Playing Dark Urge as a Githyanki Vengeance Paladin. It's honestly a bit of a bizarre and incongruous combination considering I usually try to just Be Nice in these games. I'm constantly worried I'm not being vengeful enough.
So it's within expectations, I guess.
Like, the mindflayer stuff is interesting because that shit is all way above the current level pay grade, but it's just bubbling in the background for now because my level 3-5 party can only handle goblins and gnolls. I had the same problem with Baldur's Gate 1 and that picked up a bit once you reach the city, so I'm hoping 3 will as well, but I don't know how it could like, surprise me.
The companions are a major facet of this. Again, I'm still in Act 1 so I assume (hope) there's going to be some more depth or wiggle room later, but they're all kind of just plain, and mostly the "sexy" races (humans/elves/half-elves; tieflings were weird and creepy back when Planescape introduced them and I don't think they are anymore since everyone just treats them as Sexy Devils rather than rolling 5 times on the "fucked up fiend traits" table, I will absolutely dump them into this same box). There isn't a single dwarf, gnome, half-orc, or dragonborn companion (hirelings don't count and you know it).
Because BG3 has multiplayer and the whole "Origin Character" system, the companions all have to follow the same template: average enough to allow for player input, with some kind of dark secret or ticking bomb that enforces party conflict, like a DM handed out secret index cards. Lae'zel probably seems new and interesting to someone who has never heard of githyanki but she does not appear to have any notable traits beyond being a "standard" githyanki (read: is an asshole to everybody). Karlach has a cool backstory but I'm pretty sure going up against Zariel is outside the scope of this campaign and she's already made up with Wyll.
Now, in a way, I'd say this is pretty true to Baldur's Gate as a series; the party members of 1 and 2 don't have that much going on narratively either, usually just having some kind of recruitment quest (or maybe a romance quest). But that was because they were designed to be hot-swappable based on the needs of your party composition and alignment; none could be so important you couldn't ditch them at a moment's notice. That's fine when there's like 20 of them, but if my active party is limited to 4 and all the companions are standing there in camp waiting for me to talk to them, I want a little more.
I wanna see some of the weird shit. Hordes of the Underdark came out 20 years ago and in that game you travel to the coldest layer of hell so that you can speak with the Knower of Names, who has the body of a butterfly and the head of a woman, to learn the name of the true love of a planetar to rouse him from his eternal slumber. Sure, Halsin the druid can Wild Shape into a bear, but in NWN2 Mask of the Betrayer I recruited an ancient bear god with rainbow fur who swore an ancient pact to destroy the cursed spirit-eater possessing my soul. In Baldur's Gate 2 a random sidequest led me halfway across the entire game world to kill a ranger and I ended up with the wizard stronghold.
I dunno. As a AAA release for a level 1-12 party I don't think Baldur's Gate 3 can actually be anything other than A Normal Sword Coast Adventure, I guess. I'm broadly enjoying it, but here's hoping it'll pull something crazy out of its sleeve as I start to hit those middle levels. There's a lot of game to go.
