Is Baldur’s Gate 3 the symbol of the indie game uprising?
In the last few years, more and more gamers have begun expressing their beliefs that the gaming industry is past its prime, due to the declining quality of releases, rapidly increasing prices, and terrible working conditions, especially from name-brand studios. This year, their frustrations have come to a head with the full release of Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) in August 2023. By all means, BG3 has been a resounding success in all aspects, even winning the Game of the Year award; yet this success is exactly why the simmering tension has come to a boiling point.
Larian Studios—the developer of BG3—is an indie studio, which means that they do not have a sponsor or larger game publisher that they answer to. This means that although they are less funded than studios, they also have more creative freedom and control over their work. Indie studios like Larian have often been seen as the underdog in the gaming industry especially when compared to AAA studios such as Bethesda or Bioware, which are often subsidiaries of large game publishers like EA and are hence expected to produce higher quality games. However, due to the steady decline of quality from such AAA studios, gamers have begun looking to indie studios for the holy grail, with BG3’s success only adding to the buzz. But are they right to do so, or is there more nuance to this discussion?
To determine whether BG3 is the herald of the indie studio uprising, we must first analyze why it was such a success. BG3 has been lauded for its complexity, amazing graphics, interesting combat, and replayability. Its long, intricate plot with multiple outcomes depending on the player’s decisions as well as its deep and dynamic characters are unheard of in video games, at least not to its extent. Larian Studios also actively engages with its community, responding to player feedback and continuing to publish major updates and patches that other game publishers might label as premium DLC (paid downloadable content). They are so responsive, in fact, that they even “re-shaved” a throwaway Sphynx cat in the game after some players complained about it being given fur in the latest update—a level of attention to detail many AAA studios and even other indie studios lack. This is in clear contrast to AAA titles such as Bethesda’s Starfield, which was heavily criticised by players upon release due to its uninteresting, repetitive gameplay and lack of optimisation, or The Sims 4, which continues to pump out expensive DLC packs for features many players argue the game should have included in the first place.
So, are indie game studios the ultimate saviour of the gaming industry? Well, no. Larian Studios did not succeed with BG3 because they were an indie studio; rather, they succeeded due to their passion, receptivity to constructive criticism, and respect for their player base. BG3, just like many other games from all sorts of studios, launched with bugs and flaws; what truly set it apart from others, however, was its rapid adaptation to player feedback and lack of predatory monetization. The true lesson to be learned from the success of BG3 is that quality games produced by a passionate team that is open and willing to act on criticism should be the new standard.
