![]() Too big to failĪs much as the breadth and depth of Baldur's Gate 3 are both an impressive part of its creation – and in many ways key to its success – its size and scope have the potential to prove a stumbling block. A glut of magical items helped too, offering a form of build versatility that's new to me as a pen-and-paper player, but the perfect fit for this digital reincarnation. As the Baldur's Gate 3's first act gave way to its second, the excitement of new, unique skills for each class gave way to more simple stat increases, but narrative twists allow for multiclassing to give each character a new direction without undermining their personalities. Character quests might prove romantic, or they might not, but there's nothing lost in your most personal choices.Īs those stories grow, so too do the characters themselves, allowing ways around D&D's slightly stale leveling. It's more mature than that – these are different characters with different ideals and different ways of expressing themselves, and emotional proximity doesn't turn them infallible or ruin your relationship with the rest of them. After a slightly breathless end to the first act, romance isn't simply a question of picking the right dialogue options or passing a Charisma check. ![]() The more intimate relationships are a little less nuanced than I'd initially hoped, although I admire the overall complexity. "I could spend another hundred hours Baldur's Gate 3 and still see just a fraction of what it has to offer." Even beyond their individual moments in the spotlight, however, each companion forms part of a web of interactivity as they chat, bicker, sympathize, and snipe with each other as we wander the Sword Coast. Different pieces of narrative might call for a specific character, but while my Wizard's massive area-of-effect spells are far more effective than my Rogue's sneak attacks in major battles, I know who I'd rather have in my party for a heist. As different problems call for different solutions, it's easy to keep the cast rotating. Even my bard bucks the trend by being silver-tongued, but never sleazy.Įach character has moments of their own, as Larian makes it clear that this isn't just your story. These interwoven stories mean that Baldur's Gate 3 avoids overstepping the line of the traditional tabletop archetype Shadowheart, a cleric with skills based around radiant magic and teamwide buffs and healing, uses her powers to serve a goddess of darkness and loss Lae'zel, a fanatical fighter, is wracked with indecision and an inability to face an impossible truth rapidly becoming more clear to her Karlach, a barbarian marked by years of trauma and a near-terminal diagnosis, is determined to draw on joy, not anger. ![]() There are times where I've spent so long in a sprawling dungeon that finally finding my way back to the surface has felt like almost literally stumbling back into the light. There are times where the critical path feels like little more than a suggestion, where an interaction almost lost in the mists of time comes back to take you down a warren-like sidequest, or where a looming companion quest threatens to throw your entire campaign into disarray. Baldur's Gate 3 feels so rare – a game that delivers not only on the D&D ruleset, but on the whole ideal of a roleplaying experience.Īfter 130 hours with Baldur's Gate 3, I've found myself struck over and over by its breadth, depth, and density. Sometimes that reminder is a massive set piece, but much of the time it's more subtle a rousing speech, a silver-tongued solution to a boss fight, an encounter so silly in a part of the world so out-of-the-way that you can't help but feel the humanity in this game's creation. They're the invisible hand of the Dungeon Master, where Larian gently pushes you away from the keyboard and reminds you that for all the power you might have over this world, this is someone else's story too. It's those moments that make this game feel like a truly authentic D&D experience.
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