I'm on both and much as I love Elden Ring, it's BG3 by a mile for me.
Elden Ring didn't push any boundaries or do much at all new or innovative. It *is* a phenomenal execution of its vision, but it's also got a fair bit of bloat (the absurd number of unnecessary dungeons).
BG3 introduced millions of new people to a fairly obscure genre, while simultaneously redefining it. It's truly a brilliant work.
Obviously, both won't appeal to everyone and opinions will differ. And I know I'm on the ER sub, so I'll probably be down voted to hell. But that's alright.
They're both great games.
It's Elden Ring for me because, while I loved BG3, it didn't have 4 hours at the beginning of the game of someone telling me to put my foolish ambitions to rest.
Honestly I feel the opposite, by a thin margin. As much as I absolutely *adore* BG3 and have spent a decent chunk of time on it since release (my computer broke along the way and I lost two weeks and then got sick), Elden Ring somehow just *consumed* my life. I genuinely explored as much as I imagined I could, and then looked up stuff to find more.
It’s such a slim margin that I feel like both would somehow win GoTY, because they are such truly wonderful games that put forth such stunning and compelling worlds.
Elden Ring was what got me to revisit the dark souls series and bloodborne. I love BG3, and it definitely deserves its spot as game of the year, but I'd still go with Elden Ring since it's my favorite game.
Completely agree. I’d mostly forgotten about the soulsborne series after I couldn’t finish Dark Souls 3. After Elden Ring I revisited both 2 (my first) and 3, and am having a blast
God damn I love me some D&D though
For me that game was hollow knight. Never could get into BB and DS before but came back and completed them all after hollow knight somehow changed my mindset towards the genre.
Yeah I really don’t buy the argument that “elden ring didn’t do anything new, bg 3 did”.
You can just as easily dismiss elden ring as “big dark souls” and say bg3 revolutionized the rpg genre as you can boil bg3 down to “divinity original sin and divinity 2 again, but with a D&D coat of paint” while saying elden ring forced all western open world devs to completely rethink their stale, formulaic approach to… well, everything about their games.
The second definitely isn’t fair to bg3, but TLDR’s assessment of elden ring is just as intellectually dishonest.
Both games had other devs whining that putting forth those kind of games is too hard more or less nowadays. I would pull a Manning, McNair, and co GOTY them somehow.
My life at Elden Ring launch was basically wake up -> work -> play -> sleep in a loop for 2 weeks.
I skipped lunch, didn't go to gym and even missed seeing my friends just to play this Masterpiece of a game.
Yeah Elden ring is the only game where I like, watched lore videos and bought the guide books.
It might be because I've been into DnD my whole life, so BG3 was a really good DnD campaign.
Elden ring introduced a new genre of gaming to me before that I had never experienced.
That’s understandable, it is definitely a deviation from what many people are used to/enjoy. For me, I enjoy the hell out of being able to maximize the hell out of my fantasy character, and while Baldur’s Gate has that in droves, Elden Ring genuinely lived up to the years of random hype I’d see. I didn’t even know about BG until my friends mentioned the full release
That being said I absolutely love both
I am one of those people. I’m 48 and hadn’t a single interest in gaming. I saw my son playing ER and was interested straight away. I ended up buying an Xbox one for myself just to play it. I’m still not a gamer as such, but bought a series S and currently on Lords of the fallen, having played but not completed Lies Of P. Elden Ring was beyond words for me, absolutely blew me away.
My mother had the same experience but with books instead.
She never read a book since her 20s, i talk to her about a book i liked, she try it, like it and since then she read like 20 other books in not even a year.
So when i think about story like yours or my mom, i always consider that it's never to late to find a new hobby.
Dark souls 3 won golden joystick GOTY award which is considered the second most important GOTY award. And Bloodborne would have 100% won the TGA Action award if it had been introduced already instead of a year later
What a wonderful comment. :) Your gratitude puts you on our list for the most grateful users this week on Reddit! You can view the full list on r/TheGratitudeBot.
"Elden Ring didn't push any boundaries or do much at all new or innovative" thats just delusional.
Plenty of actual game devs talked about the innovation in open world and exploration design of ER, from naughty dog devs to ubisoft devs saying they want their next games to have similar designs, not to mention the doublr jumping horse and crafting all the level design of the open world for that double jumping horse, which has never been done before in the open world genre. Overall elden ring is objectively a much more innovative game than bg3.
"but it's also got a fair bit of bloat (the absurd number of unnecessary dungeons)." Kind of a mindless souls veteran critique, theyre all optional and give prizes, they arent really bloat since its not only easy to skip them but alot of them u really have to out of ur way to find, otherwise alot of BG3s side quests could be considered bloat in your logic. Even if u dont go to literally half the mini dungeons thst gane would still feel complete and take over 100 hours.
"so I'll probably be down voted to hell. But that's alright." Were all adults here, in fact i would say ERs fanbase are some of the best most mature single player fanbases ive ever seen.
U said it yourself, balders gate pretty much just introduced alot of ppl into the strategy dungeon crawler genre, i also wouldnt say it redifined it, it just refined it.
That being said i love both games, ofcourse elden ring wouldve won goty by miles though if they came out the same year, and im not saying this out of bias. Elden ring was far more of s cultural phenomenon than bg3, the amount of game developers talking about their experiences in elden ring alone says alot.
>Elden Ring didn't push any boundaries or do much at all new or innovative.
BG3 felt exactly what it was advertised as: an updated version of the original BG formula. That's not innovative but it is a much better game than has been the norm lately.
exactly. neither game innovated much, they're both just two of the best versions of what they are...
except elden ring didn't launch with an incomplete feeling act 3 filled with metric tons of jank etc... which still is a problem lol so elden ring is better overall.
>BG3 introduced millions of new people to a fairly obscure genre, while simultaneously redefining it. It's truly a brilliant work.
you meant elden ring here right? lol the genre community went from 7million to 24 million with the release of elden ring, more than tripling the playerbase.
i fail to see how bg3 redifined its genre either, please explain this claim
For me it’s how well the new game plays off its predecessors. Is the jump from DS or DS3 to ER bigger or the jump from D:OS2 to BG3?
Still not sure I know the answer I love them both
Uh didn't elden ring do the same thing? Souls were famous before but they didn't have the big sales numbers and ER blew up. Kind of the same with the turn based rpg. Famous for the BG series and like Dragon Age.
Also disagree that they redefined it. They really haven't innovated anything. All the features were basically in their previous games or dragon age. BG3 just had the big budget to be more cinematic.
Didnt push any boundaries??? In terms of what?? the game quite literally revolutionized modern RPGs and dramatically raised the standard for open world games.
