After playing Baldur's Gate 3 last year, I remember telling one of my mates: "I have no idea where this came from? Larian just showed up and was like, I'm the greatest RPG developer ever, here's a certified godlike banger, goodbye." Having now rolled credits on Divinity 2, it turns out I'm just stupid. Larian's been cooking for years but my debilitating fear of top-down cameras and ability hotbars as long as Route 66 meant I completely avoided it. Divinity 2: Original Sin is essentially Baldur's Gate 3's older, slightly nerdier brother, and by extension, it's another boundary-breaking master class in how to make ginormous, sprawling experiences that are still somehow rewarding, reactive and quality-rich. And when I say quality-rich, I mean unfathomably quality-rich.
This game is like 80 hours long. It's just filled to the brim with stuff. It's one of those games that I have to dig deep, speak mystical incantations and summon my relentless 13-year-old, gremlin-brained self to have the patience, stamina and sheer lack of self-preservation to get through in a timely manner. And somehow, while offering such a vast spread of stuff to engage with, nothing in here ever really feels like it's scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's never just serving you up content. It's mission after mission of main event, must-play stuff, largely because everything from the side quests and the companion missions to the core story sections and even random NPC encounters are intertwined. Every quest somehow links into the larger story, every character has something relevant to say and every corner is filled with something worth investigating.
Having played this and Baldur's Gate 3 only a few months apart, it's wild to me how good Larian is at spinning these kinds of stories. They're unparalleled at setting up a huge world that you can explore freely while still somehow making every element you interact with feel like it's part of one, seamlessly unified narrative. Their games are labours of love, and Divinity 2 is no exception. It's just a really saucy, well-made, video-game-ass video game.
And that extends far beyond the story. The way it doesn't establish arbitrary rules regarding how you play or solve a situation. The way combat is a puzzle that challenges you to think outside the box. The way it never holds your hand or tells you what to do but slyly always somehow guides you back to your objective.
And yes, I don't think it's quite as good as BG3. It's more tedious to play, the inventory management is hellish, and act 4 is filled with bullshit gimmick fights and puzzles that are more annoying than fun. The difficulty spikes are also ROUGH at points. The tutorial area's my personal favourite, because it's like, oh here's some slugs to fight. Really learn the game and all that. Then it randomly just decides it's tired of all the loser baby shit now, and spawns in giant alligators with teleporting magic who will absolutely push your shit in for no reason at all.
And don't even get me started on the many, many sections where you get a potato-brained AI teammate you have to protect. Every single one of these goofy lil bastards will single-handedly pull off the most elaborately stupid manoeuvres you've ever seen, to the point where you wonder if they're throwing on purpose and you're gonna pop up in a YouTube prank video in two months' time. They'll actively cancel out every big-damage-set-up you're currently putting together, and then after they inevitably die, every NPC you meet will just chat mad shit about what a terrible person you are for not reloading every turn 9 times to protect them from their own stupidity.
But this is still an absolute banger from a studio that I'm slowly learning is incapable of dropping the ball. Considering the talks before Baldur's Gate 3 were that Divinity 3 could be the next big project on the docket for Larian, I'm pretty gassed to see what these dudes could do with the IP now they've managed to launch arguably one of the best RPGs ever made. Gonna hazard a guess that it'll feature way more horny vampire dudes and shapeshifting grizzly bear sex...
This game is like 80 hours long. It's just filled to the brim with stuff. It's one of those games that I have to dig deep, speak mystical incantations and summon my relentless 13-year-old, gremlin-brained self to have the patience, stamina and sheer lack of self-preservation to get through in a timely manner. And somehow, while offering such a vast spread of stuff to engage with, nothing in here ever really feels like it's scraping the bottom of the barrel. It's never just serving you up content. It's mission after mission of main event, must-play stuff, largely because everything from the side quests and the companion missions to the core story sections and even random NPC encounters are intertwined. Every quest somehow links into the larger story, every character has something relevant to say and every corner is filled with something worth investigating.
Having played this and Baldur's Gate 3 only a few months apart, it's wild to me how good Larian is at spinning these kinds of stories. They're unparalleled at setting up a huge world that you can explore freely while still somehow making every element you interact with feel like it's part of one, seamlessly unified narrative. Their games are labours of love, and Divinity 2 is no exception. It's just a really saucy, well-made, video-game-ass video game.
And that extends far beyond the story. The way it doesn't establish arbitrary rules regarding how you play or solve a situation. The way combat is a puzzle that challenges you to think outside the box. The way it never holds your hand or tells you what to do but slyly always somehow guides you back to your objective.
And yes, I don't think it's quite as good as BG3. It's more tedious to play, the inventory management is hellish, and act 4 is filled with bullshit gimmick fights and puzzles that are more annoying than fun. The difficulty spikes are also ROUGH at points. The tutorial area's my personal favourite, because it's like, oh here's some slugs to fight. Really learn the game and all that. Then it randomly just decides it's tired of all the loser baby shit now, and spawns in giant alligators with teleporting magic who will absolutely push your shit in for no reason at all.
And don't even get me started on the many, many sections where you get a potato-brained AI teammate you have to protect. Every single one of these goofy lil bastards will single-handedly pull off the most elaborately stupid manoeuvres you've ever seen, to the point where you wonder if they're throwing on purpose and you're gonna pop up in a YouTube prank video in two months' time. They'll actively cancel out every big-damage-set-up you're currently putting together, and then after they inevitably die, every NPC you meet will just chat mad shit about what a terrible person you are for not reloading every turn 9 times to protect them from their own stupidity.
But this is still an absolute banger from a studio that I'm slowly learning is incapable of dropping the ball. Considering the talks before Baldur's Gate 3 were that Divinity 3 could be the next big project on the docket for Larian, I'm pretty gassed to see what these dudes could do with the IP now they've managed to launch arguably one of the best RPGs ever made. Gonna hazard a guess that it'll feature way more horny vampire dudes and shapeshifting grizzly bear sex...