta: Crown of the Magister. It was the OTHER CRPG releases based on the DnD 5e system. Much smaller budget and team, but a pretty faithful recreation.
Including the fact that the game opens in a tavern with your party throwing back beer one of them might refer to as a donkey piss (depending on which personality archetype you selected for them) while they wait for their quest sponsor to show up and tell them what’s going on. In the meantime, each character introduces themselves to the others by discussing the adventure they had on the way to the present location (as an excuse to run through some tutorials). Doesn’t get much more classic DnD start than that.
Yep, that was a good game too. Different focus, and a fairly linear story. Part of what made Baldur’s Gate 3 so good was of course the amazing characters and character development. Solasta is missing that, but still a very solid and complete DnD game.
For sure. My impression is that to focus on character work in the same way as BG3 (i.e. voice acting, mocap, cinematics, etc) would have been an impossibility for the studio that made Solasta. I would guess they did not have the financial support to make that happen.
Personally, I think of it as being of a piece with the old Infinity Engine games. There was the Baldurs Gate series, which, in classic CRPG fashion, was all about player choice and character. But, side by side with those games, you had the Icewind Dale series, which was almost completely devoid of the story focus of the BG games and entirely focused on dungeon crawling and seeing how far the ruleset can be pushed.
Hell yeah