Happy new year, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
17.12.2023 - 18:31 / gamesradar.com / Adam Smith / James Bond / Io Interactive
When developing Baldur’s Gate 3, the studio took inspiration from some games you might not expect.
Larian Studios’ lead writer Adam Smith recently appeared on the Official Xbox Podcast to discuss the team’s game of the year winner, and he unexpectedly cited Arkane (Dishonored, Deathloop, Marvel's Blade) and IO Interactive (Hitman, James Bond) as two studios that inspired the game.
When asked about Baldur’s Gate 3’s out-of-the-box problem-solving, Smith says “We’re often looking to studios like Arkane and immersive sims. And the way that they approach how level design works. And the way that you have all these different avenues to go in.”
He elaborates with an analogy that a designer over at IO Interactive made: “They said a level is [like] a block of Swiss cheese,” Smith continues. “It has all these holes in it, and you make sure the player navigates them and keeps popping out in different places.”
Smith explains that creative problem-solving has “always been a part” of these flexible RPGs, but the tech that was now available to the studio made outlandish playthroughs possible. He even mentioned the viral clips that had players stacking boxes to overcome challenges.
One of Smith’s favorite examples comes from what he calls the Owlbear Belly Drop: “They went to Moonrise Towers which is an area in Act Two - a very, very dangerous area that we made sure was very hard to tackle if you didn’t do it carefully,” he explains. “If you go in all guns blazing, you’re in a lot of trouble. But somebody got a druid while shaped into an Owlbear, jumped from the top of [the tower] and the game’s systems [calculated weight and momentum], and just obliterated every enemy in the area. Just from this massive belly flop.” Supposedly, the team briefly considered balancing that kink out but instead decided that the discovery and fun was more important.
Elsewhere, Smith reiterated the team’s commitment to more post-launch support in the new year via free updates and patches.
Happy new year, Polygon readers! Each week, we round up the most notable new releases to streaming and VOD, highlighting the biggest and best new movies for you to watch at home.
Steam has added another genre tag to the digital storefront, this time officially recognizing the old-school "boomer shooters," as games about booming and shooting surge.
A Baldur’s Gate 3 player has reportedly been banned for sharing their Xbox gameplay recording, as the footage automatically uploaded contained nude, in-game character models.
Larian Studios made changes to two romance options in Baldur's Gate 3's full launch, in order to avoid their excessive ex talk.
The next entry in The Witcher series, currently known as "Polaris", is going to see a development ramp-up in 2024 with the expansion of the development team, according to the current CD Projekt Red CEO.
is playable without any prior knowledge or experience, but that can lead to missing context and a lack of explanation for some elements included in the game. Instead, gives enough information about enemies pulled from to explain why they should be avoided or eliminated, such as the illithid not having souls and seeking to turn others into illithid. However, there's a lot that goes unexplained for those who have no existing knowledge of the Forgotten Realms.
According to Microsoft's Xbox support team, the latest Xbox firmware update should address some Baldur's Gate 3 Xbox crashes.
I am unreasonably excited for Streets of Rogue 2, the follow-up to 2019's best immersive sim in which you could play a vampire, hacker, gorilla or bartender, which means I've been eagerly devouring information about it ever since it was announced in October last year. Lucky for me, then, that developer Matt Dabrowski is kicking off a series of devlogs giving a look at the game's features, inspirations, and, naturally, development.
Cozy and colorful farming sims have a new entry with the charming cat-venture , which takes traditional tropes and mixes them up with clever mysteries and a cute cat-theme. Developed by indie devs Bluecurse Studios and published by Armor Games Studios, is a wholesome and calming experience to play. It not only has the fluffy cows, decorating, and farming that are apparent at first glance, but it maintains a humor and general feeling of cheer even in the darkest depths of the mysterious forest and beyond.
The next major biome for Iron Gate’s Valheim is the Ashlands, a fiery region with lava and extreme temperatures. In a new Steam post, the developer confirmed its launch for the first half of 2024 but noted that it would arrive in the Public Test Branch first. On top of this, it released a new “Walk and Talk” video where the team discusses various aspects of the new biome.
Last month Path of Exile 2 was selected as the #9 Most Wanted game in PC Gaming Show: Most Wanted. The sequel to the long-running ARPG Path of Exile is coming soon, and with work on Path of Exile 2 now well underway, we flew to New Zealand to talk to developers at Grinding Gear Games about how they're approaching a game that needs to be firmly rooted in the original while offering both new players and veterans something fresh and different.
Do you want to get the latest gaming industry news straight to your inbox? Sign up for our daily and weekly newsletters here .