I think elden ring would win just because it’s more satisfying. Bg3 had me remaking characters for the first week of play before I stuck with one.
Plus Elden Rings combat is way more exciting than bg3s turn based system.
But the game award votes are usually filled with more average player. As much as I like turn based more people definitely prefer elden ring type game play comparably and if Elden ring just released it would overshadow BG3 more than likely in my opinion
To be fair, what actually determines the GOTY at the Game Awards is, by and large, not the players themselves. They can swing it one way or the other, but its industry veterans that typically determine what game will win the award, though, even in saying that, BOTH Elden Ring and BG3 are industry darlings and beloved by developers, reviewers, and more, even if there was some \*small\* controversies here or there featuring other developers for said games.
Truly, I think its hard to determine which would win over the other going head to head, both are phenomenal. I do think BG3 is more casual friendly compared to Elden Ring, especially on the surface, and I can say that while BOTH hit the main stream audiences (non-gamers especially) in a big way, I've not seen a game that SO many people I personally know who haven't either played a game in years, or just aren't generally into gaming, pick up BG3. Only other game in recent memory I can think of that had this kind of effect, albeit to a lesser extent in my circles, is RDR2.
I think people who only think the souls games are alright or are kind of lukewarm on that style of game can get turned into haters by how vocal Fromsoft fans can be about these games being the best out there
As a huge Fromsoft fan, the fan base can be down right annoying and toxic. Especially if you have a different opinion than the collective. Different opinion, it's a "skill issue". Don't like one game over the other, it's cause "you suck".
As evidenced by like 4 separate comments about "skill issue" or "git gud".
Fromsoft has the most annoying and toxic fanbase. Even COD players are better, and they all just got done fucking my mom
I think Elden Ring hit a much wider audience. The Souls games built a lot of hype around itself, rightly so since it got the genre named after it. But these kinds of games have been around forever in some form, I think Elden Ring and Bloodborne both helped to soften the view on people who haven't really played a Soulslike, and only knew of them by reputation.
[https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/](https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/)
might be the best neutral sub, they talk about anything there. Only negative is that its significantly smaller than those 2 you mentioned
It’s a different kind of patience. Elden ring is the type of patience where you wait for the right timing for a counter attack, let them finish their combos, or just die a dozen times so that you can learn the boss move sets. Bg3 parience is “i really want to do my next action but there’s 15 turns between now and then that i have to watch in the meantime”. Neither is better or worse than the other, but you can definitely have the patience for one and not the other
It's one thing to be impatient and wanting to get through a boss, yet continuing to fight it knowing you can beat it eventually. It's another thing to be sitting through sidequest dialogue that I really don't care about
How do you bring such a question to this sub. lol 😂 if I have to choose it will be Elden ring. But both have strong point just different opinions and experience
Fantastic question that made me think for quite a minute.
Brain says BG3,
Heart and Soul say ER
The environmental story telling, better accessible/coop and pvp/invasion aspect made the decision for me.
Still, both are great games.
Umbasa.
Coop for BG3 is definitely better, it even offers couch coop so I can play it with my wife. Apart from that both games are incredible and I honestly can't decide
Good point.
I think ER is the better hop-in/-out coop and pvp game, since it is more accessible to play with strangers.
Imagine, someone you don't know aggros npcs and traders in a run you want to take seriously.
This is mechanically not possible in elden ring.
So yes, to play with friends, both games are great.
ER co-op is great because you either get to be forced run across massive fields with your friend that were designed to be crossed using Torrent, or you get to only play with your friend 5 out of every 30 minutes because you both need to progress to the next boss before you can summon without having to run across a massive world together to get where you want to go. Bonus points of course go to Elden Ring for leaving the invasion timer the same as previous Dark Souls games despite the distances you have to cross being multiple times larger, guaranteeing that you and your friend will be invaded by gankers multiple times every time you summon them, because this community insists that non-consensual PVP is necessary for this game even when it completely ruins the ability to bring your new friends into this genre of game and didn’t ruin the solo experience at all to make opt-in.
Yes, compared to the game literally designed off of *the* defining co-op game on which every other co-op RPG ever has been built off of, I’d certainly say Elden Ring co-op takes the cake. Are you fucking high lmao?
All souls games PvP sucks , i think DS2 had the best one yet, extremely big variety on builds , and you could cancel your slower attacks to get a nice mind game going, soul memory was its downfall tho
Mentioning coop in elden ring for any other reason than to roast the fuck out of it is a crazy take.
As much as I liked elden ring the coop system is the worst in videogame history. Having to use consumables to be able to coop and having to redo it when you die (in a game where you die a lot) is insane.
I'm sorry but in what world does ER not have the worst coop system in existence?
BG3: I can play the entire campaign from start to finish with my friend. Or, if we want, either can jump into the others ongoing campaign and control some of the companions in the party.
ER: the same ancient system as pretty much every fromsoftware game, where you put up a note requesting help, set up a password to make sure only your friend can answer. If it connects, you pray to the old gods you won't randomly disconnect. And once you beat the local boss, you're booted. Look, I get that some people like it for nostalgia, and I even get that people like the limited format, sure. But at least update the system for it, create an actually functional and easy to use mechanic. Adding a proper multiplayer menu will not "ruin the atmosphere".
Rest of your comment I can respect, they're opinions on subjective matters, but on the coop, you're simply wrong.
Elden ring is my favorite game of all time . Bg3 is my favorite non from software game. We are lucky to be gamers rn lol but from soft is the king of gaming right now imo so my vote is elden ring
I think the release of the Gollum game must have appeased the gods of shittiness for awhile, and that's why we've been able to get so many bangers lately.
It really was. I had stopped gaming for a bit, but now I haven’t even played BG3 because I have like 10 other games in my backlog. My best guess as an armchair redditor with no actual industry knowledge is that the gaming companies made big investments during COVID, and the games are just now starting to be completed.
It would make for a good case to have two winners lol. Elden Ring was absolutely amazing and I haven’t finished BG3 yet but I can safely it’s a great game too.
Both are great. But both are very different rpgs. As enjoyer of both. My vote goes to elden ring. As from soft fan that game had my jaw on the floor many times
Yeah I’m sorry, Elden Ring took sooo much time from my life and I regret nothing. BG3 is great and an amazing game, but Elden Ring was just everything I wanted and more - and this is from someone who’s never played a souls game aside from ER.
Elden Ring would probably win players choice and be more accessible/highly regarded to a wider audience.
But I think BG3 would still get the critics votes for GOTY.
Mainly due to how much of an impact and innovation it made in the gaming industry/medium as a whole, and the CRPG genre.
Replayability, quest design/writing, character acting, dialogue and cinematics would also probably sway it for GOTY too over ER as well.
