A few weeks prior to its launch, Baldur’s Gate 3 looks like one of the most promising RPGs in recent memory. However, some devs are urging players not to rate all other games in the genre by such a high standard, appealing to Larian Studios’ unique combination of vast experience and resources.
They also had a pandemic to cope with, so the thought that “so many things fell in place for them, lucky” doesn’t really convince me that it wasn’t actual effort that got them where they are now. The right game meeting the right developer, sure, but how many times did I think “what a shame, this game had so much potential” in the last ten years?
Larian’s track record for quality is beyond expectations. DOS and DOS2 are great examples. Larian worked hard on Baldur’s Gate 3 and it shows.
Oh, nobody’s denying the effort, it’s just that effort isn’t enough. Plenty of those “had potential” games had loads of effort, but ran short of time/money.