Divinity's Trailer Is Cool, But I Suspect Larian's Body-horror...

This week I've been: Preparing myself for the possibility of fighting Simon in Clair Obscur again.

Last week I was: Recommending you go be cringe in World of Warcraft.

It is 2019: Larian is announcing its new RPG, Baldur's Gate 3. The studio releases a short, cinematic teaser with an emphasis on body horror—the ceremorphosis of an unwitting guard rendered in horrible, gory detail. Teeth tumble out of his mouth like popcorn, cheekbones snap, and his thumb goes at all sorts of weird angles while hair sloughs off his head.

It was a pretty evocative trailer but, a couple years on, after multiple Baldur's Gate 3 playthroughs—was it really the vibe? I mean, sure, it was a game about mind flayers, and there are plenty of grisly scenes in it. In one part of the game, you delve into a nest stitched together out of pulsing human flesh.

But on the whole, Baldur's Gate 3 is a bright heroic fantasy with bloody dark spots—it's a colourful, lively game that (unless you kill everybody) is about troubled people overcoming their worst nature and horrifying fates to save the realm. The body horror in that original trailer is a theme, but it's only one of many. Evil endings that matched the tone one for one didn't come out until several patches later.

Outside of that? You've got a worm in your brain, sure, but aside from a menu where you plug tadpoles into upgrades and the option to maybe turn squid, if you want, the ticking pressure of cereomorphosis isn't really an issue at all. Even Larian knew this—just look at the actual launch trailer: Sweeping, orchestral, heroic scores! Devils playing chess! And, like, maybe a few cumulative seconds of body horror, as a treat.

Skip to 2025: Larian is announcing its new RPG, Divinity. The studio releases a short, cinematic teaser with an emphasis on body horror, and—are we starting to sense a pattern, here?

And hey, I'm certain the events in the announcement trailer will have plenty of impact on the full game: That big ol' flesh obelisk will probably be an inciting incident or location of some sort, and we're likely dealing with demons—but if your first trailer can be considered an elevator pitch, you'd be forgiven for thinking you were looking at a Diablo-style descent into Hell here.

Once we're out of the elevator and being shown the full game, though, I strongly suspect we're all going to go: "Hey, so, what was that pitch about? You guys got really into describing how that guy's arm got pulled apart, there."

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Source: PC Gamer