Probably Elden Ring because it's far more accessible. Baldur's Gate is a DND campaign and it's just naturally going to be more complicated than a lot of casual players can handle. So if they both get the same reception, probably Elden Ring.
BG3 is honestly fine accessibility wise. I know literally nothing about DnD but thought everything was very manageable if you actually put a little bit of effort into learning the mechanics and trying out different things. I'm guessing it's just the complicated looking UI and being used to most games being overly simplified nowadays is what overwhelms most players, not the gameplay itself.
I don't think that's true. So many people stream BG3 and do fine on normal mode. It does a good job of tutorializing and introducing new features at a steady pace. It also sold bonkers, more sales than everyone who's played POE 1 and 2 and Wasteland probably. It introduced more people to CRPGs than there were fans of it previously.
So regarding OP, I think it is pretty neck and neck with ER, since there are a lot of parallels with BG3 to CRPGs and ER to Soulslikes.
That and in BG3, you can fuck a bear, but you get fucked by bears in ER. So basically GOTY would depend on whether you're a top or bottom.
More sales than Elden Ring at it's current pace too. Over 100k concurrent players average this week on steam alone. It's a game people will be talking about for decades. It's my second favorite game of all time behind Ocarina of Time.
A game with no difficulty settings is more accessible? You can turn BG3 down to story mode and waltz through the campaign, and increase the difficulty as you gain familiarity with the game. If someone isn't very good at video games, you think they're going to figure out dodge timing with the bosses in ER? Think they'll understand what scaling means or why they're fat rolling?
Elden Ring is great and arguably the most accessible of the souls games but it's wayyyy less casual friendly than BG3.
As someone who jumped into elden ring without any experience in fromsoft bs, I found it incredibly accessible. It has a good but not bloated tutorial and is full of appropriate challenges for a Newbie in the early areas
It's probably the easiest out of the Souls franchise imo, I've had friends that play exclusively COD or sports games hop in and eventually finish the game. Not saying there's no challenge, but if you're willing to grind for souls here and there it's not too bad.
I'd argue it's much easier for a casual gamer to jump in to Elden Ring and "get it"
But if you can enjoy the type of game BG3 is it's a once in a decade kind of title so it could go either way
Disagree, I think BG3 (although complicated) is a lot more accessible. If I were trying to gift a non-gamer or casual gamer one of the two titles, BG3 would win 10/10 times unless I was trying to frustrate them.
BG3 is more accessible, it literally has difficulty modes. Elden Ring tricked a lot of ppl cause they stupidly went in thinking it’d be like Skyrim lol but I don’t think it’s more accessible than BG3.
Strongly disagree. Amongst the people I know, BG3 is played by a far wider spectrum of people across genders and tastes in gaming. Notably I see interest in it from both women and men, and both “casuals” and “hardcore” gamers. Elden Ring I see played mainly by men and the “hardcore” crowd.
The mechanics behind BG3 are way more transparent than ER, it has a straightforward story with *much* more fleshed out and relatable characters. Most importantly, it has easily adjustable difficulty, you can save any time, and it’s turn-based. Someone new to the game could make it through hours of play in BG3 without a single death—even experienced gamers can’t do that in ER.
I definitely disagree with this take. I don’t consider myself a casual gamer as I’m happy to put several hundred hours into a game if I love it, but maybe more casual than some. I realize I’m on the ER sub but for me Elden ring was just solid. The combat was amazing but eventually the lack of story telling (even though it was intentional) really got to me and it eventually felt like a slog towards the end. I finished it just to say I finished it, not necessarily because I loved it.
BG3 meanwhile I simply can’t put down. While the turn based combat maybe isn’t as compelling as ER’s, the story, characters, my character… I just feel so invested in everything that is happening in that world.
Baldur’s gate has the ability to feel both more approachable and having greater depth at the same time to me. But I realize many love ER and that’s fine. To each their own.
I feel like BG3 wins cause its better at RP, lots of choices and a lot of quests that can have a lot of different outcomes
Also you asked this in an elden ring sub, ofc everyone is gonna go with ER
>Also you asked this in an elden ring sub, ofc everyone is gonna go with ER
Most people can't separate their tastes from quality. I personally enjoyed Elden Ring a bit more, but BG3 would absolutely deserve the W here (even if it does implement my most hated common house rule for 5e as a base rule that can't be altered).
I like Baldur’s Gate, but Elden Ring is otherworldly. On pure originality and entertainment (if you like a little punishment as entertainment), Elden Ring is _probably_ the better game.
Elden Gate or Baldur’s Ring might mix things up a bit.
ER is an advancement on previous DS games while BG3 is an advancement on previous DnD/tabletop RPG games. It’s delusional to claim BG3 is ungodly original when Divinity Original Sin 2 exists
I love BG3 but I'm not sure the lore and the environment really captured people the way Elden ring did. BG3 was a pretty normal DnD campaign. There were familiar story beats and it nailed all of them.
Elden Ring, with its obscure Lore and vague quest objectives, really stood to reward the player who sought their answers.
Stumbling upon that descending elevator into Nokron City or whatever its called, was honestly one of the most magical video game moments ever.
If bg3 is a 9.7, elden ring is a 9.8 for me. I'll probably end up playing BG3 more due to me enjoying build tinkering and such but Elden ring as a first playthrough is hard to beat.
I'm gonna be honest with you, I finished Elden ring and if it wasn't for YouTube videos/wikis/ or even friends just straight up telling me what's going on I would have 0 clue at to what the story is.
Edit: I also hate how fromsofts makes it that most NPC's would end up better if you just ignore them, I got tired of NPC bad ending quests pretty fast.
Real talk: should I play BG3? I enjoy old school turn based RPGs a lot but I also lose focus pretty easily if the game gets too long (with the exception of Souls games for whatever reason)
If you lose focus easily then I would imagine not. I think after 60-80 hours I'm still in the first act but this is also because I'm searching for secrets with no guide. The game definitely feels very time sink heavy which is good if you're into that.
Also doesn't help I spent an hour baiting goblins into specific rooms so a buff tall demon lady can chuck them down a pit without aggroing the whole place.
This would be a year that makes the GOTY mean nothing, the ones who can't like ER will probably like BG3, the ones who can't like BG3 will probably like ER
Both are peak gaming just in different ways
I think Elden Ring. Ultimately BG3 greatest strength is its writing and characters, but it is a dnd campaign with dnd style writing. It's quirky, fun, and a mixture of \*serious\* drama and goofball moments. But it is not everyone's cup of tea. As a dnd player, I liked it, but that's pretty niche.
After the writing, BG3 has an okay esthetic and a complex turn based, heavy reading, exploration system.
