I really enjoy DA:O (not the sequels!) and PoE - together with the Baldur's Gate series, they are my top three RPGs (with BG at the top). PoE isn't easy to get into, because of the unusual mechanics and the clunky plot exposition. Once you get past that (you really need to understand how the mechanics work and how the world works), you can have a lot of fun with the game, though after while (and especially in the White March expansions), combat can get a bit repetitive once you've figured it out - my biggest hope for Deadfire is: Less, but more varied encounters. DA:O hits the often searched for but almost never achieved balance between oldschool and modern gameplay quite well, and the companions are very fun to be around.
If you care more about plot than gameplay, I'd also recommend PS:T and NWN2:MotB (playing through them once is certainly worth it, but I don't think they offer much in terms of replayability) - if you're more into gameplay, NWN2:SoZ is a very interesting take on combining elements of traditional japenese RPGs with western gameplay. The NWN2 OC is decent, but not very original; The companions can be fun though. While NWN1 has less technical issues compared to the second game, its partyless and restrictive gameplay plus the very slow-moving (and frankly, relatively boring) story don't do a lot for me, though things get slightly better in the expansions.
That sounds very black white from the opposite perspective.
To me, bg just set a good baseline and when I play other rpg games I expect them to surpass the baseline on fronts that are important to me (impact of actions and chat responses on world building, deeper quest lines, ability to play evil, open world, immersion) but what I see rpgs do these days is progress on fronts I am not interested in (walls of text to push lore, revised unintuitive combat systems, new attribute systems, firearm inclusion). Pretty much always that leads me to stop the games only half way through. Opinionated, but fairly that results in the statement that for me, there is nothing that surpasses it yet.
In the end it is only subjective opinions on this thread anyway.
xcom and xcom 2 are both great for people short on free time. There is a real time layer called the geoscape where you figure out how to spend your resources, and a turn based layer where you put those resources to use as you command your squad. The amount of luck involved is exaggerated by people who couldn't perservere long enough to start unlocking better gear and abilities. It is true that you rely on luck a lot in the beginning, but even in those stages you have a very good chance to do well if you plan your moves to perfection and react to random events that are simply not possible to anticipate.
xcom and xcom 2 are both great for people short on free time. There is a real time layer called the geoscape where you figure out how to spend your resources, and a turn based layer where you put those resources to use as you command your squad. The amount of luck involved is exaggerated by people who couldn't perservere long enough to start unlocking better gear and abilities. It is true that you rely on luck a lot in the beginning, but even in those stages you have a very good chance to do well if you plan your moves to perfection and react to random events that are simply not possible to anticipate.
And for those who enjoy XCom, you should also try out Xenonauts.
PoE - Great game, great mechanics (except the lacking buff vs mind spells), decent story. Definitely worth one playthrough.
DA:O - Great game, good mechanics (play dwarf rogue noble as first char), good story. Definitely worth a playthrough as well. The rest of the Dragon Age game sucks.
Tyranny - Decent game, great mechanics (especially the magics), pretty crappy story but with a ok twist. Worth trying out a bit at least to see if you like it. I liked it a lot, but didn't care about my charname or the story, but the actual playing was really good.
Drakensang I've only tried out a little but I got a good feeling of it but stopped for some reason I cannot even remember now. I think I played a Charlatan, a somewhat bard/rogue/party face hybrid class that felt very interresting. Now that I think about it, I should prolly re-install that game and give it a swing. I don't know which of the two I played though, this was many years ago.
Fallout/Arcanum/Kotor and other old school games are great but you know of them already.
Aah yes Xcom! The best relaunch of an old franchise I have ever seen and played. Personally I think the new xcom 2 is not as good as the first one, but YMMW. I still LOVE xcom and recently started another playthrough of it.
To add to a couple posts above: 1. DO NOT play iron man mode in XCOM for your first playthrough. 2. The NPCS in PoE are the BEST I've seen in any game since BG2. Seriously, they are that good.
