Baldur’s Gate 3 is everything a Dungeons and Dragons game should be. Rich storytelling combines with clever and creative combat to cast one heck of a charm spell. Stunning visuals and voice acting immerse you in a world where your choices open thousands of possible doors. This is the best a D&D game has felt in decades, and it’s one of the best-looking CRPGs there is (insert joke about critical hit here).
Developed and published by Divinity’s Larian Studios, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a roleplaying game that uses the setting and mechanics of D&D, the world’s oldest tabletop RPG. Despite being a licensed game and the third title in a series, there are no barriers to entry with Baldur’s Gate 3. Everything you need to know about how to play Dungeons and Dragons is explained with ease, and the story isn’t a direct sequel to Baldur’s Gate 1 and 2.
Baldur’s Gate 3 begins with your player-character escaping a DnD Mind Flayer ship – though not totally unscathed, as the Illithid have inserted a potentially lethal, potentially world-ending tadpole in your brain. That’s pretty much the only part of the game set in stone – everything else is up to you.
The character creator isn’t the most advanced we’ve ever seen, but you can still customize everything from your eye color to your genitals. Your choice of Baldur’s Gate 3 classes and Baldur’s Gate 3 companions can totally change how you approach the tadpole situation.
These days, it feels like every videogame promises a world where your choices matter – with varying degrees of success. But in Baldur’s Gate 3, the pipe dream is real. This is a world of grand adventure where the fates of the smallest creatures and the universe itself are in your hands.
A bare-bones playthrough of Baldur’s Gate 3 is meant to take up to 100 hours, and Larian has promised 17,000 possible endings. Fortunately, none of this feels like padding.
Excellent writing extends from the main quests to the smallest pieces of environmental storytelling. Larian throws iconic and unique DnD monsters at you from the get-go, proving that a fantasy setting from the 70s doesn’t have to feel stale. Combine this with highly interactive environments and the huge range of abilities your Baldur’s Gate 3 party can adopt, and you’ve got varied and strategic combat encounters every time.
It’s not all fighting fantasy, though. When you’re not dabbling in swords and sorcery, Baldur’s Gate 3 offers puzzles to unravel and character romances to pursue (those custom genitals might come in handy soon).
Baldur’s Gate 3 has spent three years in Early Access, slowly feeding more content to the community. As well as adding a final class and more DnD races to DnD character creation and filling out the story, Larian has done plenty of fine-tuning. Familiar battles are more balanced in the final version, and new skill trees and story beats flesh out the early game.
And there’s plenty worth seeing beyond the first act of Early Access. I’m reluctant to spoil anything I’ve seen so far, so know this. Baldur’s Gate 3 ticks every box for D&D fans. Its world will win the heart of longtime d20-rollers, and it expertly tinkers with the rules of fifth edition to welcome newcomers into the fold.
Play it, and play it again. Play it alone, and then play it multiplayer with your friends. The tadpoles command it.
An unmissable roleplaying experience
Baldur’s Gate 3 perfectly distills the D&D experience, offering compelling stories and combat scenarios in a polished and endlessly replayable package. It’s a worthy addition to the pantheon of Baldur’s Gate games, and it’s a game-changing entry in the CRPG genre.
Source: Wargamer