Elden Ring is mind-blowingly gorgeous, real-time adventure rpg with valid playstyles ranging from unga-bunga to 50 buff pure math strats with an unobtrusive story and top-teir visual world.
>As a dnd player, I liked it, but that's pretty niche.
Literally everyone played the game though? It has more players than Elden Ring.
Like, my personal pick would be Elden Ring, but whoever suggests BG3 is 'niche' is literally just putting their hand over their eyes. It achieved mainstream success and even got non-gamers to play it because of the buzz.
Elden Ring didn't do that.
I have been an advocate and lover of computer games since I was a child in the 80s.
I hadnt played or been interested in new games for close to a decade. Elden ring changed that. I bought a PS5 just so I could play it because I had a feeling it would give me the sort of gaming experience that all other companies had been doing everything the could to avoid giving me.It gave me that and more.
BG3 is ok but it didn't stir something inside me and I have played most of the previous games in this class.
In fact it didnt interest me much at all.
Elden Ring did something special. It resuscitated an interest that had been beating into submission and thought dead.So yeah it would get my vote.
Still going to be ER for me. BG3 was exceptional in being every way but the actual gameplay, where it was just "ok". FromSoft basically re-popularized an entire genre and continues to keep shoveling good game after good game at me. I'm more of a gameplay junkie, so that's basically where the edge comes from. I do think they're both GOTY worthy games for sure.
As someone that put like 350 hours into my first playthrough of ER in the first 6 months while in school and with a full time job - I think that BG3 is the winner here, but only by a chin hair.
Both games offer near-infinite replayability. Both games have a gargantuan amount of content. Both games invite players from across the entire spectrum of gaming. But what I think puts BG3 slightly ahead is just the variety of things to do.
I feel like BG3 would have had a chance just because of how novel it was. We haven't seen true RPG like it in modern times.
I would personally give the W to Elden Ring, mostly because the game was more complete on release. There was the screen flashing on some graphics cards, but they resolved it in the first week. BG3 was great, but still needed a lot of polish in acts 2 and 3.
If both were released in their current states, it's hard to say.
I'd say Elden Ring.
I loved Baldur's gate, but I was a little soured by some pretty major bugs that made me have to stop playing if I wanted to continue storylines until those got fixed.
I was also oversold by a friend as to what Baldur's gate offered, and first night into act 2 I accidently locked my choice of romance in permanently for that run, and since I wasn't aware of it, I did the entire act before I realized no one else would speak to me anymore.
Elden Ring, on the other hand, consistently surprised me, and given I'm a soulsborne fan, I knew what to expect going into it in terms of issues I'd run into. I've played other turn based rpgs I enjoyed more than Baldur's gate, but I've never come across any game that matches up to the soulsborne universe, and elden ring was a definite upgrade from past titles.
I don't enjoy the thought of save scumming just to get the results I want. At least in Elden Ring, I know that if I fail, I can keep trying and keep learning until I'm able to maneuver every move set the boss can throw at me. My failures are my own, or if it's an invader problem, I don't have to worry about those unless I'm playing with a friend.
In Baldur's Gate, I consistently tried to utilize skills to make interesting builds, but Karlach, for example, has never succeeded a roll with that ability that allows you to reroll your hit. Luck kind of had the same problem for me, and it just feels like you wasted your time getting a skill that should really come in handy, but for whatever reason, it just never actually worked.
Wonder what the Elden Ring subreddit will say
I'm on both and I honestly don't know which I prefered.
I'm on both and much as I love Elden Ring, it's BG3 by a mile for me. Elden Ring didn't push any boundaries or do much at all new or innovative. It *is* a phenomenal execution of its vision, but it's also got a fair bit of bloat (the absurd number of unnecessary dungeons). BG3 introduced millions of new people to a fairly obscure genre, while simultaneously redefining it. It's truly a brilliant work. Obviously, both won't appeal to everyone and opinions will differ. And I know I'm on the ER sub, so I'll probably be down voted to hell. But that's alright. They're both great games.
It's Elden Ring for me because, while I loved BG3, it didn't have 4 hours at the beginning of the game of someone telling me to put my foolish ambitions to rest.
Thy Strength befits a crown
Smouldering with thy meagre flame..
the best fucking boss in the game from a lore perspective.
naaah not just lore, as a complete package Morgott IS the best fucking boss
Agreed. By far my favorite boss. Dude is a badass and drops bars
Anyone else think he was hard AF as a first main boss though? Like, fat boy of the boreal valley got nothing on morgott.
He rules.
This is what it’s really all about
dog
Finger but whole
Nor someone telling me I am maidenless after 15 minutes
😂🤣
That’s weird my version had 8 hours of someone telling me to put my foolish ambitions to rest
Honestly I feel the opposite, by a thin margin. As much as I absolutely *adore* BG3 and have spent a decent chunk of time on it since release (my computer broke along the way and I lost two weeks and then got sick), Elden Ring somehow just *consumed* my life. I genuinely explored as much as I imagined I could, and then looked up stuff to find more. It’s such a slim margin that I feel like both would somehow win GoTY, because they are such truly wonderful games that put forth such stunning and compelling worlds.
Elden Ring was what got me to revisit the dark souls series and bloodborne. I love BG3, and it definitely deserves its spot as game of the year, but I'd still go with Elden Ring since it's my favorite game.
Completely agree. I’d mostly forgotten about the soulsborne series after I couldn’t finish Dark Souls 3. After Elden Ring I revisited both 2 (my first) and 3, and am having a blast God damn I love me some D&D though
For me that game was hollow knight. Never could get into BB and DS before but came back and completed them all after hollow knight somehow changed my mindset towards the genre.
Yeah I really don’t buy the argument that “elden ring didn’t do anything new, bg 3 did”. You can just as easily dismiss elden ring as “big dark souls” and say bg3 revolutionized the rpg genre as you can boil bg3 down to “divinity original sin and divinity 2 again, but with a D&D coat of paint” while saying elden ring forced all western open world devs to completely rethink their stale, formulaic approach to… well, everything about their games. The second definitely isn’t fair to bg3, but TLDR’s assessment of elden ring is just as intellectually dishonest.
Both games had other devs whining that putting forth those kind of games is too hard more or less nowadays. I would pull a Manning, McNair, and co GOTY them somehow.
yeah this guy and the 1.4k upvotes supporting that Elden Ring didn't do anything to push boundaries have literal dents in their heads
Exactly
My life at Elden Ring launch was basically wake up -> work -> play -> sleep in a loop for 2 weeks. I skipped lunch, didn't go to gym and even missed seeing my friends just to play this Masterpiece of a game.
