Baldur's Gate 3 Review

 There we are; the middle of Somewhere

I remember my first thoughts upon hearing about the announcement of Baldur's Gate 3 verged on pure 'non plussed'. I mean, I'd heard of the legendary franchise known as Baldur's Gate, and I'd heard the praises sung of Larian thanks to their recent success with 'Divinity: Original Sin 2'; but in both cases my experience was limited and from the account of others. There's only so much one can ascertain as to the true worth of something so abstract as a 'legend' from the blind reverence of the inducted; and so I never partook. That was, until, I took the long way around in coming to contact with CRPGs. (Classic RPGs) I played a game called 'Pathfinder: Kingmaker' by merit of hearing it's premise, then I played Tyranny, then Pillars of Eternity. Since then my journey across the CRPG space has been one of rediscovery of that abject fascination with party-based role playing first sparked in me from Bioware's Mass Effect and lost somewhere along the way after that series fizzled out.

Where Baldur's Gate entered into the equation was when I first saw its live gameplay demo, piloted by Sven Vincke, as he adorably bumbled his way through the many intricate systems and intricacies of what looked like one of the most bizarrely open ended RPGs I'd ever seen. And I'm not referring to the writing or storytelling, I'm talking about the open-ended nature of general gameplay! I saw Sven pop off his character's boots to chuck it at a mindflayer, killing it instantly, I watched him electrocute a puddle and saw the entire surface of water crackle into life, and I gawked in wonder as he bludgeoned one of his own to death in hopes of using 'Speak Dead' on them and show off the new feature. Which didn't work. (I swear, everytime Larian showed off Baldur's Gate 3 in their many Panels From Hell- something always went hilariously wrong!)

We'd all seen straightforward RPGs before that handle themselves very routinely and effectively with classes and subclasses, (such as Dragon Age Origin) we've all endured those endless 'RPG light' games which borrow limp and uncreative 'levelling trees' and call it meaningful progression pathing, (every Ubisoft game after Far Cry 3) but I'd never seen a game that treated it's world as a playbox and gave it's players full reign to go wild. That was, of course, because I'd never played the Larian games and had yet to discover the incredible robustness they'd discovered in the multi-decade long RPG development trip, crystalising first in 'Original Sin', hardening in 'Original Sin 2' and preparing to be perfected into a perfectly sheen diamond lattice in 'Baldur's Gate 3.'

Since then I've educated myself thoroughly, played through all the Baldur's Gate games, learnt about the world and systems of Dungeons and Dragons, jumped onto the BG train through it's early access, documented my feelings and thoughts on the game here. You know, I feel I've been rather positive on the game all this time, despite my innate reservations that any hyped game draws out of me ever since the travesty of 'Cyberpunk 2077' at launch. I think a part of me was positive that Baldur's Gate 3 was going to turn out a gem of a game that would launch to the aplomb of the CRPG community and we alone would hold it in our hearts. But even in my most optimistic I would never have imagined a game like we were delivered, or a reception like it has received.

After all the wheeling and date-swapping to get Baldur's Gate 3 out of the way of Starfield, who could have expected the game to land with such a tremendous smash? Instant acclaim, hundreds of thousands of concurrent players, righteous indignation from a gaming public suddenly becoming aware once more that games could have been this good all along! It's been a wonder. A stunning wonder. I cannot even fathom the sorts of emotions that must be running through the staff over at Larian during all this. I mean sure, I bet they had faith in their product but to be on the end of this? To be loved and lauded as examples to their industry? Things just don't happen like that! The movie ending never plays out in real life. Even from the outside seeing a game that deserves it be showered in success is enough to make an old sod like me a little emotional. It's a beautiful thing to witness in a world so often blind to such things.

But enough waxing poetic about 'success'; this here is a review meaning it's how I see things, not the wider gaming public around me. And in some ways I've realised this is more significant of a game than I gave it credit for on my psyche. Afterall, Baldur's Gate 3 marks the culmination of my CRPG journey as being the game that sought to bring an unmatchable sheen of AAA quality to the intensely complex CRPG landscape which so often lacks the space for it. Heck, most CRPGs can't even afford to have all their in-game dialogue voiced and so resort to have only the important parts of important character's lines be voiced. Baldur's Gate 3 wanted everything to be voiced, motion captured cutscenes, cinematic set piece moments, all without sacrificing a single iota of the complexity and narrative branching that makes this sub-genre special. A simply insane proposition, to be sure. But that is what was delivered, and I have to walk through this steadily and break down everything.