Wow, I was definitely not expecting this thread to get so many informative (let alone sympathetic) replies. A big thanks for all your recommendations and input!
Could that be the reason (and it's not particularly because of BG and the other games that you've tried, but playing games in general vis-a-vis life)? Perhaps the interest would return once we'll have the luxury of time?
but with that all said and done the only other thing that could be happening is that you are becoming an adult and video games just dont appease you any more, because you are growing out of them ( i think that is the problem that i am having at 30 )
I've thought about this. I mean, I have plenty of hobbies other than video games, and my adult ego would definitely prefer to do something more productive or useful than sit down and play. But why is it then that the urge to lose myself in a good game has never left me? Even though I'm fairly happy with where I am in life, I sometimes absolutely need a break from "real life" stuff, and what's a better way to escape than a good rpg?
When, once in a blue moon I do find something that sucks me in, I still get that giddy gamer's high. So the wish to game is still strong in me; it's just struggling to find an outlet.
Hmm the OP goes in that direction that I observe on this forum once in a while.
Baldur's Gate is the pinnacle of video games. No game has ever been better. Probably no game will ever be better. Any game that is not Baldur's Gate cannot be good because it's not Baldur's Gate, etc. etc.
[...]
From what I read from the opening post, you will not find a new game. Never. Why? Because, I suspect, actually, you don't really want to.
I don't know, mate. While there's certainly a kernel of truth in what you're saying, I think you're maybe overdiagnosing the problem. In my original post, I do hint that I have enjoyed other games beside BG (and the usual IE fare.) My problem with PoE and TToN was not that they were not as good as BG or PS:T but rather that they tried so hard to live up to the glory of those titles. As such, they Inadvertently set themselves up for failure, especially among the most devoted fans of those games - their very core audience.
I already explicated my reasons for not getting on with PoE in a previous thread, so I'm not going to repeat myself too much here. Let me just say that I have no beef with the game itself. I think it is a very well made crpg, definitely one of best in the genre. I just find it lacking in most of the key areas that made the BG saga so memorable. And because it is a BG/IE tribute, I find it impossible not to compare it to its spiritual predecessor. And while I'm comparing it, I can't help but feel like I'd rather be playing BG instead.
In contrast, I really enjoyed the first three Mass Effect games. I loved the character of Commander Shepard, I loved the NPCs, the universe, the dialogue, the story and even the combat, though I'm not usually a fan of shooters.
I loved Mass Effect for the same reason I loved Baldur's Gate: because it felt fresh and original and sincere and heartfelt in its storytelling. It took a lot of inspiration from its forebearers and resorted to a lot of cliches, but somehow managed to pull it off in a totally unique way.
The whole point of me starting this thread was to maybe find a game that is equally unique and immersive as Baldur's Gate without being called Baldur's Gate. I honestly am looking for something totally different, and yes, I am willing to put my expectations down and give new titles a chance before judging them. However, so many of these games are trying to emulate Baldur's Gate and the IE classics rather than just doing their own thing. I mean, why watch the remake when you can watch the original?
I think I made my points as well. But if you want specific examples.
PoE has nice npcs, great graphics and good customisation. I really like the interaction with the world (for instance the fire hair race can light candles).
But the story does not entice me to play, the lore is an avalanche, the dialogue is too descriptive (Pst esque) in a manner that I cannot use my own imagination about what the npc is like, i.e. the Tolkien trap. The cutscenes are a nice touch but I am not sure what to so with them. The combat is not fun to me, areas are too dense and everything in them is out to get you, and I cannot understand why the double health system and healing do not match. I did not find many interesting weapons for the parts I did get to play. I did restart a few times to give it a chance with a different class but I am simply not captivated by it. I was looking for improvements over bg in other features.
I have no strong opinion on the developers of the EEs or PoE or any other game for that matter. I look only at the game itself. If you want to discuss hate against developers you won't get a response from me on that. Coming up with cash grab statements tells me enough that no argument can ever be settled.
