“Don’t wake me up
Just leave me there dreaming.”Lyrics from “Down by the River” composed by Borislav Slavov and performed by Mariya Anastasova
I spent most of September playing Baldur’s Gate 3 on my PS5. As one of my most anticipated games of 2023, Larian Studios’ latest release carries with it several legacies. There’s the legacy of Dungeons & Dragons, the fantasy tabletop role-playing game that will be fifty years old in 2024, whose campaign setting of Faerûn and gameplay mechanics serve as Baldur’s Gate 3’s foundation. Thanks to the enormous popularity of Critical Role (I’m a big fan), 5E (D&D Fifth Edition), the recent (and very fun) film, and of course Baldur’s Gate 3, Dungeons and Dragons has become a pivotal part of the cultural zeitgeist. Then there’s the legacy of the first two Baldur’s Gate games, revolutionary computer RPGs that Bioware created in 1998 and 2000 (back when Bioware could still make excellent games) that continue to influence later RPGs like Dragon Age, Mass Effect, The Elder Scrolls, and The Witcher. Finally, there’s the legacy of Larian Studios, the Belgium-based developer that created the highly regarded Divinity games and proceeded to pour everything they’ve learned and refined over the years into Baldur’s Gate 3.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is, therefore, the culmination of these legacies and the absolute pinnacle of fantasy RPGs. That isn’t to say that the game is without its flaws, however. A poorly designed third act with performance issues and bugs, several broken sidequests, and an excessive number of easily missable items and content prevent Baldur’s Gate 3 from being absolutely perfect. But the game remains among the best fantasy games and RPGs of all time, and it certainly exceeded my lofty expectations. Spoilers warning for ahead.
As I spent over sixty hours playing through the first two acts of Baldur’s Gate 3, I was utterly engrossed: the game felt like paradise. The infinitude of gameplay options and methods to approach situations is stunningly impressive. Depending on one’s dialogue options, character background, and past actions, every scene can play out uniquely for PCs (playable characters). I could skip battle encounters with persuasion (and lucky dice rolls), and fights that initially seem impossible become manageable if not effortless after implementing more effective strategies. While exploring a cavern at the bottom of a well, I came across a group of spiders with their giant matriarch at her nest. On the brink of defeat, I tried burning the spider web bridge the matriarch was on with a Fire Bolt, and the game rewarded my experimentation by having the giant spider plummet to the ground below, taking immense damage. The fact that this worked, and that players can use their creativity to devise countless ways to approach the game’s challenges, captures the essence of D&D and what makes RPGs so enjoyable.
Of course, there are numerous instances when I had to reload a save file due to failing a dice roll or a TPK (total party kill). Sometimes I’d make a silly mistake, like when a pressed the wrong button that sent Barcus, a poor deep gnome I was trying to rescue at a windmill, flying off to his death. I also couldn’t stand upsetting my party members, all of whom I’ve grown incredibly fond of, so I reloaded saves and redid dialogue options just to avoid their disapproval. I supposed that’s why they all wanted to sleep with my PC.
The amount of depth and personality the writers and actors have brought to the companions is truly admirable. Not since Mass Effect 2 have I become so enamored and attached to my allies in a video game. Lae’zel, Shadowheart, Astarion, Gale, Wyll, Karlach, Halsin, Jaheira, and Minsc (and Boo). I love you all. Minthara is too evil for my tastes, so I killed her.
It’s fascinating how a player’s choices throughout the game can have pronounced effects later in the story. The deep gnome I rescued (after reloading) would go on to appear in Acts 2 and 3, playing a critical role in the outcome of a certain questline involving his friend. Had I not rescued Barcus, things would have turned out differently. Then there’s Mayrina, a young woman I rescued from a swamp hag who manipulated her into giving up her unborn child to bring back her dead husband. Seeing Mayrina reappear in Act 3 transformed into a sheep was… unexpected to say the least.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has given me a wealth of precious memories: infiltrating goblin and cultist camps pretending to be their ally, exploring the Underdark and helping a myconid colony, convincing a devil to kill himself in Act 1 and later rebel against his master in Act 3, reuniting with Jaheira and Minsc from the previous Baldur’s Gate games, and even confronting the gods of Faerûn… the 120+ hours I’ve spent with Baldur’s Gate 3 were worth the $270 I spent on the collector’s edition.
