Baldur's Gate 3 mod sort of turns it into Dragon Age: Origins

The Baldur's Gate 3 modding scene remains dominated by blunt practicalities - more XP! More spellslots! More party members! HIGHLIGHT EVERYTHING! - but there are a few intriguing mods percolating to the top. We've already had one that makes Baldur's Gate 3 a single character RPG, which I am hoping somebody at the RPS Treehouse will do a diary feature about, plus a Painterly Scenery filter created by 1wk, which makes the game look like it's daubed on canvas. But the cluster of mods that caught my eye this morning are a simple change of camera perspective and controls that make the game look strikingly like Bioware's Dragon Age: Origins.

Thanks to BikeMan for highlighting this, and for the screenshots above and below. Again, it's hardly a dramatic overhaul but I'm struck by how it changes my understanding of Larian's world. The default look is that classic Divinity balance of table-top map and diorama, with pleasantly wrinkled and disorderly rocks and foliage. It makes the world feel like an overgrown and volatile chessboard, a thing to reach into and mess with. But it has its drawbacks, as you'll know if you've ever tried to move characters through multiple-elevation areas with overlapping bridges, or struggled to get a clear view of some artefact in a corner.

The modded third-person view isn't wholly flattering. Some of those furnishings and surfaces look a bit rickety in close-up, and the viewpoint transforms your characters from figurines you can decorate into awkwardly attired MMORPG avatars, reminiscent of my teenage years - those mismatched armour pieces are going to poke somebody's eye out! But it also makes the city crowds feel more like crowds, permits buildings to loom, and in general, makes me wonder if Larian might introduce all this as an official camera setting. There's a powerful nostalgia to it: it's been many years since the last Dragon Age, and we're not expecting the prophesied Dragon Age: Dreadwolf to rear its shiny bald head in the near future, though it's apparently playable from start to finish.