Either way, if you enjoy it then more power to you, right? Noone has to agree with my statements nor yours. They can choose for themselves. However, I do like some nuance in argumentation.
The NPCS in PoE are the BEST I've seen in any game since BG2. Seriously, they are that good.
I thought the NPCs in PoE were like BG NPCs on Prozac. They are masterfully imagined and come with their unique backstory, but personality-wise, they feel subdued. Not lacking, mind you, just... repressed. It's as if they are all suffering from the same form of mental disorder. They have a flat affect and seem unnaturally cool and indifferent, both from the player and the world around them. Even when it's about their personal journey - or Lord help me, their survival - they somehow manage to sound like they have one foot out of the door, like a workplace colleague making conversation at the elevator.
Take Eder. You meet him smoking his pipe under a ghastly tree hanging with lynched people, and one of his first lines is some sarcastic gib about him being the next one on the list. Uh, ok. Shouldn't you be, like, freaked out, at least a little bit? Aloth is slightly more interesting with his semi-schizophrenic condition, but even that he plays off as "something I might need some help with, but if you don't have the time, that's cool, bro." And let's not even talk about Sagani, who approaches her multi-year personal expedition with the enthusiasm of a street sweeper.
In BG, we see and hear our companions laughing, joking, crying, fighting, flirting and cursing. We see them lose hope, find faith, get murderously angry, mourn their dead, fall in love, give birth. In PoE, there's very little or any of that. The companions in PoE are too cool for school, as if competing for the award for least sh*ts given.
This, I believe, was the ultimate deal-breaker for me. I can live with a less-than-stellar story and lackluster NPCs so long as the action is good, but PoE's combat is just flat out tedious. The enemies are uninspired, both in form and formation. There isn't a lot of depth in terms of strategy, and I find myself using the same routine of spells and abilities in every battle, even on Path of the Damned. If there is challenge, it's usually in numbers. The spells, especially, seem altogether secondary to everything else. In fact, I can't remember another rpg where the wizard was the weakest link in my party.
Okay, completely different type of game here, but if you're really looking for an unforgettable experience, you should play To The Moon. I guarantee, you won't forget it. It's a very short game, near entirely story based, but it's touching, well written, and well made. An amazing game.
Also, for a more "RPG" suggestion, if you have Skyrim, there's a total conversion mod for it called Enderal: The Shards of Order with immersive worldbuilding and one hell of a storyline. There's also a TC for Oblivion by the same team of people called Nehrim: At Fate's Edge. They've got both that fun exploration that the later Elder Scrolls games have paired with the compelling, immersive storyline and well-developed characters that most Elder Scrolls games lack. Both of them kept me hooked until the end, both of them hit the right atmosphere spot on, and both of them hit me emotionally like a hecking STEAMROLLER. They make you laugh, cry, think, and they're fun to play. They are a teensy tiny bit buggy, but seeing as they were created by a group of dedicated fans and distributed for free, that's to be expected. Also, all games by this group are originally in German, so if you don't speak that, you'll need to get the translated version. Seriously though, if you've got Oblivion and Skyrim installs at your disposal, give Nehrim and Enderal a try.
(There are also two other games in the same series that came before those, both TC mods for Morrowind, but they're not near as polished. Like they're still good games and I'd recommend them, but they're nowhere near on par with their sequels or with something like Baldur's Gate. If you're interested in them, they're called Myar Aranath and Arktwend: The Forgotten Realm.)
They both gave me a gameplay experience that up until that point only IE games had been able to come close to, and to this day they're pretty much the only games I'd place on a pedastal alongside games like Baldur's Gate.
Seriously, if you don't mind that they're not like BG mechanics-wise, I cannot recommend them highly enough. Again, that's Nehrim: At Fate's Edge and Enderal: The Shards of Order.
Yeah and btw, I guess you (OP) have heard about the Witcher series? The first one didn't fully catch me, combat-wise, but the second one is one of the best action/RPG games I have ever played. I know people love the third one as well, though for me it became to consolified to hit the sweet-spot that Witcher 2 did.