Character Creation

The process of character creation in Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the most important aspects of the entire game, as it is with any Dungeons and Dragon's property. As a true-blooded CRPG, the class you pick determines the way your character will play throughout the entire game, what resources they will manage, what armours and weapons they can wear, what spells they gain access to- and with the insane level of reactivity that Larian built into this game is also influences the way that the world will see and treat your character. Drows are typically known to be violent and will inspire hostility from most you meet in the civilised world, whilst ingratiating you with fellow societal outcasts. In this way Larian have constructed one of the most important-feeling character creator's of all RPG wherein every decision feels like it has major value to change up how you play your game.

As for the details themselves, the character creator is robust and extremely approachable. Rather than go the 'sliders' route, Larian gave players a 'parts selector' style creation system resplendent with enough choice and variety to make distinct looking and feeling faces and, if you want to, give a little bit of that depth in design. It's a fair enough set of systems to hover on considering that the full-cinematic approach to the game means that every conversation will provide high-quality close-ups of your player protagonist's face, so it's helpful for it to be one you can stand looking at. Although because of this arguably rigid face creation system, it's easy to create attractive characters and not so easy to create horrifying abominations upon man. (I know there's a market out there for RPG players who love to create mistakes of evolution and call them a name so stupid only a three year old would find it funny. This time around they only get naming rights, unfortunately.)

Early Game

Having played Baldur's Gate 3 extensively in early access, I felt myself pretty well prepared for anything the early game had to throw at me considering that content was about 60% of the game's entire first act. But even with all that prior knowledge to draw from, it seems that Larian kept a fair few surprises from even us early adopters- giving a sense of 'newness' for everyone to enjoy! Pretty much the entirety of Act 1 is designed to be a tutorial area, although in a natural manner that feels non intrusive. The hard-locked door you are fated to spot when first traversing the beach introduces the player to the concept of varying skill-checks and distinct character and class proficiencies, solidifying the need to work as a team. The easy-to-antagonise Githyanki patrol have been redesigned in order introduce players to how important Level 5 is for martial classes, heralding the arrival of the all-important second attack. And the vastly branching introductory questline, whilst technically entirely optional, provides ample opportunity for variant paths and choices encouraging creative problem solving. It's all real clever stuff!

And of course, this first act has a simply insane amount of content and activities to keep a player busy and present a whole collection of mini side-quests in their pursuit of the larger meta-quest: exactly like a good DND campaign might! You may find yourself hoarding off an assault of vicious Gnolls on moment, to piercing into the sticky subterranean web strewn heart of a giant spider cave- all within the same act! Gorgeous mountaintop temples to colourful Underdark fortresses, Act 1 is really all about selling the scale of exploration and adventure which lies at the heart of DND. I was worried when we learnt that Baldur's Gate 3 wouldn't inherit the map-screen travel of 2 and 1- worried that it would dampen that feeling of travel and wider exploration; and whilst it's true we never get to see the edges of the Sword Coast as we otherwise might have, the physicality of travelling to distinct and rich environments even across this relatively truncated, yet directly connected, space serves wonders stroking those same emotions. 

In terms of narrative the first Act is also very clever at stroking subtlety, foreshadowing and character direction. Whilst trying to solve the conundrum of the Mind Flayer parasite in your head you'll be beset by seemingly insular and unconnected ancillary people's problems, which you can choose to pursue or ignore at your own behest, only to find them each laying the groundworks of the more elaborate story which is preparing to play out around you, which is probably why Larian felt it safe to share so much of this starting act in the Early Access. Although they were quite sneaky about it too! Those who remember the Early Access well will find themselves surprised at the level of drastic changes to otherwise key characters and storylines. Wyll's relationship with Mizora is completely different, which seems wise because beforehand his backstory of a mortally-challenged love affair clashed hard with Gale's very similar tale. And the Tadpole dream visitor plays such a different role I'm slightly curious whether or not their part in the story was entirely rewritten or if this was a misdirection from the moment go. (I think it's a little bit of both in truth.)

