Having spent decades working on Bethesda games, including many of The Elder Scrolls and Fallout releases, Bruce Nesmith knows a thing or three about solid RPG design. Naturally, then, he became enthralled by Baldur's Gate 3 just like the rest of us, largely because of how it rejected principles of his former workplace.

In an interview with The Examined Game, Nesmith discusses what he enjoyed about Larian Studios' take on the world of Dungeons & Dragons. "Bethesda Games have always had the philosophy of, let the player play everything," he explains.

"You can play the entire thieves guild, you can play the entire fighters guild, you can play the entire mages guild, there is nothing your character can't play," he continues. "That's a very good philosophy, I support that philosophy. But I was pleasantly surprised to see how positive it felt to me to make consequential decisions that closed off gameplay in Baldur's Gate 3."

Larian's sprawling fantasy RPG is very decision-focused. Your choices, through dialog and actions, consistently dictate the narrative for you, requiring multiple playthroughs if you want to see every which way the central plot can go.

Morrowind, Oblivion, Skyrim, and Fallouts 3 and 4 are more streamlined, even though there are some forks in the road across each. It's worth highlighting Morrowind here, because you can only join one of the three great houses in the game, introducing some consequences to your actions, but minimally compared to Larian's web of storytelling.

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