I think people just like the competitive-ness of a battle royale. People like to win and nothing says “winner” more like being the last survivor out of 100, you know?
I played through the whole game last year and while I had fun, you can definitely tell the scope is too big. There’s lots to do but when you do things, there isn’t much depth. Systems that you think should be in place just aren’t there. The game also has a lot of features that align with open world action games of the era like Ghost of Tsushima or Horizon Forbidden West. There’s stealth, there’s a crafting system, there’s collectibles and fetch quests. But there’s few features that align with most other role playing games. You cant get a bite to eat at nearly any restaurant. You can’t have a conversation with an NPC that isn’t one of the dozen that’s relevant to the story. (My favorite activity in fallout is to chat with random characters about random things.) Dialogue trees are shockingly stiff and inconsequential. Most missions have choices but it boils down to “X character is alive instead of unconscious.”
There’s a lot more I could go into but in general it just came across like it was almost unfinished. The only mission I played that felt like a true RPG mission instead of a stealth game or a shooter was the Flathead mission, so it makes sense that’s the mission they relentlessly previewed back in 2019.
I think live play podcasts and shows might help also. I’m a big live play DND/ttrpg listener despite having never played in person with people. I bought it pretty much instantly and I’m loving how much it feels like those podcasts.
I know CRPGs based on ttrpg mechanics still hit with people back in the 90s and early 00s but I’m guessing it wasn’t the selling point. Like I’m pretty sure people didn’t buy Fallout back in 97 because it used a system that was similar to GURPS.
The Adventure Zone podcast by the McElroy brothers came out in like 2014 and the live play podcast genre skyrocketed since. Pretty much every podcast network has at least a few DND shows plus a few more using other unique systems. There’s even podcasts parodying live play like Offices and Bosses, an improv comedy where they play fantasy monsters playing DND with human characters. Theres no way people would have come up with that format before the adventure zone.
I’m not sure whether to agree or disagree with you but thanks for being polite about it. Sorry for calling your comment baiting but when I saw something like that that just didn’t expand on anything I figured it would be. Most troll comments are like that. Say something controversial without expanding on it to encourage arguments.
In fact id consider that kind of comment to encourage far more shit-flinging than something thought out like this.
I think it would be very funny if the game came out and was good. Like Bg3 level good. Just the irony of everybody going “not Todd doing his bullshit again” and it turns out to be a perfect game or something.
And for the record I’m not a huge Bethesda fan.
Edit: I’m astonished I even have to say this, but this is just a stupid joke comment. I’m not trying to make comparisons between baldurs gate 3 and a game that hasn’t even come out yet. Don’t dig that deep.
There are plenty of games that feel true to their roots without needing to feel like the same thing. 1 and 2 came out almost 30 years ago. While they’re good games, there are other ways to explore those kinds of stories than by just replicating those two.