Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 review \u2013 One of the best RPGs ever made Our Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 review has been 125 hours in the making, but it\u2019s finally here. The RPG is everywhere and everyone is talking about it. However, does the it live up to the hype? Well, in a word \u2013 yes. Every once in a while a game comes around and something shifts. It\u2019s hard to define what factors have moved, but there\u2019s this undeniable sense that something has changed. That the pantheon of gaming has a new title that will be referenced and revered for years to come. A new automatic entrant onto any Top 100 Games of All Time list. We\u2019ve seen this in recent years with games like Elden Ring, Red Dead Redemption 2, Breath of the Wild, and The Witcher 3. The parallels between Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 and CD Projekt RED\u2019s fantasy epic are fairly staggering. Both come from a European developer releasing their third major fantasy RPG, after making two beloved but nicher games. Then, with the arrival of their third entry, they exploded into the mainstream. However, Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 felt like it had even more hurdles. Would audiences embrace a proper cRPG, a notoriously finicky and PC-focused genre that hadn\u2019t seen a major title release in it for years? I\u2019m writing this, and you\u2019re reading it, with hindsight. The answer is an unreserved, yes. However, Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 is more than just a flavor of the month flash in the pan. It\u2019s one of those titles that\u2019ll shape the industry in the future and will undoubtedly have a lasting effect on players. To give up the gold early in this review \u2013 Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 is one of the great RPGs of the entire medium. Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 \u2013 Key details Price: $59.99 USD | \u00a349.99 GBP | $89.95 AUD – Developer: Larian Studios – Release date: August 3, 2023 – Platforms: PC – So, what is Baldur\u2019s Gate 3? Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 isn\u2019t so much a throwback to a long-dormant genre, as it is a wholesale revival. cRPGs were popular around the turn of the century with games like the previous two Baldur\u2019s Gates, as well as the early Fallouts. The pulled-back nature of the camera made it so what was on screen wasn\u2019t overly demanding, but these worlds were still enormous. They valued storytelling and player choice the most. They were essentially designed to function like a tabletop game, except the dungeon master and dice rolls were handled in an instant, rather than having to spend hours working out numbers-laden actions. Baldur\u2019s Gate in particular has always been a franchise tied to those tabletop roots. That\u2019s because it\u2019s literally tied to Dungeons & Dragons. In many ways, that\u2019s the way to look at Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 \u2013 your very own D&D campaign, except this is a deeply curated experience helped in tandem by a freeing system that handles all the annoying things about actually playing a tabletop. It encourages you to try things out, come up with unorthodox approaches to problems, and, importantly, be goofy. This sense of exploration and play is at the heart of Baldur\u2019s Gate 3. You\u2019re empowered with a vast array of actions and it\u2019s up to you to see what reactions come out of your devious imagination. It\u2019s a delightfully freeing generator of watercooler-type stories as you and your friends who\u2019ve played all talk about the various and ridiculous escapades you and your crew got up to the night previous The best D&D campaign you\u2019ll ever play That\u2019s the technical, but it\u2019s only a part of what makes Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 special. Indeed, the thing that\u2019ll likely stick with you most throughout your time in Faerun is the intricate and malleable story that Larian has crafted. Again, this is a game that puts the player at the center of its action. The world can twist and contort in huge and significant ways. \u201cA game where your choices matter\u201d is a phrase that almost feels meaningless at this point. It\u2019s a line that\u2019s been echoed at countless E3 conferences and trotted out in various marketing materials to the point of feeling empty. However, it\u2019s truer here than perhaps ever before. Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 is a story where you\u2019re consistently given decisions to make, while contending with various factions, all who think they have the answer you\u2019re searching for. You start your journey captured by the tentacled-faced Illithids, and infected with one of their parasites, that in normal circumstances would have you turn into one of them in a matter of days. Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 starts you there, and what unravels is an adventure that has you trying to stop a world-ending threat by any means necessary. How you\u2019ll do that is very much up to you \u2013 and there\u2019s a very real chance you\u2019ll end up messing everything up along the way. That\u2019s the beauty of it though. Your playthrough, which at a minimum, will take you around 80-100 hours, will have the feeling of being uniquely yours. One aspect that I think is important to note here is that perhaps what makes Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 really work is that it\u2019s distinctly weird. This could have been a straight-laced fantasy adventure about a gang of heroes trying to overcome a big evil. However, Larian has imbued the game with a joyful strangeness that has this very tangible DNA to it. You\u2019ve likely heard about the bear sex scene, but that\u2019s a drop in the ocean of eccentric situations you can get into. This is vital to the game\u2019s success. This is a game that is playful, representative, and not afraid to put you in situations where you say, \u201cWait, can they do that?