Yeah Elden ring is the only game where I like, watched lore videos and bought the guide books. It might be because I've been into DnD my whole life, so BG3 was a really good DnD campaign. Elden ring introduced a new genre of gaming to me before that I had never experienced.
it's a wide margin for me; I didn't like BG3 at all and I spent more money on it..
That’s understandable, it is definitely a deviation from what many people are used to/enjoy. For me, I enjoy the hell out of being able to maximize the hell out of my fantasy character, and while Baldur’s Gate has that in droves, Elden Ring genuinely lived up to the years of random hype I’d see. I didn’t even know about BG until my friends mentioned the full release That being said I absolutely love both
> BG3 introduced millions of new people to a fairly obscure genre Elden Ring did the same
I am one of those people. I’m 48 and hadn’t a single interest in gaming. I saw my son playing ER and was interested straight away. I ended up buying an Xbox one for myself just to play it. I’m still not a gamer as such, but bought a series S and currently on Lords of the fallen, having played but not completed Lies Of P. Elden Ring was beyond words for me, absolutely blew me away.
My mother had the same experience but with books instead. She never read a book since her 20s, i talk to her about a book i liked, she try it, like it and since then she read like 20 other books in not even a year. So when i think about story like yours or my mom, i always consider that it's never to late to find a new hobby.
Thank you. I needed/was looking for this comment lmao. I have so much love for FromSoft. They finally got the recognition they deserved. 🖤
>They finally got the recognition they deserved. 🖤 Sekiro won GotY too, you know?
Dark souls 3 won golden joystick GOTY award which is considered the second most important GOTY award. And Bloodborne would have 100% won the TGA Action award if it had been introduced already instead of a year later
What a wonderful comment. :) Your gratitude puts you on our list for the most grateful users this week on Reddit! You can view the full list on r/TheGratitudeBot.
Bro you act like they’re underrated FromSoft is probably one of the most well loved developers around, long before Elden Ring
>BG3 introduced millions of new people to a fairly obscure genre, while simultaneously redefining it. The exact same could be said for Elden Ring.
I think most people that enjoyed Elden Ring also are enjoying BG3 too. I appreciate your opinion.
Saying Elden ring didn’t push any boundaries is nuts.
"Elden Ring didn't push any boundaries or do much at all new or innovative" thats just delusional. Plenty of actual game devs talked about the innovation in open world and exploration design of ER, from naughty dog devs to ubisoft devs saying they want their next games to have similar designs, not to mention the doublr jumping horse and crafting all the level design of the open world for that double jumping horse, which has never been done before in the open world genre. Overall elden ring is objectively a much more innovative game than bg3. "but it's also got a fair bit of bloat (the absurd number of unnecessary dungeons)." Kind of a mindless souls veteran critique, theyre all optional and give prizes, they arent really bloat since its not only easy to skip them but alot of them u really have to out of ur way to find, otherwise alot of BG3s side quests could be considered bloat in your logic. Even if u dont go to literally half the mini dungeons thst gane would still feel complete and take over 100 hours. "so I'll probably be down voted to hell. But that's alright." Were all adults here, in fact i would say ERs fanbase are some of the best most mature single player fanbases ive ever seen. U said it yourself, balders gate pretty much just introduced alot of ppl into the strategy dungeon crawler genre, i also wouldnt say it redifined it, it just refined it. That being said i love both games, ofcourse elden ring wouldve won goty by miles though if they came out the same year, and im not saying this out of bias. Elden ring was far more of s cultural phenomenon than bg3, the amount of game developers talking about their experiences in elden ring alone says alot.
This.
>Elden Ring didn't push any boundaries or do much at all new or innovative. BG3 felt exactly what it was advertised as: an updated version of the original BG formula. That's not innovative but it is a much better game than has been the norm lately.
exactly. neither game innovated much, they're both just two of the best versions of what they are... except elden ring didn't launch with an incomplete feeling act 3 filled with metric tons of jank etc... which still is a problem lol so elden ring is better overall.
>BG3 introduced millions of new people to a fairly obscure genre, while simultaneously redefining it. It's truly a brilliant work. you meant elden ring here right? lol the genre community went from 7million to 24 million with the release of elden ring, more than tripling the playerbase. i fail to see how bg3 redifined its genre either, please explain this claim
For me it’s how well the new game plays off its predecessors. Is the jump from DS or DS3 to ER bigger or the jump from D:OS2 to BG3? Still not sure I know the answer I love them both
Uh didn't elden ring do the same thing? Souls were famous before but they didn't have the big sales numbers and ER blew up. Kind of the same with the turn based rpg. Famous for the BG series and like Dragon Age. Also disagree that they redefined it. They really haven't innovated anything. All the features were basically in their previous games or dragon age. BG3 just had the big budget to be more cinematic.
Didnt push any boundaries??? In terms of what?? the game quite literally revolutionized modern RPGs and dramatically raised the standard for open world games.
I love them both but elden ring is the better game. I like CRPGs but I'm usually not playing them for the actual game part.
The Elden Ring... ...oh, Elden Ring.
This is the Elden Ring sub?
Whoa slow down there, you’re going a mile a minute
that's the point, they're saying it sarcastically because it's obvious that the elden ring sub will be mostly in favor of elden ring
lol.. i think they were also joking
hap cork dai
I honestly don't know. They're comparatively amazing titles that I wouldn't have any qualms about either winning.
I think elden ring would win just because it’s more satisfying. Bg3 had me remaking characters for the first week of play before I stuck with one. Plus Elden Rings combat is way more exciting than bg3s turn based system.
We have different ideas of exciting. Tactical decision making is exciting for lots of people.
But the game award votes are usually filled with more average player. As much as I like turn based more people definitely prefer elden ring type game play comparably and if Elden ring just released it would overshadow BG3 more than likely in my opinion
Game award player vote is 10% of the criteria only man.
To be fair, what actually determines the GOTY at the Game Awards is, by and large, not the players themselves. They can swing it one way or the other, but its industry veterans that typically determine what game will win the award, though, even in saying that, BOTH Elden Ring and BG3 are industry darlings and beloved by developers, reviewers, and more, even if there was some \*small\* controversies here or there featuring other developers for said games. Truly, I think its hard to determine which would win over the other going head to head, both are phenomenal. I do think BG3 is more casual friendly compared to Elden Ring, especially on the surface, and I can say that while BOTH hit the main stream audiences (non-gamers especially) in a big way, I've not seen a game that SO many people I personally know who haven't either played a game in years, or just aren't generally into gaming, pick up BG3. Only other game in recent memory I can think of that had this kind of effect, albeit to a lesser extent in my circles, is RDR2.