It's kinda like the ME of fantasy RPGs, IMHO. You play Geralt but you can still tweak him so he kinda becomes "you", similar to Shephard.
If you do like me and play witcher 2 before 1, then maybe you will also do like me and don't finish 1. So my recommendation is to either pick up Witcher 2 and just engross yourself into that and skip 1 altogether, or start from scratch and play W1 first. I think playing W1 after W2 is a bad idea since they evolved the combat so much between the two. Much more so than between ie ME1 and 2 who are similar even though they changed the item/inventory/equipment handling etc.
This, I believe, was the ultimate deal-breaker for me. I can live with a less-than-stellar story and lackluster NPCs so long as the action is good, but PoE's combat is just flat out tedious. The enemies are uninspired, both in form and formation. There isn't a lot of depth in terms of strategy, and I find myself using the same routine of spells and abilities in every battle, even on Path of the Damned. If there is challenge, it's usually in numbers. The spells, especially, seem altogether secondary to everything else. In fact, I can't remember another rpg where the wizard was the weakest link in my party.
I tried my darndest to not push my RPG beliefs in this thread but COME ON!!! In BG, the placement of your characters hardly matters. In BG, blocking choke points such as doors and corrridors is usually meaningless. Some mage spells make mages almost untouchable - unless you just backstab them first. Mages are very VERY kill them instantly or they kill you instantly sort of - ish. Spells such as hopelessness incapacitates you a ridicolous amount of time. Fighters deals ridicolous amount of damage, making summons often worthless, as it takes more time to summon critters than it takes for the enemy to slay time. And once you reach a couple of levels in BG most encounters are *yawn*. And I could go on.
But most importantly, most encounters in BG are over fast, for either you die quickly, or you kill the enemy quickly. In PoE, there is a bit of back and forth, and their use of stamina depleting whenever you heal and two sleeping bags maximun, limits encounters in a brilliant way.
PoE has so MUCH MORE refined combat that BG pales. I dare say the encounter with Raedric and his mages and paladins, which is one of the earliest fights, is more engaging than ANY encounter in the entire BG series! And how do you manage to not have the mage have the highest damagae output? Put them a bit in the back and the enemy wont KO them instantly...
Other people have probably mentioned those already (I am not gonna read the entire thread), but just in case they haven't been:
Tyranny Bronze age inspired setting, grey & black morality, short but tight with a lot of replay value. Feels very original. Downside: Long loading times & and limited colour palette (most areas are some shade of brown).
Neverwinter Nights 2 Lots of campaigns to play with very diverse stories, Forgotten Realms, memorable companions, only 20 bucks on GoG, lots of mods for customisation and added content. The second campaign, Mask of the Betrayer, is absolutely worth it. Downsides: Graphics have not aged super well, clunky controls, broken multiplayer (if you care about that), inconsistent writing quality in the first campaign.
Divinity: Original Sin 2 Excelent presentation and gameplay, in-depths tactical combat (round based), very colourful, extensive multiplayer mode, great humor, lots of puzzles, original quest design, overall very refreshing experience. You can play as an undead. Downsides: The combat balancing can be quite off at times, which can be frustrating (I played on normal mode).
Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition Super original story, great atmosphere, original setting, super charming characters, great humor, very story focused. Downside: Very slow start, can be overwhelming in the beginning. But it's definetly worth it to stick with it. And now that there's and EE, the game actually runs properly and stable.
I recommend you try my megamod High Power Baldur's Gate.
The mod makes Baldur's Gate 1 feel like a new game, primarily by adding and modifying content throughout the game. I made this mod because, like you, I've been playing Baldur's Gate for a really long time and I wanted a new experience.
The main thing the mod does is give new powers to all the creatures and characters in the game (including the protagonist and NPCs). A party member might be able to teleport, cast certain spells at will, or hit Drizzt on a roll of 2, depending on the character or their class. Meanwhile, the enemies have crazy powers as well. The mod also adds items, changes encounters, and occasionally might change the story a little.