In a grim landscape where game corporations often prioritize profits through microtransactions and other nefarious means (false advertising, crunch, annual releases, poor quality control…), Larian Studios has opted instead to develop a high-quality game by incorporating feedback from players during Baldur’s Gate 3’s early access and providing an abundance of content that can easily keep a player entertained, satisfied, and occupied for hundreds of hours.
Unfortunately, Act 3 in Baldur’s Gate 3 is broken, or at least it was at launch. Perhaps “broken” is a hyperbole, and Larian Studios have released several patches that have addressed the game’s multitude of issues. Whereas Acts 1 and 2 felt like paradise and maintained 60 fps on the PS5 fairly consistently, Act 3 felt more like hell (in Act 3, the player even has the opportunity to visit hell, or Avernus as it’s known as in D&D, but that’s besides the point). Perhaps I exaggerate, but the sub-30 frame rate in the city of Baldur’s Gate reminded me of Novigrad in The Witcher 3 (a terrible time), and the boss fights of Viconia, Lorroakan, and Cazador were so frustratingly difficult that I had to resort to cheesing them or lowering the game’s difficulty level. The fact that Baldur’s Gate 3 makes Viconia, a former companion in the previous Baldur’s Gate games (whom I was also quite fond of), a villain upsets me greatly.
Besides Act 3’s surfeit of annoyances, the sheer amount of missable items and content in BG3 irks me. Although the player can revisit the same locations throughout Acts 1 and 2, Act 3 prevents them from returning to previous areas, causing them to miss any magic items or quests that they might have skipped or overlooked. Despite carefully monitoring a checklist of missables in BG3, I still missed some equipment pieces that I desired. I couldn’t obtain a Ring of Protection by stealing a statue for Mol, a Tiefling child, since I stopped her friend from trying to steal from me. Forget the fact that I rescued her other friend from harpies. The knowledge that Rings of Protection are incredibly common in regular D&D felt like salt on my wound. Then there was the one time I forewent looting every enemy corpse, causing me to miss out on the best boots for my monk PC for most of Act 3.
Though these problems are not entirely game-breaking, they are further compounded by Baldur’s Gate 3's long loading screens. Since I had to frequently reload my saves, constantly waiting minutes for the game to resume was beginning to drive me insane. The era of SSDs and non-existent loading times has spoiled me. Toward the later half of Act 3, I had to revert to earlier saves and spend several hours redoing boss fights or sidequests due to the game’s bugs or dubious quest design. For instance, while rescuing gnomes from an underwater prison, the game bugged out and a certain quest-giver’s daughter refused to climb the ladder to escape before time expired, causing me to have to replay the entire section to prevent the quest-giver from wanting to kill me.
Though my final save file has tracked 100 hours of game time, my PS5 dashboard states that I’ve played BG3 for over 120 hours. I can only surmise that I wasted about 20 hours staring at long loading screens and replaying frustrating parts of the game when it didn’t work properly. I also had to replay the Raphael boss fight since my characters had non-lethal attacks toggled on, and apparently this results in Raphael not dropping his loot (the best armor in the game) upon defeat. BG3 also crashed on me several times. Oh well.
Despite the pains that Act 3 has wrought upon my soul, taking a few weeks to recollect my memories and emotions following my completion of Baldur’s Gate 3 has allowed me to remember the sheer joy the game has allowed me to experience. Trying out the split-screen co-op was a lot of fun, and I feel compelled to revisit BG3 in the future with subsequent playthroughs. Perhaps by then Larian Studios will have mostly fixed Act 3.
Compared to Elden Ring and The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom, two other recent fantasy games that I’ve heralded as the greatest pinnacles of the genre (and among the best games of all time), Baldur’s Gate 3 has provided me with more joy and pain than the other two games I love.
BG3 is a testament to how far RPGs and video games have come since the early years of Dungeons & Dragons in the 1970s and the releases of the first two Baldur’s Gate games in the late 1990's-early 2000s. Despite the game’s flaws and frustrating moments, the assiduous efforts of the developers at Larian Studios clearly demonstrate their love for the game.
And watching the voice cast play a D&D one shot further added to the joys I experienced with BG3.
Since I’m one of the biggest fantasy fans alive, BG3 (like Elden Ring, The Witcher 3, and Zelda) is everything I want in a video game. Even if Hasbro and Wizards of the Coast try to ruin Dungeons &Dragons, at least we have the D&D community, Critical Role, and Larian Studios to keep its legacy alive. Therefore, after deep contemplation and many powerful emotions, I consider Baldur’s Gate 3 to be my game of the year.