Gameplay

In gameplay Baldur's Gate 3 plays out like your average CRPG would, balancing exploration and combat encounters. You travel the world in packs of four (if you so choose to) interacting with the various people in the world, looting, taking on quests and building up your skills. What sets Baldur's Gate 3 apart is the way in which your decisions outside of combat can have serious ramifications on the progression of the story, the traits and effects of you as the player or even just what allies might be at your side in the late game. You might get in a conversation with one character about their interesting pain-loving fetish and by expressing some interest they may teach you a unique permanent passive talent for a certain character to become more effective when below a percentage hitpoint threshold. The more you interact and engage with the world the more experiences like this you'll pick up until by the twilight hours of the game you'll find yourself equipped with a character sheet that reads like a synopsis of your adventures, the people you met and how the way you interacted with them had an effect on who you are today. (Some even come with cool visual effects too.)

Whilst it started life as one of the more controversial aspects about Baldur's Gate 3 when it was first announced, I'm very happy to report that the combat is easily one of my favourite aspects of the game, Ditching the real-time action of the first two games, Baldur's Gate 3 inherits Larian's turn-based X-COM reminiscent style of game which priorities initiative ordering, positioning and careful tactical planning and consideration. When you enter into combat the entire world automatically splits into turns and every player is granted actions, bonus actions and movement speed each turn. And true to DND rules that is one action and one bonus point with no 'saved points' for skipped turns. (Sorry Original Sin and your action point system. I much prefer this no nonsense style.) Learning what skills and abilities your class has and which are Bonus actions, free actions or standard actions is pretty important to establishing a basic understanding of combat. But once you've grasped that, the process is actually pretty straightforward from there.

Everything else is your standard 'DND' guff. Learning about your limited spells slots per long rest, your unlimited cantrips; class action charges (As as Bard's 'Inspiration' resource, Barbarian's 'Rage' resource and Monk's 'Ki' resources.) And, of course, remembering the creative freedom that Larian's game engine permits. With environmental interactions, throwable objects/people and the ability to pick up and stack in world items in whatever place you wish there is no end to the amount of creative nonsense you can pull off! Maybe you want to prevent an enemy from casting spells but worry that casting 'Silence' will make your mage a target for concentration breaking attacks? Simple. Just grab a Magic nullifying Sussur flower and hold it in the inventory of a non-magic class (like a non-'Eldritch Knight' Fighter) and get up in the face of the magic caster- they'll be powerless! Every encounter in the game is expressly designed to be approachable in whatever fashion you can conceive, from straightforward sword swinging and spell slinging- to elaborate and creative bodying techniques that turn the enemy to jelly. Maybe it shakes the bounds of balance sometimes, but the fun of DND, the fun that Larian get, is that sometimes breaking balance in favour of doing something cool and out-of-the-box form the moments and memories you'll cherish most from your adventures. 

Throughout the years Larian has invested in the way that they design combat encounters in each of their CRPG games from Original Sin onwards. Back then you could see the mechanical way in which every single individual encounter was pain-stakingly hand designed to be challenging in a different way. One might challenge your mastery of crowd control or vertical spacing or specfically fire magic spells. Of course, making this a stark contrast to early Baldur's Gate titles wherein many encounters were simply groups of gnolls chucked at the party with the only real thought going into the odd group composition. Larian takes another step up with Baldur's Gate 3 in designing every fight with such precision and distinction that there are certain encounters populated with enemies that you will only fight in this one corner of the entire game. That is simply insane by most other game standards.

To create an entire enemy mob, that isn't simply a reskin, and use it in the corner of one dungeon you may not even come across is a frankly insane proposition by most other game's standards. Compare that to Fallout 4, in which one of their main story side characters, Mama Murphy, was original conceptualised with a floating robotic armchair until the team realised that creating a unique asset for a relatively small-time NPC wasn't cost effective. Larian apparently spits in the face of cost efficiency if it can make the game feel fresher, the encounters more varied and the adventure more breathing and alive. Of course, this just makes me yearn even more for a 'Dungeon Master' mode so that people can get their hands on these rare enemy assets and reuse them in small focused campaigns, but I'm digressing. As insane as it is, you can't argue with the results on how it paints the player's journey in a manner so that every single fight has something different to make it memorable. Whether you're fighting clowns in a magical circus or getting ganged on by Mimic's deep underground- you're doing something different every time.

