Tim Cain, one of the creators of the original Fallout and co-founder of cult RPG studio Troika, released a vlog revealing Troika's 2003 pitch to Wizards of the Coast for Baldur's Gate 3 The vlog reveals the Baldur's Gate 3 pitch Troika submitted to Wizards of the Coast in 2003. This version sounds more like a further leap forward in the series than Larian's long-awaited sequel.

Cain found the pitch document in a collection of personal files related to the development of The Temple of Elemental Evil, Troika's 2003 adaptation of Gary Geigax's tabletop module of the same name. "I made a computer game and tried to be as faithful as possible to the paper and pencil game. Now I wanted to create what I call 'adapted D&D'"

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Cain describes Troika's proposed Baldur's Gate 3 as a real-time first-person RPG with a third-person perspective for melee combat, similar to the Jedi Knight games and Troika's own Vampire: the Masquerade - Bloodlines. Overall, it looks to be a realistic, tactile and immersive experience that is closer to Outer Worlds than to the Infinity Engine.

The D&D system arranged by Troika removes intelligence and wisdom altogether, and attributes cannot be set directly, but instead are generated based on starting race and class and automatically improve upon leveling up; instead of learning spells per day, whether physical or magical All advanced abilities, be they physical or magical, would be drawn on a "fatigue" meter, like Diablo's mana points or the Old Republic knight's force meter.

This BG3 offered eight classes: bird, cleric, druid, fighter, mage, monk, ranger, and rogue. cain the paladin was excluded because Troika started all characters in a true neutral alignment, explained that it was because they wanted to let their choices determine their final destination, like Planescape: like Torment.

This idea of skills and feats in Baldur's Gate 3 was almost similar to Fallout, where skills included any active abilities, including weapon proficiency, and feats offered purely passive bonuses, like Perks in Fallout. Although there was one directly controlled character, Cain picked up a helper companion based on his charisma score.

Cain also said that Baldur's Gate 3 in Troika would have had a strong multiplayer component, a direct PvP arena, cooperative play, and a PvPvE-style mode where players compete to complete quests as quickly as possible included something like a very early attempt at a Troika also wanted to include a user level design tool with Baldur's Gate 3, allowing players to create custom PvPvE quests and complete story campaigns like Neverwinter Nights.

"I don't even know if I got a response on this," Cain said bluntly in the video.

Troika's first option for continuing to work with Wizards of the Coast seemed to be a direct follow-up to the Temple, which could be an expansion pack or a full sequel; Cain has been working with Against the Giants and Queen of the Demonweb Pits, and bizarro BG3 was a preliminary option, stating that he wanted to adapt other Gygax Greyhawk modules such as Pits. Ultimately, Wizards did not permit any new Troika projects after "ToEE."

Troika's work, Vampire: RPG fans like myself, like Journey to the Centre of Arcanum, The Lord of the Rings, Not-Fallout 3, and now Baldur's Gate 3, I was left to fantasize about projects that never came to fruition.

This was not the only version of "Baldur's Gate 3" that was terminated before Larian picked up the torch. Cain's former employer, Interplay (through its RPG division, Black Isle), was deeply planning its own Baldur's Gate 3, codenamed "The Black Hound." The game was set in the far-flung Daleland of the Forgotton Realm and had little to do with the plots of the original two games. Interestingly, "The Black Hound" was to be a low-stage adventure with a "Baldur's Gate 1"-like level cap of 8, in contrast to the high-flying level 30 antics of "Baldur's Gate 2: Throne of Bahar."

It is interesting that all of the "Baldur's Gate 3" contenders deviate so much from the original, but it makes sense considering that "Baldur's Throne" was such an over-the-top and definitive conclusion. At the very least, Larian's "Baldur's Gate 3" looks great and has more than a little of the spirit of Troika; in addition to the overall reactive nature of "Baldur'sGate3," Larian has also done a good job with "Arcanum: of Steamworks" and "Magic He seems to have taken the dope newspaper system of "Obscura" and taken it to the next level.