You won't be able to rely on most of your previous metagame knowledge of the game. A merchant who originally sold just nonmagical goods might now sell a magical item that you can't get anywhere else. A commoner from the original game might now be a doppelganger assassin masquerading as a commoner, waiting for you to let your guard down.
You can learn more about the mod and download it here.
Divinity is great if you like the very tabletop-style turn based combat. The BG series is obviously turn based as well, but the combat masks it in a way that feels much more immersive.
Forgive me if it's already been mentioned here, but if you like a great story with compelling characters and great combat get Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (you can skip the main NWN2 campaign as well as all other dlc). It's pretty much the only game in the past 15 years that scratches that BG itch the same way the originals did, imo.
Comments
If you care more about plot than gameplay, I'd also recommend PS:T and NWN2:MotB (playing through them once is certainly worth it, but I don't think they offer much in terms of replayability) - if you're more into gameplay, NWN2:SoZ is a very interesting take on combining elements of traditional japenese RPGs with western gameplay. The NWN2 OC is decent, but not very original; The companions can be fun though. While NWN1 has less technical issues compared to the second game, its partyless and restrictive gameplay plus the very slow-moving (and frankly, relatively boring) story don't do a lot for me, though things get slightly better in the expansions.
To me, bg just set a good baseline and when I play other rpg games I expect them to surpass the baseline on fronts that are important to me (impact of actions and chat responses on world building, deeper quest lines, ability to play evil, open world, immersion) but what I see rpgs do these days is progress on fronts I am not interested in (walls of text to push lore, revised unintuitive combat systems, new attribute systems, firearm inclusion). Pretty much always that leads me to stop the games only half way through. Opinionated, but fairly that results in the statement that for me, there is nothing that surpasses it yet.
In the end it is only subjective opinions on this thread anyway.
I really like Terraria.
It's still getting updates. It's a lot of fun, a sandbox game, and I can keep coming back to it over and over again.
DA:O - Great game, good mechanics (play dwarf rogue noble as first char), good story. Definitely worth a playthrough as well. The rest of the Dragon Age game sucks.
Tyranny - Decent game, great mechanics (especially the magics), pretty crappy story but with a ok twist. Worth trying out a bit at least to see if you like it. I liked it a lot, but didn't care about my charname or the story, but the actual playing was really good.
Drakensang I've only tried out a little but I got a good feeling of it but stopped for some reason I cannot even remember now. I think I played a Charlatan, a somewhat bard/rogue/party face hybrid class that felt very interresting. Now that I think about it, I should prolly re-install that game and give it a swing. I don't know which of the two I played though, this was many years ago.
Fallout/Arcanum/Kotor and other old school games are great but you know of them already.
1. DO NOT play iron man mode in XCOM for your first playthrough.
2. The NPCS in PoE are the BEST I've seen in any game since BG2. Seriously, they are that good.
When, once in a blue moon I do find something that sucks me in, I still get that giddy gamer's high. So the wish to game is still strong in me; it's just struggling to find an outlet.
I don't know, mate. While there's certainly a kernel of truth in what you're saying, I think you're maybe overdiagnosing the problem. In my original post, I do hint that I have enjoyed other games beside BG (and the usual IE fare.) My problem with PoE and TToN was not that they were not as good as BG or PS:T but rather that they tried so hard to live up to the glory of those titles. As such, they Inadvertently set themselves up for failure, especially among the most devoted fans of those games - their very core audience.
I already explicated my reasons for not getting on with PoE in a previous thread, so I'm not going to repeat myself too much here. Let me just say that I have no beef with the game itself. I think it is a very well made crpg, definitely one of best in the genre. I just find it lacking in most of the key areas that made the BG saga so memorable. And because it is a BG/IE tribute, I find it impossible not to compare it to its spiritual predecessor. And while I'm comparing it, I can't help but feel like I'd rather be playing BG instead.
In contrast, I really enjoyed the first three Mass Effect games. I loved the character of Commander Shepard, I loved the NPCs, the universe, the dialogue, the story and even the combat, though I'm not usually a fan of shooters.