Which I suppose demonstrates one way in which the exploration and combat philosophies cross over. Exploration in Baldur's Gate 3 is a sight less linear than Original Sin 1 and 2. Whilst players will still be funnelled in the same direction towards the eponymous city, diversity in approach and allegiance helps provide that level of visual variety to sell the vast nature of an epic journey. Each of the play areas you'll go through in the game is crafted with a level of purposeful clarity in a manner that provides something worth digging up in every corner of the game. And the introduction of verticality to the world design opens up an array of playstyles akin to an Immersive Sim. (I didn't expect to see the 'get past the door without a key' philosophy held up by a CRPG!) You'll find wooden bars suspended from the ceiling to crawl over potential hostile areas, tiny animals holes for sneaking around restricted areas in animal form, rooftop access for flyers, collapsible walls and floors, and then the plain ability to just kick open a door you can't be bothered to track down the key for. Just take the time to look around and more often than not, you'll discover a new route you would never have even considered beforehand. If only the camera were a bit less fiddly to work with when it came to viewing different elevations, the game could definitely use a bit of revision in that department.

Act 2

By the midgame, Act 2 of Baldur's Gate 3 is when the various routes through the world get congested into a needle point. As the commencement of the core elements of the story, it was deemed important to get every player along the same path and some might find issue with the way that 'All roads lead here'. The visual variety, or lack thereof, for this section really illustrates that point as colour seeps from the areas you'll be visiting and the sick plagued land becomes a character in of itself. Whilst at first I sympathised with that feeling of dissatisfaction with the pickup on scope, and indeed Act 2 is the shortest act, I understand the necessity to reign things in, and a large part of exercising that second act is less about sparking various narrative threads and more catching up with the consequences of the threads you already started in act 1. Follow up with the factions you met up with and meet up with the friends or enemies you stoked in that first Act.

As a bundle of mysteries slowly unwrapping, Act 2 marks the point where some of the most pressing questions about the very nature of the narrative are finally touched upon. Like for instance, why this game even carries the name of 'Baldur's Gate' to begin with! (Without getting into spoiler territory, it does pick up on the right characters and themes to succeed that original game's narrative.) Of course the ability to choose your path and allies doesn't shrivel up at all by Act 2, and in fact the revelation of the true world stakes around you helps illustrate how the pockets of factions that you meet in Act 2 and how you interact with them bares significantly more importance then most anything you pursue in the first act. As a middle of a story, Act 2 admirably lives up to what it needs to be- but in terms of a game, I already recognise how it could easily materialise as the general public's least favourite portion of the experience. (Who wants to spend so many hours in a shadow swamp anyway? It's certainly not as pretty as one might want.)

Characters

Before I truck along it would behove me to take a step back and talk about the characters here for a bit, as in the core cast of companions and other significant leads. As with Original Sin, Baldur's Gate 3 features a core party of 'Origin Characters', any of which you can choose to play in lieu of a custom character and each imbued with their own journey you can pursue in their eyes or alongside them as a fellow party member. That means that each character is designed to be able to provide the narrative complexity of a main character, with the ironic exception of the main character themselves if the player picks 'custom'. (Although Larian have a fix for that little issue which I'll touch on later.) In danger of sounding like a broken record I'm going to have to sing praise again; this is how you make a cast of characters feel interesting.

Every companion within the game has a journey tied into the journey of the main game, some more implicitly than others, grounding each of them within the world of the Sword Coast and naturally aligning their personal goals with the campaign objectives. And in a happy turn of events every single character has a blindly interesting journey to embark on! From the Wizard of Waterdeep on a mission to right a blunder in love with potential dire consequences, to a cat-like warrior from the Astral Planes embroiled in a conspiracy that runs deeper than she could possibly imagine, there's a real tangible depth and range in these personalities and not only how they evolve throughout the game, but how the evolve in response to your input!

