Solasta 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3: Why These CRPGs Aren’t Competing Clones

Baldur’s Gate 3 has become a modern landmark for computer role-playing games (CRPGs), setting a high bar for cinematic storytelling, player freedom, and production values. Inevitably, any turn-based fantasy RPG using Dungeons & Dragons–style systems will be compared to it. Solasta 2, the upcoming sequel from Tactical Adventures, is no exception.

The studio behind Solasta 2 openly admires Larian Studios’ work. The CEO even gifted the entire development team copies of Baldur’s Gate 3 so they could both enjoy and study it. Yet the developers stress that these games serve different purposes and appeal to partially different audiences. Rather than chasing the “BG3 formula,” Solasta 2 is leaning harder into tactical combat, systemic design, and a tabletop-like feel.

This article explores how Solasta 2 positions itself in relation to Baldur’s Gate 3, why comparisons are both inevitable and incomplete, and what players can expect from a CRPG built around rules fidelity and combat depth more than cinematic drama.

Shared DNA: Why Comparisons Keep Surfacing

From a distance, it’s easy to see why people treat Solasta 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 as close cousins. Both belong to a very specific niche within RPGs, and they share several structural similarities that naturally invite comparison.

Core elements both games share

• Turn-based tactical combat: Encounters are resolved in discrete turns using action points, movement, and positioning.
• D&D-style rules: Baldur’s Gate 3 is built on D&D 5e, while Solasta uses an official SRD 5.1–based ruleset, adhering closely to tabletop mechanics.
• Party-focused play: You control a group of adventurers instead of a single protagonist, with class synergies and role specialization.
• Isometric-ish camera: Both present the world from a top-down or angled view that’s instantly recognizable to RPG veterans.
• Story-driven campaigns: You’re not just clearing dungeons; narrative choices and dialogue shape the experience.

Because both studios are drawing from D&D’s familiar toolkit, some overlap is unavoidable. Fireballs, opportunity attacks, stealth, spell slots, and saving throws naturally show up in both titles. To many players, this is a feature, not a bug—D&D’s popularity has surged in the last decade, boosted in part by streaming, actual-play shows, and renewed support from its publisher, Wizards of the Coast.¹

Why being compared to Baldur’s Gate 3 is a double-edged sword

For a smaller studio like Tactical Adventures, being mentioned alongside Baldur’s Gate 3 is both flattering and risky:

• Upside: It signals to players that Solasta 2 aims to share some of the depth and richness that made BG3 a success.
• Downside: It can create unrealistic expectations about production values and scope, given the vast difference in team size and budget.

Rather than deny the similarities, Tactical Adventures leans into honesty: they love BG3, study it carefully, and still deliberately build something different.

Two Design Philosophies: Cinematic Epic vs. Tactical Playground

Where Solasta 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 diverge most is in focus and design priority. Boiled down, they answer different questions:

• Baldur’s Gate 3: “How can we turn a D&D campaign into a cinematic, reactive epic where every choice feels personal?”
• Solasta 2: “How can we deliver a pure, crunchy, tabletop-like tactical experience that rewards system mastery?”

Baldur’s Gate 3: The drama-driven CRPG

Baldur’s Gate 3 places heavy emphasis on acting, writing, and bespoke narrative content. Its strengths include:

• Performance capture and voice acting: Hundreds of hours of recorded dialogue, facial animation, and nuanced character performances.
• Branching narrative: Choices radically shape party composition, story beats, and even entire arcs, supported by an enormous volume of custom content.²
• Environmental storytelling: Heavily detailed locations, cinematic cutscenes, and interactive set-pieces.
• Hybrid systems focus: Combat is important, but exploration, relationship building, and narrative decisions are equally central.

This approach is resource-intensive. It demands large teams, extended development cycles, and substantial budgets, but the payoff is a highly theatrical experience that feels close to playing through a high-end, voice-acted D&D campaign at the table.

Solasta 2: The tactician’s CRPG

Solasta 2, in contrast, leans into being a rules-and-combat-first experience. While it has story and dialogue, its design emphasizes:

• Strict rules fidelity: Adhering closely to the System Reference Document (SRD) for D&D 5.1, with a focus on transparent mechanics.
• Verticality and positioning: Extensive use of height differences, line-of-sight, and movement-based advantages.
• Party synergy: Deep class interactions, buff/debuff layering, and tactical options that reward planning.
• Lower emphasis on cinematics: Dialogue and story are presented efficiently, keeping the spotlight on decision-making and combat.

Instead of chasing elaborate cutscenes, Tactical Adventures invests in making every encounter feel like a tactical puzzle. This approach resonates with players who enjoy the feeling of “solving” combat encounters using the full rules toolkit.

A Tale of Two Studios: Scale, Budget, and Expectations

Design choices don’t happen in a vacuum. They’re heavily shaped by studio size, funding, and long-term strategy.

Larian Studios and AAA-adjacent production

Larian has grown from a mid-sized developer into a multi-studio organization across several countries. Its work on Baldur’s Gate 3 spans years of early access, iterative updates, and significant investment. Reports and public statements from the company highlight just how large the project became, with hundreds of developers and contractors involved at various stages.²

This scale allows Larian to offer:

• Extensive motion capture and voice work
• Large, fully explorable regions
• Multiple playable origins with unique content paths
• Robust cinematic tooling and pipelines

Tactical Adventures and targeted ambition

Tactical Adventures, by comparison, is a much smaller team. Its first game, Solasta: Crown of the Magister, began life as a crowdfunded project and grew into a well-regarded but comparatively modest CRPG. With Solasta 2, the team is expanding on that foundation, not trying to leap into AA or AAA territory in a single step.

