Pathfinder: The Dragon's Demand devs say Baldur's Gate 3-style level caps help make games shorter, because not everybody has "time for 100-hour RPGs"
Dec. 10, 2024“It’d be much nicer if it was a 20 or 30-hour game”
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Indie developer Ossian Studios doesn’t wantPathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand— its idyllic, turn-based take on Pathfinder 2E — to feel like an insurmountable obligation, so it’s taking cues from Baldur’s Gate 3 and opting for low level caps.
In theory, low level caps can make a game feel elegantly concise, all tied up with a neat bow and arrow.In theory.
Baldur’s Gate 3,controversially, maxes characters out at level 12 instead of source material Dungeons & Dragons 5e’s maximum level 20. It still takesabout 6 million hoursto complete, give or take.
But that proves another thing Ossian likes about low level caps: simplifying one aspect of a CRPG doesn’t mean sacrificing its richness anywhere else.
“Baldur’s Gate 3 demonstrated that you can have a relatively low-level spread but still have a huge gain with lots of character choices, lots of build options,” Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand lead designer Luke Scull tells PC Gamer.
“[CRPG Pathfinder developer] Owlcat was making adventure paths, which are basically three of these kinds of modules put together,” continues Miranda. “We chose that smaller size module to make it manageable for us as an indie company to do.”
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Pathfinder: The Dragon’s Demand does not yet have a release date, butOssian’s Kickstarter pagefor the project notes it became fully funded atthe end of October.
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Ashley Bardhan is a critic from New York who covers gaming, culture, and other things people like. She previously wrote Inverse’s award-winning Inverse Daily newsletter. Then, as a Kotaku staff writer and Destructoid columnist, she covered horror and women in video games. Her arts writing has appeared in a myriad of other publications, including Pitchfork, Gawker, and Vulture.
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