Baldur’s Gate 3 Review

Baldur’s Gate 3 is an anecdotal flashpoint of gaming.

Its most recent comparative parallel may be akin to PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. For me, a person who avidly consumes game-related content, PUBG was inescapable. During my 9-5 job, I would constantly listen to podcasts and videos about gaming. For months, content creators would give their weekly anecdotes of their time playing the once-dominant battle royale. Many stories would revolve around what ridiculous way they or another player died, how close they clung to victory, or conversations about how infectious the game had become.

When Skyrim arrived there was a palpable sense of mass attachment as the game continued to spawn new anecdotes about inventive players breaking the world or manipulating it like clay. Bethesda’s opus had gobbled up the mind share and continues to do so.

Minecraft is the de facto kid’s game, acting as a gateway into digital entertainment. Among Us had everyone talking about what’s sus. Guitar Hero created a market for plastic peripherals again. Grand Theft Auto 5 concocted an online mode and a digital empire of roleplaying kingpins and anarchists. Dark Souls spawned a genre.

And for weeks, or sometimes months, and rarely years, a single game becomes the thing that ripples into others. Those ideas plant seeds for developers to borrow and occasionally steal. And when the right thing clicks, players arrive like a deluge.

Despite feeling intrinsically linked to most things gaming, I’ve never played a round of PUBG and likely never will. But I’ve played Fortnite. Because I played Fortnite I understood those anecdotes all those podcasters made. I was able to tangibly experience what I had once visualized in my head or watched on a stream.

There are times where we as consumers and players don’t need first-hand experience to recognize significance, let alone quality. Take Dungeons & Dragons, a tabletop RPG I’ve never directly interacted with. Despite that, I understand the cultural impact the game has had in the decades since its release and how it has bled into countless games and creative mediums. I might ironically tease friends who have D&D groups by calling them nerds but completely understand the appeal and admire the dedication. For months at work I would watch Critical Role to pass the time, amused and befuddled at the rules knowing that I would never have the time to dedicate to such an endeavor myself. A few months ago I watched the Honor Among Thieves movie and had an absolute blast. I get it.

Baldur’s Gate 3 may not have the meteoric impact of its tabletop inspiration but it is poised to create a shift in gaming. At the minimum, it has set an impossibly high standard for any RPG currently in the throes of development. For months to come I expect a flood of first- and second-hand accounts of what dazzled, shocked, and impressed a wide swath of players who became sucked into Larian Studios superb title. While it may be incredibly daunting in scope, Baldur’s Gate 3 begs for the investment and the hours of rewards that will be reaped.

When I first booted up Baldur’s Gate 3 late at night after the game downloaded, I spent about two hours creating a character and then decided to go to sleep after watching the open moments. For me, that’s an obscene amount of time to spend on a process that often takes 20 minutes at most. Players are given an unsurprising amount of countless cosmetic options to help distinguish their character from any party member, NPC, or other player countries away. But plunging into the 12 classes and 11 races is where Baldur’s Gate 3 sets the stage for its first challenge.

Who do you want to be in this world?

It’s a question that permeates through nearly every part of Baldur’s Gate 3. A kind Tiefling bard who would rather talk their way out of scrapes than fight? A Gnome cleric that only heals those who side with its dark desires? A simple human paladin that fights for whoever pays the most coin? Character creation is both the paintbrush and canvas of D&D campaigns and that same logic applies here. Whether players want to make an extension of themselves or act out uncharacteristic deeds, Baldur’s Gate 3 is going to do its absolute best to fulfill those desires.

During character selection, players can explore their options and get an idea of what classes do, if a particular race benefits their goals, and even see the genitals of their future protagonist. While such intimate details may no be necessary, it’s not done in jest but rather as a way to allow the player to truly piece together what they want.

Oppositely, players have the option to select from an “Origin” character that has a predetermined background and look. For those uncertain as to where they wish to take their destiny, an Origin character is an equally tantalizing opportunity. In the main campaign, a custom character will run into these Origin characters and see how they fit into your personal narrative and party. By selecting to play as one, players are less of a blank slate. The choice by Larian to include this option is smart because it may help the indecisive among us reign in their choices. Additionally, players may be able to see more from these characters when they normally wouldn’t fit into the party’s makeup.

This rewarding process of freedom is paid off when players explore the highly detailed world of Faerûn, a beautiful setting ripe with musty dungeons, sprawling cities, bloodied battlefields, glistening coastlines, and countless other wonders. But first, Baldur’s Gate 3 starts with an agonizing introduction as players watch a tentacled mind flayer insert an illithid parasite into their eye.

