>It blows my mind that many people worked there, only 8% of Microsoft Gaming?
The difference between AAA and the rest is not so much in quality these days, but sheer quantity. Quantity of NPCs, artwork, music, items, skills, vehicles, levels, etc. etc. And it takes a small army of artists/designers/PMs to do all of that stuff, not to even mention the actual dev team.
Larian Studios has 450 employees, and BG3 completely blows any other modern RPG out of the water in terms of the sheer amount of fun content inside the game
Baldur's Gate 3 was in development for nearly six years even with asset reuse and basically being the only thing that Larian was working on. And that isn't even taking contractors into account (BG3 credits around 2300 workers).
I don't think you're making the point you think you are.
The difference between AAA and the rest is not so much in quality these days, but sheer quantity. Quantity of NPCs, artwork, music, items, skills, vehicles, levels, etc. etc. And it takes a small army of artists/designers/PMs to do all of that stuff, not to even mention the actual dev team.