There are shit ton of CRPGs. Literally three days ago Colony Ship came out, from Age of Decadence devs. Rogue Trader is about to come out.
What there isn't shit ton of are AAA CRPGs with corresponding production values and million of cutscenes. We'll see if AAA studios try their hand at that, but I doubt it. CRPGs are hard as fuck to make even without that AAA coat of paint.
Yup.
Just because things are impressive or popular, doesn't automatically mean it'll connect or catch fire the way one would think.
I would have sworn that after the "Nemesis System" in that Lord of the Rings game and how evolutionary Breath of the Wild was, I was sure we'd see games more like those coming out a few years after release and we essentially never did. Or at least to the same degree of those titles unless you consider their sequels.
I think any person that enjoys the more meaty story and gameplay possibilities of the CRPG are more than able to get them, just not on the caliber of the AAA space, and that absolutely sucks. I don't think people are understanding or giving enough credence to the level of actual work to put into BG3 that is almost very likely to never be seen by a lot of the players simply because there's so much and the permutations that
can happen from them.
There's just a ton of content that unless you play multiple playthroughs, with different characters/classes, most people just won't see. I certainly haven't seen what feels like even half of the game and I've over 160 hours into it, and it doesn't even feel daunting or exhausting to play, just a fun way to immerse myself into the world for a few hours.
The game is certainly an achievement, but we'd all be fools to think that any major publisher would be willing to take the time, money
and the risk of what a game like BG3 entails in the AAA space. I certainly hope to be wrong though and hopefully the accolades of BG3 spurn other Publisher/Developers to maybe try something outside the rote zeitgeist of cultural trends.