\u201d. Because yeah, they can do that. What\u2019s more, it shows other games should be more fearless in their promiscuousness and gleeful mischief. Party time Making up your time in Faerun are your companions who are as important as the story itself. Hell, I\u2019d argue even more so. This group of characters is a delight to exist around. You\u2019ll form various relationships with the characters, sometimes adversarial, sometimes romantic. However, no matter how it goes, it becomes a real delight. I had a better time with some than others, but I appreciated the nuance. If I had loved them all equally, it might have felt a bit one-note, however, there\u2019s a wonderful variety. For instance, I grew to dislike Gale, but he added a nice wrinkle to my story. On the other end of the spectrum, Karlach is one of my favorite characters ever from a video game. She ended up becoming more the protagonist of my story than me \u2013 and I loved that. Larian has put together the best group of RPG friends to hang around since Mass Effect. Even then, it\u2019s close. They\u2019re all so different with their own complex problems. It\u2019s a joy to experience victory and defeat alongside them. When you finish a game, and you realize you\u2019re going to miss hanging out with the digital pals you\u2019ve made over the last 100 hours, you know the development team has done an excellent job imbuing their characters with a heart and soul. Baldur\u2019s Gate 3\u2019s combat is a janky delight that may turn some off Where many might stumble in Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 is the game\u2019s combat systems. In Larian\u2019s defense, this is a beautifully expanded version of both their previous work on games like Divinity: Original Sin 2, as well as trying to adapt Dungeons & Dragons 5e\u2019s combat system. If you\u2019ve played a tabletop game before, you know that combat can be a finicky affair. It\u2019s turn-based, and while you can get very good at these systems, it never stops being just a little awkward. It can be all too easy to click the wrong thing, skip your turn, hit your ally, or some other blunder. There also isn\u2019t a great way to practice your abilities. Many times, you are casting something for the first time and don\u2019t know what\u2019s going to happen. And there are a lot of spells, depending on your class, you\u2019ll likely need to get your head around. The other issue is that at times, Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 can be pretty frustrating. It can even be unfair. For example, you could be ready to fight, and then on the first move, you find out you\u2019re too close to an environmental hazard right where you had to enter the room. Then it explodes and two in your party are down straight away. Baldur\u2019s Gate can at times withhold vital information about a fight and can feel a little cheap. Don\u2019t get it twisted though \u2013 your agency comes alive in fights However, this also can work in your favor. These systems allow you a lot of creativity in your approach. Baldur\u2019s Gate 3\u2019s player freedom is felt in the combat system. For instance, early in the game, I had a tough battle that I wasn\u2019t sure I\u2019d be able to win. Instead of a fight, I instructed all my companions to sneak around in the rafters above. I then projected a Mage Hand. Once it was in position, I pushed the big boss down a hole. Then I jumped down from the rafters, away from the other enemies and quickly traveled out. That kind of player freedom is rare, and it can be a real joy to mess around with. Combat feels janky and loose, but that does leave you a lot of wiggle room. While it can lead to some unfair situations, that you have to save scum your way out of, it also leads to those aforementioned water-cooler moments. There are these avenues to sit and talk to your friends about how a situation went for you. They\u2019ll likely have tackled it differently. Or maybe they hit a spell that had a 5% success rate to kill a big boss. Or maybe they didn\u2019t even have that situation due to their prior choices. Again, it all feeds into this sense of your playthrough being distinctly yours. A once-in-a-decade fantasy RPG Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 does something very rare. I\u2019ve not felt it since Mass Effect 3 \u2013 it\u2019s a life-affirming game. It reminds you what camaraderie is, the benefit of friendship, the sinews of life. I know I\u2019ve checked in with friends since playing. In the real world, especially as you get older, where it becomes harder and harder to remain tangible with those you consider friends, Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 is a game that reminds you of that importance. On the other side of the coin, away from the sentiment, it is a game based on a janky edition of DnD and sometimes suffers due to its dedication to the systems that bind it. Combat can evolve in amazing ways, but it can fall apart similarly when things feel cheap or deeply unlucky. By the time I reached the end of my journey though, I felt fuller. In the end, is that not the point of the art we consume? As long as games like Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 exist, we can be sure that video games are a fulfilling pursuit. That\u2019s a lot of heartfelt sentiment, but Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 is worth the superlatives. It\u2019s a once-in-a-decade game and something you owe it to yourself to play, even if you don\u2019t love fantasy settings or systems-heavy combat. It\u2019s simply put, an experience that\u2019s worth the drawbacks and is the definition of essential. The Verdict \u2013 5\/5 Larian has made a truly special game that will be talked about for years. It\u2019s not only probably the best game in a year full of contenders, but it\u2019s one of the best RPGs in a decade.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 review \u2013 One of the best RPGs ever made Our Baldur\u2019s Gate 3 review has been 125 hours in the making, but it\u2019s finally here. The RPG is everywhere and everyone is talking about it. However, does the it live up to the hype? Well, in a word \u2013 yes. Every once […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-20788","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20788","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=20788"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/20788\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=20788"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=20788"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=20788"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}