The primary goal of Baldur’s Gate 3‘s initial narrative hook is to find a way to remove that fanged tadpole from your eye, as it will eventually dissolve your guts, make your skin fall off, and turn you into a mind flayer. The action starts on the mind flayers’ nautiloid ship as it’s attacked by the alien-like Githyanki and their dragons. Players are released from their prison and are immediately faced with choices that range from catastrophic to negligible for the remainder of the game.

Creativity has always been a driving force for D&D. What kind of antics and adventure can you get into with a group of friends? What types of branching paths and events can your Dungeon Master weave in a session? In Baldur’s Gate 3, Larian acts as Dungeon Master playing in a rule set of the Fifth Edition of the tabletop. Do I have any idea what that means? No. But again, I understand the basics of the game.

But in the opening moments of Baldur’s Gate 3 I have the ability to kill future party members and steal an object from their corpse that may have taken hours to be revealed. I can recruit a brain creature that will help me fight against its creators. I can choose to trust my temporary vampire party member and let him suck my blood or stab him with a stake. I can pull a book from a pedestal using my magic hand, bypassing deadly traps. I could wipe out a cave of goblins or talk my way out of a massacre.

Ask any fellow player or go to any Reddit thread or watch any stream and see nearly every person talking about or doing something radically or slightly different from what you experienced in your own instance of Baldur’s Gate 3. Players are not meant to feel boxed in by the world Larian created because they account for seemingly every possibility.

What makes Baldur’s Gate 3 feel so special is how unprecedented the vast amount of content created here is. I look to a game like Fallout 3 where players could bypass large battles with the right science or charisma checks. Blowing up Megaton was supposed to be this sickening act on the part of the player. But these actions ultimately often led to a black, white, or grey outcome which, at the time, felt empowering. Older Fallout titles and decades-old CRPGS had more consequence. But Fallout 3 had a budget. It wasn’t shrunken-down people on a large map riddled with text boxes. No, Bethesda featured mouths moving and Liam Neeson speaking.

As time has progressed, we’ve seen the medium translate living, breathing, consequence-driven worlds into complex ecosystems that swing the door wide open for players in an effort to never have them leave. The warm embrace of Baldur’s Gate 3 is the result of all these separate role playing ideas coalescing into one finished product. Yes, it’s overwhelming but also entirely revolutionary. Remember how The Witcher 3 took the fantasy side quests of Skyrim and gave them more depth and meaning? Remember the moment-to-moment surprises that Breath of the Wild presented. Or what about the Western simulation of Red Dead Redemption 2?

Those apex predators of gaming plucked and borrowed from others, no doubt. But that path of quality and inspiration had a starting point and a throughline. While I can’t speak to BioWare’s first two Baldur’s Gate titles (though I always wanted to play them), I know enough about their legacy and that of Icewind Dale and Planescape: Torment. Larian’s DNA of Divinity: Original Sin can even be found in here. There’s a legacy of open-ended worlds with choices and rules and options established in the earliest days of PC gaming that has been passed down to Baldur’s Gate 3.

Having the opportunity to start Baldur’s Gate 3 with a character in mind and doing the best to role play as that person is one of the game’s primary goals. Maybe you just want that character to be a vessel for the traditional “Blue Equals Good” and “Red Equals Bad” RPG experience. Perhaps you want to have a little fun and be nice but still kill everyone who fights you. Or you may just want to literally try and talk yourself out of everything like I did when creating my Tiefling bard, rolling those charisma checks and cheering on the party. Whatever you choose, the game will react accordingly and play out the consequences.

Baldur’s Gate 3 simply doesn’t present a dialog option or a combat scenario, have the player experience it and end with a static event. A character that lives or dies, or an item that was grabbed or stolen may lead to a series of cascading events. Maybe a relative comes for some revenge. Maybe you discover a new quest from reading a book. Maybe you bypass an entire fight or area just because the dice were lucky. The options are thrilling because one playthrough of the game can be so vastly different from the other and this game truly pushes you towards experiencing it all again and again.

Because Baldur’s Gate 3 uses D&D as its lifeblood, players should expect a large portion of the game to be dictated by dice rolls and various skill checks. Want to charm your way into the heart of a character who would have absolutely no reason to care about you? Better roll a high enough number or have the right traits to better your chances. Thinking of breaking down a door guarding treasure rather than finding the key? The game is going to roll on your strength. Initiative rolls and percentage chances play a massive part in exploration, conversations, and combat.