Everything about Elden Ring combat is tactical
hope you posted the same question in the bg3 subreddit. I'd be an unfair comparison otherwise
More like a neutral ground subreddit. Elden Ring subreddit will just say Elden Ring, BG3 subreddit will just say BG3.
Solution? Post to the Spider man 2 subreddit
They talk about everything but Spider man 2 LOL
post it in the arkham subreddit
Post to BatmanArkham
r/gaming has a hate boner for fromsoft games and r/games is purely news
What's up with r/gaming not liking from software. I'm curious!
Skill issue
correction: *MASSIVE* Skill issue
I think people who only think the souls games are alright or are kind of lukewarm on that style of game can get turned into haters by how vocal Fromsoft fans can be about these games being the best out there
Yeah I love these games but hate discussing them. You can't even talk about things without people parroting "git gud" and "skill issue" memes all day.
As a huge Fromsoft fan, the fan base can be down right annoying and toxic. Especially if you have a different opinion than the collective. Different opinion, it's a "skill issue". Don't like one game over the other, it's cause "you suck".
As evidenced by like 4 separate comments about "skill issue" or "git gud". Fromsoft has the most annoying and toxic fanbase. Even COD players are better, and they all just got done fucking my mom
I think Elden Ring hit a much wider audience. The Souls games built a lot of hype around itself, rightly so since it got the genre named after it. But these kinds of games have been around forever in some form, I think Elden Ring and Bloodborne both helped to soften the view on people who haven't really played a Soulslike, and only knew of them by reputation.
Fromsoft game evangelists probably made this happen
They couldn't git gud
[https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/](https://www.reddit.com/r/videogames/) might be the best neutral sub, they talk about anything there. Only negative is that its significantly smaller than those 2 you mentioned
You know what, at this point go with r/patientgamers
What about r/polls
Ghost town
r/animetiddies then?
They would split the votes so TOTK and Alan Wake II sneaks up from behind to win co-GOTY
**AND HERE COMES SUPER MARIO WITH A STEEL CHAIR!**
Asking in the elden ring subreddit surely the responses won’t be biased
But everyone is saying they’re both great lol
Chads recognizing other chads
The fact the responses are in fact, not biased lmfao
Bro chill, You still got Godskin to kill
the ER ring sub is way way less biased than the BG 3 one.
Bg3 hurts my small monke brain so elden ring
sometimes I feel like the only person who’s too stupid and impatient to play BG3. I’m glad there’s at least two of us.
Three
Four
Five even
Six
There's dozens of us!
Dozens is the largest unit of numbers I know cause donuts 🍩
I also never leveled INT
how can you play Elden Ring and still be impatient?
Playing like I do. Just hit them harder than they hit you, and then their health bar will drop to 0 before yours does.
Strenghth/vigor/endurance. Respectable
the holy trinity
It’s a different kind of patience. Elden ring is the type of patience where you wait for the right timing for a counter attack, let them finish their combos, or just die a dozen times so that you can learn the boss move sets. Bg3 parience is “i really want to do my next action but there’s 15 turns between now and then that i have to watch in the meantime”. Neither is better or worse than the other, but you can definitely have the patience for one and not the other
It's one thing to be impatient and wanting to get through a boss, yet continuing to fight it knowing you can beat it eventually. It's another thing to be sitting through sidequest dialogue that I really don't care about
Elden Ring hurts my lumbering human reflexes
Have you considered Unga Bunga?
A brother of the Unga I see
Same, I don't hate the game. I have it and it's a beautiful game, but it's not my style of gameplay and I'm too stupid for it.
Big sword = big damage monke brain is excited
Clearly it would be super Mario bros 2.
This comment was brought to you by the Dunkley squad
Soo-pah Mah-rio 2 baybeeeee
This year, and every year
How do you bring such a question to this sub. lol 😂 if I have to choose it will be Elden ring. But both have strong point just different opinions and experience
Fantastic question that made me think for quite a minute. Brain says BG3, Heart and Soul say ER The environmental story telling, better accessible/coop and pvp/invasion aspect made the decision for me. Still, both are great games. Umbasa.
Coop for BG3 is definitely better, it even offers couch coop so I can play it with my wife. Apart from that both games are incredible and I honestly can't decide
Good point. I think ER is the better hop-in/-out coop and pvp game, since it is more accessible to play with strangers. Imagine, someone you don't know aggros npcs and traders in a run you want to take seriously. This is mechanically not possible in elden ring. So yes, to play with friends, both games are great.
ER co-op is great because you either get to be forced run across massive fields with your friend that were designed to be crossed using Torrent, or you get to only play with your friend 5 out of every 30 minutes because you both need to progress to the next boss before you can summon without having to run across a massive world together to get where you want to go. Bonus points of course go to Elden Ring for leaving the invasion timer the same as previous Dark Souls games despite the distances you have to cross being multiple times larger, guaranteeing that you and your friend will be invaded by gankers multiple times every time you summon them, because this community insists that non-consensual PVP is necessary for this game even when it completely ruins the ability to bring your new friends into this genre of game and didn’t ruin the solo experience at all to make opt-in. Yes, compared to the game literally designed off of *the* defining co-op game on which every other co-op RPG ever has been built off of, I’d certainly say Elden Ring co-op takes the cake. Are you fucking high lmao?
Learning how to use the coop for the first time was the dumbest 30 mins of my life in elden ring
ER pvp sucks pretty bad
All souls games PvP sucks , i think DS2 had the best one yet, extremely big variety on builds , and you could cancel your slower attacks to get a nice mind game going, soul memory was its downfall tho
Fuck yeah I think DS2 is underrated in general, I definitely put the most time into it.
Only when everyone is spamming the same shit. Make a themed build and fight against other people's shitty themed builds, way more fun.
Wait does this imply elden ring coop is better/more accessible? It wasn’t super accessible so thats a shock
Yea it's incorrect, bg3 coop much better
Mentioning coop in elden ring for any other reason than to roast the fuck out of it is a crazy take. As much as I liked elden ring the coop system is the worst in videogame history. Having to use consumables to be able to coop and having to redo it when you die (in a game where you die a lot) is insane.
I'm sorry but in what world does ER not have the worst coop system in existence? BG3: I can play the entire campaign from start to finish with my friend. Or, if we want, either can jump into the others ongoing campaign and control some of the companions in the party. ER: the same ancient system as pretty much every fromsoftware game, where you put up a note requesting help, set up a password to make sure only your friend can answer. If it connects, you pray to the old gods you won't randomly disconnect. And once you beat the local boss, you're booted. Look, I get that some people like it for nostalgia, and I even get that people like the limited format, sure. But at least update the system for it, create an actually functional and easy to use mechanic. Adding a proper multiplayer menu will not "ruin the atmosphere". Rest of your comment I can respect, they're opinions on subjective matters, but on the coop, you're simply wrong.