And of course we have the performances. Now because of the nature of Baldur's Gate 3's extended development, every actor who got to voice a companion in Baldur's Gate 3 did so over the space of several years- and I can only assume that time allowed them to really grow into their characters because every performance is exceptional. I genuinely came to love every single character except for Wyll, and that's more because I find lawful good characters to be painfully boring. But even then I liked having Wyll along for his plus-one Mizora- who was a lot of fun to hang out with! Lae'zel and her racial superiority complex slowly melting into mutual party support feels like such a rewarding progression to be part of, Shadowheart's fanaticism you can either feed into or medicate was similarly fun to explore. But I think most people will react the most to Karlach's tragic optimism and just the raw emotion of her most impassioned moments- one of which I'd go so far as to call a genuine tear jerker moment. (Although this game doesn't quite join the club of games that made me cry over major emotional moments. With Karlach it came close, though!)

It's honestly unheard of for me to like every companion in any RPG, and I credit the much more restrained number of possible companions for being able to pull that off. But even then, I can't actually think of another RPG with a core cast this strong! Even Dragon Age Origins had it's dull planks of wood like Sten and utterly detestable wastes of life like Oghren. Fallout 4 has the dull character of Strong and... whatever the robot was called. Half the cast of the original Baldur's Gate were one-conversation deep in their characterisation. Maybe Tyranny could boast as strong a cast, but they weren't full voiced and certainly not to the exceptional range and standard that BG3 boasts. I truly came to respect the near-family dynamic of the team in a manner vaguely reminiscent of a Persona Cast. Of course, these companions don't grow nearly as close as the cast of your average Persona game, but I could see them getting that chance in a follow-up story at some point.

The only real let-down in the realm of performances is on a purely technical level. Because of the length of development, some of the lines recorded couldn't be done in a proper sound studio thanks to the pandemic locking people inside their homes. Now none of the lines are inherently poorly recorded on their own, but the difference between Studio quality lines and home recorded lines are obnoxiously obvious when placed against one another, which happens a few choice times in the first act. Unfortunately the only real solution would be a pricey re-recording, so we'll just have to make do with that slight blemish on an otherwise stellar cast of characters brought to life with performances so good it would be a crime in none of them end up on 'Best Voice actor of the year' lineup come December. (My nomination goes to Samantha Béart's Karlach)

For our villains, Baldur's Gate 3 offers us quite the cast of voices for it's line-up with J.K Simmons, Jason Issacs and Maggie Robertson; but don't expect any vast presence from them throughout the story. Their respective characters exist more in reputation than in the flesh and at times it can feel like their threat is overshadowed by larger forces or even their respective co-conspirators. Personally I'm deeply shocked about the fact that throughout the entire game we didn't get ourselves a single glimpse of the one mega over-aching badguy who was literally invented for Baldur's Gate 3! (Or rather, for the prequel tabletop module- Decent Into Avernus) Perhaps Larian are hiding a potential sequel story up their sleeve wherein Zariel will finally have a role.

And finally we have The Dark Urge- a sort of custom/origin character hybrid that allows players full control over visual design and class at the expense of an exclusive backstory around the mysteries of an amnesiac beset by violent urges. It seems like the perfect set-up for an evil playthrough but the general narrative approach of 'freedom over all else' permits enough wiggle room for any personal character growth to be mounted by the determined enough. Dark Urge really exists in order to give a custom character a place in the world to match the deftly wound interpersonal connections that the other companions maintain over key story events, and once the mysteries start to unravel themselves it becomes clear that Larian probably intended this story and it's twists to be something of the 'canonical' way to play the game, if any such thing could even be considered. For no other reason than it presents the most narrative satisfaction.

Act 3

The third of Baldur's Gate 3's acts is the one of consequence, wherein the choices and allegiances you've made throughout the story come to a thundering head in the city from the name of the game itself. The majority of the game is really crammed into this last act such that it almost feels like the 'second half' of the game with Act 2 merely being something of a stop-gap in-between. The sprawl of Baldur's Gate's lower city is stuffed with call back quests and pick-up stories and character questline conclusions alongside just streets and streets of named NPC characters with curious incidentals that paint out the world. It really comes to form one of the largest world spaces that Larian has ever made. (So big that the game starts to run into Memory leak issues causing frames in drop in prolonged game sessions!)

