There's a story floating around the internet about Baldur's Gate 3 freaking out developers of other AAA games because it's just too good, like some apex predator that has just laconically padded down to the waterhole and scattered all the local wildlife back into the brush. This is, of course, ridiculous, and gets more ridiculous when you see viral posts about $100 billion lawsuits. Developers, being normal human beings and all, tend to be more happy than aghast when a successful and critically-acclaimed game comes out. Nonetheless, I do think that those who buy into such a narrative have keyed into something very important – they've just misidentified what's really happening.
AAA gaming as a whole is going through a big transitional period, but game development being as slow as it is, some major titles have struggled to keep up with (or anticipate) something that's been happening for the last few years: namely, games are relaxing their control on the player experience. And those that don't are catching flak for it.