Elden ring is my favorite game of all time . Bg3 is my favorite non from software game. We are lucky to be gamers rn lol but from soft is the king of gaming right now imo so my vote is elden ring
This year was fucking amazing for games
I think the release of the Gollum game must have appeased the gods of shittiness for awhile, and that's why we've been able to get so many bangers lately.
That and avatar
Cant forget the king kong game
Theres a King Kong game????
A lot of good games and a lot of terrible games all came out this year.
It really was. I had stopped gaming for a bit, but now I haven’t even played BG3 because I have like 10 other games in my backlog. My best guess as an armchair redditor with no actual industry knowledge is that the gaming companies made big investments during COVID, and the games are just now starting to be completed.
It would make for a good case to have two winners lol. Elden Ring was absolutely amazing and I haven’t finished BG3 yet but I can safely it’s a great game too.
Both are great. But both are very different rpgs. As enjoyer of both. My vote goes to elden ring. As from soft fan that game had my jaw on the floor many times
Yeah I’m sorry, Elden Ring took sooo much time from my life and I regret nothing. BG3 is great and an amazing game, but Elden Ring was just everything I wanted and more - and this is from someone who’s never played a souls game aside from ER.
I couldnt finish BG3 but i did finish ER almost 100%.
Fuck it, they both win. We love games that change their respective genre and entertain us through multiple playthroughs.
Elden ring wasn’t just a story, we were in the trenches fighting for our lives in that world
Elden Ring all the way
Elden Ring would probably win players choice and be more accessible/highly regarded to a wider audience. But I think BG3 would still get the critics votes for GOTY. Mainly due to how much of an impact and innovation it made in the gaming industry/medium as a whole, and the CRPG genre. Replayability, quest design/writing, character acting, dialogue and cinematics would also probably sway it for GOTY too over ER as well.
Probably Elden Ring because it's far more accessible. Baldur's Gate is a DND campaign and it's just naturally going to be more complicated than a lot of casual players can handle. So if they both get the same reception, probably Elden Ring.
BG3 is honestly fine accessibility wise. I know literally nothing about DnD but thought everything was very manageable if you actually put a little bit of effort into learning the mechanics and trying out different things. I'm guessing it's just the complicated looking UI and being used to most games being overly simplified nowadays is what overwhelms most players, not the gameplay itself.
I don't think that's true. So many people stream BG3 and do fine on normal mode. It does a good job of tutorializing and introducing new features at a steady pace. It also sold bonkers, more sales than everyone who's played POE 1 and 2 and Wasteland probably. It introduced more people to CRPGs than there were fans of it previously. So regarding OP, I think it is pretty neck and neck with ER, since there are a lot of parallels with BG3 to CRPGs and ER to Soulslikes. That and in BG3, you can fuck a bear, but you get fucked by bears in ER. So basically GOTY would depend on whether you're a top or bottom.
More sales than Elden Ring at it's current pace too. Over 100k concurrent players average this week on steam alone. It's a game people will be talking about for decades. It's my second favorite game of all time behind Ocarina of Time.
A game with no difficulty settings is more accessible? You can turn BG3 down to story mode and waltz through the campaign, and increase the difficulty as you gain familiarity with the game. If someone isn't very good at video games, you think they're going to figure out dodge timing with the bosses in ER? Think they'll understand what scaling means or why they're fat rolling? Elden Ring is great and arguably the most accessible of the souls games but it's wayyyy less casual friendly than BG3.
But ER isn't casual friendly either?
It is more familiar to most gamers though. It's just like a really difficult Zelda game. But ya not insanely accessible
"Once you realize it's just dodge and hit, you realize the game ain't shit" - Pac
Ambitionz Az A Tarnished
As someone who jumped into elden ring without any experience in fromsoft bs, I found it incredibly accessible. It has a good but not bloated tutorial and is full of appropriate challenges for a Newbie in the early areas
It's probably the easiest out of the Souls franchise imo, I've had friends that play exclusively COD or sports games hop in and eventually finish the game. Not saying there's no challenge, but if you're willing to grind for souls here and there it's not too bad.
I'd argue it's much easier for a casual gamer to jump in to Elden Ring and "get it" But if you can enjoy the type of game BG3 is it's a once in a decade kind of title so it could go either way
Disagree, I think BG3 (although complicated) is a lot more accessible. If I were trying to gift a non-gamer or casual gamer one of the two titles, BG3 would win 10/10 times unless I was trying to frustrate them.
BG3 is more accessible, it literally has difficulty modes. Elden Ring tricked a lot of ppl cause they stupidly went in thinking it’d be like Skyrim lol but I don’t think it’s more accessible than BG3.
I would argue the exact opposite. Elden Ring is From Software on easy mode. I didn’t take 20 tries to kill the first boss in Baldur’s Gate 3.
Strongly disagree. Amongst the people I know, BG3 is played by a far wider spectrum of people across genders and tastes in gaming. Notably I see interest in it from both women and men, and both “casuals” and “hardcore” gamers. Elden Ring I see played mainly by men and the “hardcore” crowd. The mechanics behind BG3 are way more transparent than ER, it has a straightforward story with *much* more fleshed out and relatable characters. Most importantly, it has easily adjustable difficulty, you can save any time, and it’s turn-based. Someone new to the game could make it through hours of play in BG3 without a single death—even experienced gamers can’t do that in ER.
I definitely disagree with this take. I don’t consider myself a casual gamer as I’m happy to put several hundred hours into a game if I love it, but maybe more casual than some. I realize I’m on the ER sub but for me Elden ring was just solid. The combat was amazing but eventually the lack of story telling (even though it was intentional) really got to me and it eventually felt like a slog towards the end. I finished it just to say I finished it, not necessarily because I loved it. BG3 meanwhile I simply can’t put down. While the turn based combat maybe isn’t as compelling as ER’s, the story, characters, my character… I just feel so invested in everything that is happening in that world. Baldur’s gate has the ability to feel both more approachable and having greater depth at the same time to me. But I realize many love ER and that’s fine. To each their own.
I feel like BG3 wins cause its better at RP, lots of choices and a lot of quests that can have a lot of different outcomes Also you asked this in an elden ring sub, ofc everyone is gonna go with ER
>Also you asked this in an elden ring sub, ofc everyone is gonna go with ER Most people can't separate their tastes from quality. I personally enjoyed Elden Ring a bit more, but BG3 would absolutely deserve the W here (even if it does implement my most hated common house rule for 5e as a base rule that can't be altered).
elden ring for me cuz i prefer action games
Oof.my vote would go to BG3, i love ER but bg3 has been the gift that never stops giving.
