How Baldur’s Gate 3 Is Different (& Better) Than Divinity: Original Sin

Larian Studios’ Baldur’s Gate 3 has a lot to live up to. In addition to following in the footsteps of acclaimed games from the ’90s and early 2000s, it has garnered comparisons to Larian’s previous games, Divinity: Original Sin and its sequel. To players familiar with these games, parallels should be obvious – both are fantasy role-playing games with tactical turn-based combat, a party of colorful characters, and an emphasis on depth and complexity of rules. While Divinity: Original Sin 2 was a massive success for Larian and one of the greatest RPGs released in years, a variety of factors may make Baldur’s Gate 3 an even better role-playing experience.

Baldur’s Gate 3 was released into early access in October 2020; initially only the game’s first act was playable and numerous gameplay features were absent, with major updates every few months slowly adding more into the game. Regardless, Larian has been transparent about their goals for the full release and have held several developer livestreams sharing elements of the game. These, combined with the currently playable content, draw a clear picture of the differences between BG3 and DOS2.

Perhaps most obviously distinct, BG3 is set in the Forgotten Realms of Dungeons & Dragons. This makes it Larian’s first game set outside Rivellon, the world of Divinity. For players familiar with the increasingly popular 5^th Edition of D&D – and its dozen or so official adventure modules set in the Forgotten Realms – this may dramatically decrease one barrier to entry often present in games with years of worldbuilding. The change in setting allows for a different narrative focus; stories about magic and divine entities are baked into Divinity’s core – it’s in the name – but while narratives in the Forgotten Realms may involve these elements, they aren’t necessarily essential.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Vs Divinity: Original Sin – Narrative Differences

Despite this key difference, both games’ narratives share an opening beat: the player character is held captive aboard a ship, the ship is attacked by a monster and subsequently destroyed, and the player is left to pick up the pieces and explore. But while DOS2 deposits the player on an island controlled by your former captors, Baldur’s Gate 3 lets the player loose far from civilization, evoking the wilderness exploration elements popular in some D&D adventures. BG3 adds another wrinkle – an illithid tadpole implanted into the player character’s skull threatens to turn them into a mind flayer within a matter of days. This provides the early hours of the game a sense of urgency and momentum, which slowly transforms to mystery and intrigue as new developments – or a lack thereof – come to light through discussions with a player’s party.

Speaking of party members, BG3 has quite the cast of companions, from the boastful and affable Wyll to the cruel, direct Lae’zel. Well-written characters won’t be new to anyone who’s played DOS2 or similar games, but Baldur’s Gate 3 surpasses its predecessors with a fully voiced cast of companions and non-player characters. From major antagonists’ monologues to ambient chatter from background characters, nearly every single line of dialogue is voiced, including a game-master-like narrator providing additional descriptions and insight. This creates a narrative environment somewhere between a tabletop game and an average video game – the perfect mix for a game based on D&D.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Vs Divinity: Original Sin – Gameplay Differences

Baldur’s Gate 3’s connections to D&D are more than just narrative nods, though. While BG3 and Divinity Original Sin 2 are built in the same engine, the newer game warrants updated technology and changes to various game systems to match. BG3’s rules are effectively pulled from D&D 5e. Like DOS2, each character has six basic ability scores (likely familiar to D&D veterans and neonates alike, though the specific list is different) as well as a larger list of skills serving as sub-categories of abilities. All of these feed into a key defining feature of Dungeons & Dragons – rolling dice, a mechanic that is front and center in BG3, though all the dice are virtual.

While Divinity – Original Sin 2 defines success versus failure through skills with percent chances to succeed, checks that require reaching a stat threshold, and other complex methods, Baldurs Gate 3 boils all of this down to a single simple system in the form of difficulty classes. For any action where success is uncertain, the player rolls a 20-sided die, adds bonuses from their character sheet and situational modifiers, and compares it to a pre-determined number; this can occur actively, offering the player choices in dialogues and cutscenes, as well as passively as the player explores the environments. Anyone who’s played modern Dungeons & Dragons will know how this works, and this system covers every check in the game, never demanding the player learn an excessive number of systems.

This is a common theme in Baldur’s Gate 3; where surface-level gameplay may seem similar to that of DOS2, significant layers of complexity have been stripped back, leaving a far cleaner and more approachable experience. For some players, this may be a detrimental change – to a portion of its audience, part of Divinity Original Sin 2’s appeal is its dense, crunchy systems to learn and master. But BG3 still offers tactical depth, especially when it comes to the game’s combat systems.

Baldur’s Gate 3 Combat Compared To Divinity: Original Sin’s

Turn-based combat across the two games differs in a few key respects: Divinity – Original Sin 2 uses a round-robin style initiative, preventing two of the player’s characters from taking turns back-to-back, while Baldur’s Gate 3 uses Dungeons & Dragons 5e rules, having every combatant make a dexterity skill check and ordering turns based on the results. Divinity provides each character a specialized list of skills for use in combat, each of which depletes action points from a pool. In contrast, BG3 has a list of common actions – things any character can do without any specialized training or equipment – as well as spells, special attacks, and item actions that vary from character to character and cost an action or bonus action (most characters get one of each per turn).

Baldur’s Gate 3’s spells are again pulled from D&D, with an ever-growing curated list of well-known magical options, many of which multiple characters can access relatively easily. While this cuts down somewhat on variety and options in gameplay, the process of creating and developing a character is far less daunting to players new to the game. Additionally, as BG3 is still in early access, it is likely missing some complex character creation options that will be present in the final release – characters can only reach level 4 at present, and options like multiclassing and higher-level spells aren’t yet available.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has come a long way since its initial release into early access and considering the significant departures from Larian’s previous game its progress is even more noteworthy. Whether those changes place it above Divinity – Original Sin 2 will likely come down to individual players’ preferences, trading complexity for approachability. Regardless, both games stand as excellent role-playing experiences, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s upcoming full release will provide a massive game for fans of Dungeons & Dragons and Larian Studios alike.

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