I loved Mass Effect for the same reason I loved Baldur's Gate: because it felt fresh and original and sincere and heartfelt in its storytelling. It took a lot of inspiration from its forebearers and resorted to a lot of cliches, but somehow managed to pull it off in a totally unique way.
The whole point of me starting this thread was to maybe find a game that is equally unique and immersive as Baldur's Gate without being called Baldur's Gate. I honestly am looking for something totally different, and yes, I am willing to put my expectations down and give new titles a chance before judging them. However, so many of these games are trying to emulate Baldur's Gate and the IE classics rather than just doing their own thing. I mean, why watch the remake when you can watch the original?
PoE has nice npcs, great graphics and good customisation. I really like the interaction with the world (for instance the fire hair race can light candles).
But the story does not entice me to play, the lore is an avalanche, the dialogue is too descriptive (Pst esque) in a manner that I cannot use my own imagination about what the npc is like, i.e. the Tolkien trap. The cutscenes are a nice touch but I am not sure what to so with them. The combat is not fun to me, areas are too dense and everything in them is out to get you, and I cannot understand why the double health system and healing do not match. I did not find many interesting weapons for the parts I did get to play.
I did restart a few times to give it a chance with a different class but I am simply not captivated by it. I was looking for improvements over bg in other features.
I have no strong opinion on the developers of the EEs or PoE or any other game for that matter. I look only at the game itself. If you want to discuss hate against developers you won't get a response from me on that. Coming up with cash grab statements tells me enough that no argument can ever be settled.
Either way, if you enjoy it then more power to you, right? Noone has to agree with my statements nor yours. They can choose for themselves. However, I do like some nuance in argumentation.
Take Eder. You meet him smoking his pipe under a ghastly tree hanging with lynched people, and one of his first lines is some sarcastic gib about him being the next one on the list. Uh, ok. Shouldn't you be, like, freaked out, at least a little bit? Aloth is slightly more interesting with his semi-schizophrenic condition, but even that he plays off as "something I might need some help with, but if you don't have the time, that's cool, bro." And let's not even talk about Sagani, who approaches her multi-year personal expedition with the enthusiasm of a street sweeper.
In BG, we see and hear our companions laughing, joking, crying, fighting, flirting and cursing. We see them lose hope, find faith, get murderously angry, mourn their dead, fall in love, give birth. In PoE, there's very little or any of that. The companions in PoE are too cool for school, as if competing for the award for least sh*ts given. This, I believe, was the ultimate deal-breaker for me. I can live with a less-than-stellar story and lackluster NPCs so long as the action is good, but PoE's combat is just flat out tedious. The enemies are uninspired, both in form and formation. There isn't a lot of depth in terms of strategy, and I find myself using the same routine of spells and abilities in every battle, even on Path of the Damned. If there is challenge, it's usually in numbers. The spells, especially, seem altogether secondary to everything else. In fact, I can't remember another rpg where the wizard was the weakest link in my party.
Also, for a more "RPG" suggestion, if you have Skyrim, there's a total conversion mod for it called Enderal: The Shards of Order with immersive worldbuilding and one hell of a storyline. There's also a TC for Oblivion by the same team of people called Nehrim: At Fate's Edge. They've got both that fun exploration that the later Elder Scrolls games have paired with the compelling, immersive storyline and well-developed characters that most Elder Scrolls games lack. Both of them kept me hooked until the end, both of them hit the right atmosphere spot on, and both of them hit me emotionally like a hecking STEAMROLLER. They make you laugh, cry, think, and they're fun to play. They are a teensy tiny bit buggy, but seeing as they were created by a group of dedicated fans and distributed for free, that's to be expected. Also, all games by this group are originally in German, so if you don't speak that, you'll need to get the translated version. Seriously though, if you've got Oblivion and Skyrim installs at your disposal, give Nehrim and Enderal a try.