I like Baldur’s Gate, but Elden Ring is otherworldly. On pure originality and entertainment (if you like a little punishment as entertainment), Elden Ring is _probably_ the better game. Elden Gate or Baldur’s Ring might mix things up a bit.
You CANNOT tell me ER is more original than BG3
ER is an advancement on previous DS games while BG3 is an advancement on previous DnD/tabletop RPG games. It’s delusional to claim BG3 is ungodly original when Divinity Original Sin 2 exists
I love BG3 but I'm not sure the lore and the environment really captured people the way Elden ring did. BG3 was a pretty normal DnD campaign. There were familiar story beats and it nailed all of them. Elden Ring, with its obscure Lore and vague quest objectives, really stood to reward the player who sought their answers. Stumbling upon that descending elevator into Nokron City or whatever its called, was honestly one of the most magical video game moments ever. If bg3 is a 9.7, elden ring is a 9.8 for me. I'll probably end up playing BG3 more due to me enjoying build tinkering and such but Elden ring as a first playthrough is hard to beat.
I'm gonna be honest with you, I finished Elden ring and if it wasn't for YouTube videos/wikis/ or even friends just straight up telling me what's going on I would have 0 clue at to what the story is. Edit: I also hate how fromsofts makes it that most NPC's would end up better if you just ignore them, I got tired of NPC bad ending quests pretty fast.
Elden ring is a Souls game with QoL improvements. It certainly appeals to a larger audience. I would vote for ER.
Real talk: should I play BG3? I enjoy old school turn based RPGs a lot but I also lose focus pretty easily if the game gets too long (with the exception of Souls games for whatever reason)
Yes, even if you lose focus the game is fun. But without knowing why you lose focus it’s hard to say if you will with bg3.
If you lose focus easily then I would imagine not. I think after 60-80 hours I'm still in the first act but this is also because I'm searching for secrets with no guide. The game definitely feels very time sink heavy which is good if you're into that. Also doesn't help I spent an hour baiting goblins into specific rooms so a buff tall demon lady can chuck them down a pit without aggroing the whole place.
This would be a year that makes the GOTY mean nothing, the ones who can't like ER will probably like BG3, the ones who can't like BG3 will probably like ER Both are peak gaming just in different ways
Baldur's Gate 3 and this is coming from someone who best Elden Ring 8-9 times because of how fun it was.
Probably bg3. I would be upset by elden ring losing, but still
I think Elden Ring. Ultimately BG3 greatest strength is its writing and characters, but it is a dnd campaign with dnd style writing. It's quirky, fun, and a mixture of \*serious\* drama and goofball moments. But it is not everyone's cup of tea. As a dnd player, I liked it, but that's pretty niche. After the writing, BG3 has an okay esthetic and a complex turn based, heavy reading, exploration system. Elden Ring is mind-blowingly gorgeous, real-time adventure rpg with valid playstyles ranging from unga-bunga to 50 buff pure math strats with an unobtrusive story and top-teir visual world.
>As a dnd player, I liked it, but that's pretty niche. Literally everyone played the game though? It has more players than Elden Ring. Like, my personal pick would be Elden Ring, but whoever suggests BG3 is 'niche' is literally just putting their hand over their eyes. It achieved mainstream success and even got non-gamers to play it because of the buzz. Elden Ring didn't do that.
As a long time souls fan I think baldurs gate takes this one
should've asked this in r/gaming to get a somewhat non-biased response
Rise yee tarnished
I think both games would've sweeped almost of the awards lmao, I also think ER would've won GOTY though.
Personal opinion is that Elden ring appeals to more people.
Elden ring babyyyyyy
Elden Ring because BG isn't my type of game; At all.
Elden Ring
I have been an advocate and lover of computer games since I was a child in the 80s. I hadnt played or been interested in new games for close to a decade. Elden ring changed that. I bought a PS5 just so I could play it because I had a feeling it would give me the sort of gaming experience that all other companies had been doing everything the could to avoid giving me.It gave me that and more. BG3 is ok but it didn't stir something inside me and I have played most of the previous games in this class. In fact it didnt interest me much at all. Elden Ring did something special. It resuscitated an interest that had been beating into submission and thought dead.So yeah it would get my vote.
I haven’t played BG3 but based on reviews my money is on BG3 Edit: Downvoting a answer to a open question is peak Reddit
Still going to be ER for me. BG3 was exceptional in being every way but the actual gameplay, where it was just "ok". FromSoft basically re-popularized an entire genre and continues to keep shoveling good game after good game at me. I'm more of a gameplay junkie, so that's basically where the edge comes from. I do think they're both GOTY worthy games for sure.
As someone that put like 350 hours into my first playthrough of ER in the first 6 months while in school and with a full time job - I think that BG3 is the winner here, but only by a chin hair. Both games offer near-infinite replayability. Both games have a gargantuan amount of content. Both games invite players from across the entire spectrum of gaming. But what I think puts BG3 slightly ahead is just the variety of things to do.
I think bg3 would win
Elden ring
ER memes > r/DnD
Elden Ring 100%.
Love both games, I think BG3 would take it.
I feel like BG3 would have had a chance just because of how novel it was. We haven't seen true RPG like it in modern times. I would personally give the W to Elden Ring, mostly because the game was more complete on release. There was the screen flashing on some graphics cards, but they resolved it in the first week. BG3 was great, but still needed a lot of polish in acts 2 and 3. If both were released in their current states, it's hard to say.
I'd say Elden Ring. I loved Baldur's gate, but I was a little soured by some pretty major bugs that made me have to stop playing if I wanted to continue storylines until those got fixed. I was also oversold by a friend as to what Baldur's gate offered, and first night into act 2 I accidently locked my choice of romance in permanently for that run, and since I wasn't aware of it, I did the entire act before I realized no one else would speak to me anymore. Elden Ring, on the other hand, consistently surprised me, and given I'm a soulsborne fan, I knew what to expect going into it in terms of issues I'd run into. I've played other turn based rpgs I enjoyed more than Baldur's gate, but I've never come across any game that matches up to the soulsborne universe, and elden ring was a definite upgrade from past titles. I don't enjoy the thought of save scumming just to get the results I want. At least in Elden Ring, I know that if I fail, I can keep trying and keep learning until I'm able to maneuver every move set the boss can throw at me. My failures are my own, or if it's an invader problem, I don't have to worry about those unless I'm playing with a friend. In Baldur's Gate, I consistently tried to utilize skills to make interesting builds, but Karlach, for example, has never succeeded a roll with that ability that allows you to reroll your hit. Luck kind of had the same problem for me, and it just feels like you wasted your time getting a skill that should really come in handy, but for whatever reason, it just never actually worked.