That has concrete implications:

• Scope is tightly controlled: Campaign length, content density, and feature set are tuned to what a smaller team can deliver without crunch.
• Systems-first investment: Time is spent refining combat, AI behavior, and class design rather than building cinematic pipelines.
• Early access as a design tool: Releasing early lets the team gather feedback, tune encounter difficulty, and polish mechanics before full launch, an approach common among smaller studios.

When developers insist that Solasta 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 are “different beasts,” they’re also drawing attention to the realities of production. Expecting BG3-level cinematics from a studio of Tactical Adventures’ size would be unrealistic; instead, they aim for excellence within a narrower focus.

Combat and Rules: Where Solasta 2 Stakes Its Identity

For many players, combat is where the distinction between these games becomes starkest. Both are turn-based, but the feel and priorities diverge.

Fidelity to D&D’s written rules

Dungeons & Dragons 5th Edition is codified in official rulebooks and a System Reference Document (SRD) that defines key mechanics such as combat structure, spellcasting, and conditions.³ While Baldur’s Gate 3 uses 5e as a starting point, it modifies rules for pacing and cinematic flair—changing rest systems, tweaking spells, and adding custom status effects and interactions.

Solasta, however, is deliberately conservative. It aims to reflect the underlying ruleset as faithfully as possible within a video game framework. That means:

• Action economy closely mirrors the tabletop (action, bonus action, movement).
• Advantage/disadvantage mechanics are easy to see and understand.
• Spell behaviors track closely with their tabletop descriptions, within engine limits.

This fidelity appeals to players who want to practice, learn, or simply enjoy D&D’s mechanics outside of a live tabletop group.

Verticality and environmental tactics

One of Solasta’s distinct mechanics is how heavily it relies on verticality. Elevation changes grant tactical benefits such as improved line-of-sight and ranged accuracy. Many encounters are designed around ledges, high ground, bridges, and environmental hazards. This focus turns encounter maps into three-dimensional puzzles rather than flat battlefields.

Baldur’s Gate 3 also uses environmental features—jumping to high ground, shoving enemies, exploiting surfaces—but its encounters are often balanced between narrative staging and tactical concerns. In Solasta, combat arenas are more unapologetically “designed for the fight.”

Party-building and class depth

Both games offer multiple classes and subclasses, but they emphasize them differently:

• Solasta 2: Tends to encourage building a cohesive, synergistic party from the ground up, with a focus on covering essential tactical roles—frontline, control, healing, damage, utility.
• Baldur’s Gate 3: Balances mechanical synergy with narrative considerations; companions have personalities, arcs, and inter-party relationships that influence party composition as much as pure combat efficiency.

Solasta 2’s emphasis on builds, optimization, and encounter design means it often feels closer to a tactical strategy game with RPG layers, while Baldur’s Gate 3 remains firmly rooted in narrative RPG traditions with strong, but not exclusive, tactical elements.

Storytelling Styles: Efficient vs. Cinematic

Solasta 2 does not ignore narrative. However, its ambitions in storytelling are calibrated differently from Baldur’s Gate 3, which has been widely recognized for its richly produced narrative structure and character-driven arcs.⁴

Solasta 2’s narrative approach

Solasta 2’s storytelling tends to be:

• Functional and focused: Scenes and dialogue are used to set stakes, explain objectives, and inject flavor without overstaying their welcome.
• CM-style rather than TV-style: More reminiscent of traditional CRPG dialogue boxes and short vignettes than fully cinematic episodes.
• Party as a unit: Your custom party functions as the narrative lens, as opposed to one heavily authored protagonist plus companions.

This approach supports faster pacing between narrative beats and combat, appealing to players who prioritize systems over extended cutscenes.

Baldur’s Gate 3’s character drama

Baldur’s Gate 3 leans into:

• Companion-driven arcs: Each companion carries personal quests, conflicts, and potential romances.
• Heavy voice and animation investment: Dialogue choices are performed in-engine with detailed voice acting and facial capture.
• Branching consequences: Choices can dramatically reshape major plot lines, reflecting Larian’s long-standing “reactive world” design philosophy.

It’s not that one approach is inherently superior. Rather, these are different answers to “What should be at the center of a CRPG experience?” Solasta 2 says “the combat and tactics,” while Baldur’s Gate 3 answers “the story and characters.”

Why Both Games Can Coexist in Your Library

From a player’s perspective, framing Solasta 2 and Baldur’s Gate 3 as rivals misses the point. They occupy complementary niches within the broader CRPG genre.

Different moods, different games

A useful way to think about them is by mood and time investment:

• When you want immersive storytelling, relationship drama, and big set-piece moments, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the obvious choice.
• When you crave puzzly encounters, buildcraft, and rules-heavy tactical challenges, Solasta 2 is built specifically for that itch.

Owning and loving Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t diminish the appeal of Solasta 2. In fact, familiarity with BG3’s systems may make it easier to appreciate Solasta’s stricter rules implementation and more focused encounter design.

Healthy diversity in the CRPG ecosystem

From an industry perspective, having multiple successful CRPGs with different design aims is healthy. It reduces pressure on every new project to mimic the latest hit. Instead, studios can specialize, appealing to sub-audiences with distinctive tastes—whether that’s story-rich epics, mercenary-company simulators, sandbox RPGs, or hardcore tacticals like Solasta.

For a small team like Tactical Adventures, aiming to out-Larian Larian would be a losing proposition. By doubling down on their strengths—systemic clarity, crunchy combat, and tabletop-inspired design—they increase the odds of building a loyal fan base that values exactly what they offer.

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