Unsurprisingly, combat is turn-based and ripe with opportunities for success and failure. It truly took me several encounters before realizing that I can’t just run over smoldering surfaces and not expect burn damage. Instead I needed to taunt enemies there. Combat encounters are small playgrounds that take positioning and thoughtfulness into account. Players can freely move the camera around large distances to get a sense of the world but there are times where line of sight is required. I’m not sure if action-focused combat would benefit a game like Baldur’s Gate 3 at all. Players are meant to put thought into their decisions as opposed to acting rashly.

There are combat hallmarks like electrifying water or using flames to apply burn to weapons. But players can also–with the right strength checks–pick up enemies and toss them off cliffs or at other foes. They can activate traps to kill unsuspecting victims or group them together and break out massive damage with an AoE spell. Combat has its limitations, especially when the game first starts. Certain areas will contain stronger foes that can devastate players in direct encounters. Spells and abilities are limited until a few levels are gained.

Such a deliberate pace may test the patience of some who prefer more A in their RPG but in this world and with these rules, it’s the most logical approach. Becoming more acclimated with a full party and their growing capabilities helps players recognize the importance of when to activate limited-use abilities and spells that can only be restored after long rests. The agonizing decision making that comes with selecting a new skill or trait after a level up feels heavier here than it does in games where levels come quickly. Players can certainly make Baldur’s Gate 3 harder on themselves artificially by changing the difficulty, though I recommend Balanced if you don’t want to truly test limits at first. But there are ways to role-play the game as a more challenging experience by merely killing any potential party members or going against what your stats dictate. The options are endless!

Speaking from the perspective of a person who has never engaged with tabletop D&D but has seem some of its rules replicated in games, I can think of no better way to get people acclimated to D&D than Baldur’s Gate 3. While its edges aren’t as boundless as the creativity of another person, it feels like few stones were left unturned with the amount of cause and effect at play. Players don’t have to account for the math when calculating dice rolls and chances. Hell, I imagine there will be thousands of players who use their own tabletop character sheets to replicate a main in Baldur’s Gate 3. Personally I wonder the kind of cross pollination that can be expected. How many players will try D&D for the first time because of Baldur’s Gate 3. How many hardcore tabletop players will explore Larian’s other works and then navigate into Disco Elysium or The Witcher 3 or The Outer Worlds.

One of the most refreshing aspects of Baldur’s Gate 3 is that few options feel inherently right or wrong. There are certainly “bad” choices that will lead to death or harder outcomes but what if that’s what the player wants? More importantly, a character death or a lost opportunity doesn’t feel like a true loss because it has likely opened up several new events or potential stories. The game is constantly tying up loose ends while feeding the player new threads of intrigue. A new character will come in to peel back a layer on the world and make the player more curious. An hours-long ally will suddenly open up more and ask you for aid.

I would be remiss if I did not mention that in my time playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on PC I did have issues. Saves had to be deleted to help the game run better. The screen would abruptly flash between transitions. Using a controller seemed to affect performance. Objects and characters would lose their interactivity. But in the sheer scope and scale of the game–which, to be fair, may be a problem for some–it made little difference. Bugs will be removed with time and performance will be optimized. The true meat of the game remains unspoiled.

Role-playing games have always been fascinating to me. Partially because since I was a kid, most games have had me play the roles of others. I’ve been an Italian plumber, a Battletoad named Zitz, multiple Ryus, elves, aliens, humans, pets, soldiers, assassins, gods, and the petals of flowers. One of my first true RPGs was Super Mario RPG: Legend of the Seven Stars. I didn’t know what genre it was, just that it was a Mario game. It took me days to understand the basics of leveling up, grinding, equipment types, elemental damage, and why constant action wasn’t always how a game could be fun. As the years went on I would play more games that allowed me to select a class or choose a name or make an extremely binary decision that would affect barely anything. But I always wanted to have fun and be a character that would let me do things I could never do.

Baldur’s Gate 3 is a watershed moment for RPGs and gaming. It represents one of the closest approximations of true freedom, creativity, and player choice available, evolving concepts and mechanics that have been tinkered with for decades. Using Dungeons & Dragons as its catalyst, Larian has honored the past and forged a new future for a genre that has allowed increased agency for players to put their thoughts, feelings, hopes, and wants inside of a digital realm and live. Like every other player, my experience with Baldur’s Gate 3 is significantly anecdotal, ripe with unique stories about what happened to me that would take hours to share. But why listen to me when you can become lost in one of the most richly beautiful worlds ever created and make up your own tale?