Roll for Initiative!
Our party had just finished up a grueling battle where everyone took damage, only to have a devil appear out of know where to offer us a bargain. All my little tired band of warriors wanted to do was just rest and recover, so when we saw the barn, we assumed it would be empty. As we got closer the bangs grew louder and louder until finally, we opened the door and what we saw; well, it was fornication going on…. wild crazy fornication which honestly is just tip of the iceberg because you see, in Larian Studios new game Baldur’s Gate 3 choice is at the forefront of everything and as such there are some crazy, hilarious and even heartbreaking situations that players will find themselves in the massive world.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a massive RPG game in the same vein as Larian’s last hit Divinity: Original Sin. Players will probably never even see everything this world has to offer as it is so densely packed with interesting places, stories and people that its easy to be pulled from the task at hand and end up down a rabbit hole of angry gods, love sick elves and raging dwarfs. I managed to sink almost 45+ hours over the past few days and my party is only level 3 and I have managed to go undercover in a cult, slaughter a group of Tieflings (I really hadn’t planned on that but the dice rolls betrayed me), be blinded by the lovemaking of two consenting adults and cleared a glade of druids. All this before I even reached the titular city gates, there is always something interesting around every corner in BG3.
MSRP: $59.99
Platforms: PC
Price I’d Pay: $59.99
While I just rambled off a bunch of stuff, I can assure you that BG3 has a central narrative which has been amazing from what I have experienced thus far. But before players will even begin to experience that, they will have to create their own character. The creation suite offered in BG3 is quite literally amazing, offering 11 races to choose from, (Human, Githyanki, Half-Orc, Dwarf, Elf, Drow, Tiefling, Halfling, Half Elf, Gnome and Dragonborn) but not only that there are 31 subraces to further perfect the character of your dreams. Players can pick race, gender (non-binary is an option), voice even genitals can be selected. In BG3 players are afforded the chance to truly create a version of themselves or have always imagined and take them on a grand adventure throughout the Forgotten Realms.
After choosing their class from a list of 12 (with 46 subclasses) players awaken, imprisoned by mind flayers or Illithids as they are also known. These creatures are some of the most feared throughout all of D&D due in no small part to their power psionic abilities. The player as well as a number of other people on the ship have been infected with a tadpole; these have the power to twist and mutate the infected into a mind flayer. But before the process can be competed the ship comes under attack by a githyanki war party, after trying to escape into various realms the player is freed and after some tutorial combat and junk manages to steer the ship back to Faerûn where the quest becomes trying to find someone to remove the tadpoles from our heroes’ heads before they turn into mind flayer monsters.
During this intro players will meet up with various characters and be presented with more than a few different problems to solve. Much like enjoying a session of D&D with friends, BG3 has a narrator who explains various feelings and moves much like a dungeon master would. BG3 is probably going to be an excellent entry into the world of Dungeons and Dragons for a lot of people, as it takes the sometimes-overwhelming world and manages to make it easy to understand. Everything from character sheets to the actual dice rolls are featured in BG3, for any longtime fan of D&D this is going to feel like a virtual homecoming for you and I couldn’t be happier. I am a newbie when it comes TTRPG but some of the things that I had questions about I actually understand now thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3.
Combat in the game is handled in a turn-based fashion, just like in a TTRPG each participant rolls for initiative which determines the combat order and is visually displayed on a bar at the top of the screen. From there each combatant will use their equipped weapons, spells and cantrips to try and murder the other side. One of the most important things about these battles though is positioning. Because in BG3 players have so much freedom there are usually ways to utilize the environment in your favor during combat. Get a foe next to a cliff and ‘shove’ them right over the side or one of my favorites bait the enemies to my wizard but then have him teleport to safety and toss a fireball at the hidden oil barrel for a nice explosive triple kill. I did have some control issues during the combat sequences, on more than one occasion I had enemies who announced their cantrips and then the camera just stayed locked on them for a long time before finally snapping them into action. Or when I would direct one of my party to move into a position they would ignore my every command and wouldn’t do anything until I ended their turn. In a game this massive there are some blemishes to be expected, and these didn’t break the game or my experiences but I wanted to be sure and mention them just the same.
After almost seven years in active development with three of them being early access I am happy to say that during my time with Baldur’s Gate 3 I didn’t experience any game breaking issues. Yes, of course there was the occasional graphical hiccup, studder, and slow loading of graphical details at times but I can’t stress enough how massive this game is AND the fact that once you initially load in all of the transitions are quite speedy from there. I did have some slowdown during some rainy scenes but after restarting my computer these ran smooth as silk. I think I had most trouble with the camera, while it was fine usually while navigating the world; there were times during combat where it would become stuck or just refuse to show me a certain angle. This happened mostly when I was fighting in areas where there was a significant height difference, where I was fighting on an overlook and the enemy was in the area below me. While I was able to muddle my way through it was really just more frustrating than anything else.
The freedom that players will have in Baldur’s Gate 3 is something that doesn’t come along very often. Basic commands like dip, and throw can lead to some fantastic outside the box thinking to get out of sticky situations. Which is actually something that my Dragonborn, Bard specializes in; he’s basically Eddie Murphy’s Axel Foley with a flute. Because of this level of freedom, no two playthroughs will be the same. Just because you managed to sneak in successfully the first time doesn’t mean that those stealth checks will be as generous the second time. And just because combat seems certain doesn’t mean you can’t talk your way into a fragile truce, trust me I have done it a few times. But I will say that as much as I am enjoying all of these features in this particular RPG game, it doesn’t mean that this is what I want to see as the norm.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a huge game that the majority of players will probably never, ever see all of. I adore this world and everything the team has created here; I am still holding out hope to see a certain Drow who has a penchant for dual scimitars as well. But what I worry about is that I might miss that encounter entirely. This game is massive, the developers are saying a single playthrough is going to take 70 hours; and those of you that want to see everything you might as well buy a time share in Baldur’s Gate proper as you are going to be there awhile. My point is that if this becomes the norm, then the casuals who enjoy this genre will probably give it up. Chances are they are playing other games and don’t have the time to invest 70-100 hours into one game as a casual player. Don’t get me wrong, as the occasional one off this is freaking fantastic but we don’t need every RPG to emulate this level of scope and detail to be successful.
So now we have come to the end, and did I like Baldur’s Gate 3? You’re got damned right I liked it, I have LOVED every second of the game and when I am not playing it, I am thinking about it. Trying to figure out what one of my party members is hiding from me, or if I want to sacrifice magical equipment for another, and how if I lean into the mind flyer powers and start to use them more if my party will turn on me. This is a video game that has me thinking like this and I can’t help but compare it to a great session of Dungeons and Dragons with your friends, it’s something that when done correctly will stay with you long after you have finished a play session. The team at Larian Studios are to be commended, Baldur’s Gate 3 is nothing short of a masterpiece when it comes to RPG’s.
Review copy of game provided by publisher.