As an act full or revelations and complications it really dawned on me during my playthrough just how deftly Larian managed to build a rush of competing interests and factions all vying for similar goals, presenting a decent amount of choice for how that final encounter will ultimately play out. There's still a basic framework, however, and you shouldn't go in expecting vastly unique and distinct ending sequences depending on the sides that you chose to get there- and I have to confess I was actually surprised at how easy the final encounter was compared to some of Larian's other final bosses- (Even in Tactician mode I struggled to feel properly challenged at any point.) but there's a solid delivery of satisfaction in a story as multifaceted as this coming to an impressively definite, no loose ends, conclusion. 

There is the hanging absence of the Upper City which confuses some of the late game, however. It rings a bit strange at first, particularly with how bizarre the explanation is to why you can't explore there. (It literally makes no sense when you think about the geography of where everything is supposed to be.) Data mining has revealed that certain character questlines were gutted or morphed in order to make Act 3 fit entirely into the Lower City, creating a slightly lop-sided experience. However hats go off to Larian for patching up the holes in such a way that Act 3 still functions amazingly competently as a finale to the story, albeit with a few faltering storylines. I can understand the accusations of 'unfinished' that get raised due to this topic, but the delivered game doesn't yearn painfully for this exorcised content cut out of it's soul, it functions just fine. So I consider this a cut curiosity of the design process rather than an experience killer.

Having the grand orchestra of your choices play out in a finale of your own making, still with some potential to surprise and subvert through last minute heel turns should you wish, makes the whole journey feel worth it- and perhaps even more importantly- feeds the desire to go through it all again with a new character. (Which I'm about half way through doing as I write this! Building up to the Act 2 finale now.) If nothing else than to see the way the journey looks from the otherside of the spectrum, making different friends and fighting different battles. (And maybe embracing a few darker corners of yourself you might have otherwise missed.) In narrative alone there's so much potential to replay, but add that ontop of class and race reactivity, faithfully realized DND class diversity, alternative companion quest paths and multiple converging world paths- it's a crime to play only once. (I just wish the game had more of a proper epilogue built into it. I'm left wondering what became of all those stories that played out over the course of the adventure.)

Summary

Baldur's Gate 3 is a game from a breed that most thought no longer existed. A practice in excellence realised by a team who love what they're working with and wanted to share it with as many people as possible. There's undeniable passion in every corner of this game from the malleable gameplay systems built with creativity as well as tactical thought in mind, the particularly solid script that provides room for a succession of high tier performances out of the central cast and the overwhelming dedication to AAA presentation that no doubt made all this take 10 times longer than it would have done if they accepted cut corners. The game brims with love so much it's simply a joy to play, and I often find myself whiling away free-time just milling over in my second playthrough discovering everything I missed and picking all those options I dared not to the first time around. Such an achievement this game is that you forgive the bugginess of some particulars (which Larian are still actively working on) for at the end of the day the yearning for more upends any lingering issues with an equal fascinations. 

Larian already had a solid reputation, but Baldur's Gate 3 has cemented them in the larger public as the gamer's developer, making the kind of products that reminds us all why we like this darn medium to being with. I really went back and forth about this final score, but at the end of the day the fact that I'm still playing it over a week after my exhaustive first playthrough is example enough that this is the kind of game I'm going to be coming back to time and time again. The kind I'll use to critique others of it's genre. An example to the industry at large. That's why I really have no choice but to dig through my arbitrary review scale and award Baldur's Gate 3 with an unbeatable S Rank (The highest I offer) which of course comes with a recommendation for anyone who loves CRPGs as well as those with a curiosity about what all the fuss is about. BG3 welcomes all comers! Perfection isn't the point, and BG3 is no perfect game, but exceptionalism and constant pervasive achievement demands my applause and my plaudits. Once again, it took a company I never expected to remind my why I used to get so excited for AAA gaming. Thank goodness this medium still has it's champions.