Bruce Nesmith, former lead designer at Bethesda, has explained why he thinks the developer’s RPGs aren’t as “meaningful” as Baldur’s Gate 3.
In a recent interview with MinnMax, Nesmith discussed how he thought Bethesda and Larian Studios’ projects differed. Nesmith spent several years working at Bethesda, leading major RPGs like The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim and Starfield. Prior to Bethesda, Nesmith worked for many years at TSR on Dungeons & Dragons, the TTRPG Baldur’s Gate 3 is based on. While describing BG3 as a “triumph,” Nesmith delved into the important ways it differed from Bethesda’s RPGs.
Larian and Bethesda RPGs have Different Goals
“They’ve [Larian] come out and said quite bluntly, ‘We don’t care if only 1 percent of the players ever see this. Those 1 percent that do will be happy, and they’ll tell the other 99 percent, who will then be happy that the option existed,'” Nesmith explained. This allowed Larian to “poke into all the darkest corners” of the game.
Nesmith continued, noting that Bethesda never locked out content based on player choices in the same way. “And at Bethesda, the games we were making were so big, we had to take the approach of, well, everybody’s got to be able to do this at some point. We can’t block off content that way. And you can see it in our games. We don’t. You can get to be the heads of all the guilds, you can be friends with all the companions, you can go to all the places. Nothing is off-limits.”
In contrast, player decisions in Baldur’s Gate 3 have a lasting impact that closes doors much later in the game. That, Nesmith said, makes player actions in the game more “meaningful.” However, Nesmith said that Bethesda aimed to make games that players would want to explore for hundreds of hours. If the team cut off 50% of the game through early player actions, it would defeat the developer’s goal.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is available now on PC, PlayStation 5, and Xbox Series X.
