OK, I finally took the plunge on Baldur’s Gate 3, and, coming from playing several hundreds of hours of Solasta recently, the first thing I noticed is the lack of a combat grid.
Going back a bit further, my son and I spent a ridiculous amount of time playing Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle. We were super pumped for the sequel, but when it finally came out, it kind of fell flat for both of us. Whether or not it’s down to this, I don’t know, but they also removed the grid.
That game, of course, was an XCom-like. XCom used a grid, but a more recent Firaxis game, Marvel’s Midnight Suns, got rid of the grid as well.
To me, all these gridless iterations of classic strategy games just aren’t as engaging. I guess they’re going for a more immersive rpg type of feel? But to me it seems to sacrifice the strategy aspect, and ultimately, judging based on my hours played, that always ends up being too great a sacrifice. My play time on Marvel’s Midnight Suns is less than 10% of Xcom 2, and the same is true for Mario + Rabbids Sparks of Hope.
I’m sure BG3 is a great game, and I’m sure I’ll enjoy the campaign, but so far it’s not giving me the ‘feels’.
Do you miss grids? Or did they only slow you down?
I feel like a lot of design decisions downstream are dependent on that choice. You could absolutely lock gridless combat to a grid, but I don’t think it’d feel the same.
I’m trying to remember a game that has done that, because I’m pretty sure there’s at least one.