(There are also two other games in the same series that came before those, both TC mods for Morrowind, but they're not near as polished. Like they're still good games and I'd recommend them, but they're nowhere near on par with their sequels or with something like Baldur's Gate. If you're interested in them, they're called Myar Aranath and Arktwend: The Forgotten Realm.)
They both gave me a gameplay experience that up until that point only IE games had been able to come close to, and to this day they're pretty much the only games I'd place on a pedastal alongside games like Baldur's Gate.
Seriously, if you don't mind that they're not like BG mechanics-wise, I cannot recommend them highly enough. Again, that's Nehrim: At Fate's Edge and Enderal: The Shards of Order.
It's kinda like the ME of fantasy RPGs, IMHO. You play Geralt but you can still tweak him so he kinda becomes "you", similar to Shephard.
If you do like me and play witcher 2 before 1, then maybe you will also do like me and don't finish 1. So my recommendation is to either pick up Witcher 2 and just engross yourself into that and skip 1 altogether, or start from scratch and play W1 first. I think playing W1 after W2 is a bad idea since they evolved the combat so much between the two. Much more so than between ie ME1 and 2 who are similar even though they changed the item/inventory/equipment handling etc.
But most importantly, most encounters in BG are over fast, for either you die quickly, or you kill the enemy quickly. In PoE, there is a bit of back and forth, and their use of stamina depleting whenever you heal and two sleeping bags maximun, limits encounters in a brilliant way.
PoE has so MUCH MORE refined combat that BG pales. I dare say the encounter with Raedric and his mages and paladins, which is one of the earliest fights, is more engaging than ANY encounter in the entire BG series! And how do you manage to not have the mage have the highest damagae output? Put them a bit in the back and the enemy wont KO them instantly...
Tyranny
Bronze age inspired setting, grey & black morality, short but tight with a lot of replay value. Feels very original. Downside: Long loading times & and limited colour palette (most areas are some shade of brown).
Neverwinter Nights 2
Lots of campaigns to play with very diverse stories, Forgotten Realms, memorable companions, only 20 bucks on GoG, lots of mods for customisation and added content. The second campaign, Mask of the Betrayer, is absolutely worth it. Downsides: Graphics have not aged super well, clunky controls, broken multiplayer (if you care about that), inconsistent writing quality in the first campaign.
Divinity: Original Sin 2
Excelent presentation and gameplay, in-depths tactical combat (round based), very colourful, extensive multiplayer mode, great humor, lots of puzzles, original quest design, overall very refreshing experience. You can play as an undead. Downsides: The combat balancing can be quite off at times, which can be frustrating (I played on normal mode).
Planescape: Torment: Enhanced Edition
Super original story, great atmosphere, original setting, super charming characters, great humor, very story focused. Downside: Very slow start, can be overwhelming in the beginning. But it's definetly worth it to stick with it. And now that there's and EE, the game actually runs properly and stable.
The mod makes Baldur's Gate 1 feel like a new game, primarily by adding and modifying content throughout the game. I made this mod because, like you, I've been playing Baldur's Gate for a really long time and I wanted a new experience.
The main thing the mod does is give new powers to all the creatures and characters in the game (including the protagonist and NPCs). A party member might be able to teleport, cast certain spells at will, or hit Drizzt on a roll of 2, depending on the character or their class. Meanwhile, the enemies have crazy powers as well. The mod also adds items, changes encounters, and occasionally might change the story a little.
You won't be able to rely on most of your previous metagame knowledge of the game. A merchant who originally sold just nonmagical goods might now sell a magical item that you can't get anywhere else. A commoner from the original game might now be a doppelganger assassin masquerading as a commoner, waiting for you to let your guard down.
You can learn more about the mod and download it here.
Forgive me if it's already been mentioned here, but if you like a great story with compelling characters and great combat get Neverwinter Nights 2: Mask of the Betrayer (you can skip the main NWN2 campaign as well as all other dlc). It's pretty much the only game in the past 15 years that scratches that BG itch the same way the originals did, imo.