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Maybe we should run for President
My biggest problem with Dungeons and Dragons doesn’t stem from the game’s systems themselves - it’s just hard to get a bunch of people with similar sensibilities in the same room at the same time on a regular schedule. Coming from a small town, this has become a nearly insurmountable barrier to entry, with any sessions I play either coming very infrequently, or remotely via dedicated sites. Baldur’s Gate 3 attempts to rectify this by offering you the closest approximation to the tabletop experience available today.
While many video games based on the Dungeons and Dragons property have been excellent, they’ve never quite managed to emulate the tabletop experience. Games are inherently limited in scope, and the tabletop experience is limitless. In tabletop, there are an uncountable number of ways to solve a problem and innumerable ways for you and your party to grow and react to the events in front of you. Truly capturing that feeling of freedom and possibility in video games is nigh impossible. Baldur’s Gate 3 has come as close as we’ve ever seen.
Publisher: Larian Studios Developer: Larian Studios Platform: Played on PC Availability: Released on August 3, 2023 for Windows PC, September 6, 2023 for PS5, September 22, 2023 for macOS, and December 7, 2023 for Xbox Series X/S. |
Baldur's Gate 3 is the latest role-playing game developed by Larian Studios, previously most well-known for their Divinity series of role-playing games. Taking heavy inspiration from games like Planescape: Torment and the first two Baldur's Gate titles by BioWare, Baldur's Gate 3 leans heavily on the conventions of the CRPG genre - possessing a psuedo-isometric camera and list style conversation choices - but aims to improve them in some way.
Starting your adventure on the Nautiloid, a large plane-hopping ship shaped much like its namesake, you find yourself implanted with an Illithid tadpole that threatens to turn you into a mind flayer (a large, squid-like species that is controlled by a hivemind). It is here that you will meet Lae'zel and Shadowheart, two companions who would assist you on your quest to escape the Nautiloid and remove the tadpole. This tutorial sequence serves as a good introduction to the base mechanics of the game: skill checks for tasks you want to do and actions in combat are done via dice rolls, which get bonuses based upon your stats chosen in character creation and equipment you are wearing, and conversations offer a wide array of choice that guide how people react to you and how some quests progress.
If you have played Dungeons and Dragons, or any of the video games spawned from it, the dice-rolling aspect will be familiar. Baldur’s Gate 3 doesn’t stop at just having the dice rolls happen, however, they make a show of it. Every choice or action that requires an active roll (or would in tabletop) brings you to a separate screen with a digital die and all of your bonuses or options available to you, and then you’ll press a button to roll it yourself. Incorporating sound and visual effects to amplify what would otherwise be a mundane event, Baldur’s Gate 3 instead makes these rolls a focal point of the experience.
The Nautiloid section also introduces you to combat - another familiar aspect if you’re a tabletop player. Despite not being a grid-based affair, everything else about the battles is familiar to 5th edition players, as this is the system Larian Studios translated to video game format. Again, dice-rolling is integral here, as you roll to see if you land your attacks and then roll again for damage - both are handled automatically for the player to keep things moving. It flows beautifully, and the sheer number of abilities and approaches you can take is staggering. Baldur’s Gate 3 has an unparalleled level of freedom in your approach to combat for a video game, giving you the ability to decide when, where, and how you approach each encounter, with very few exceptions. The options are so vast that I found myself asking what wasn’t allowed more than what was.
Baldur's Gate 3 seems to contain endless possibilities.
That level of freedom of choice extends far beyond combat in so many important and revealing ways. In fact, it starts the moment you start a new game, in the character creator. Now, obviously the character creator in Baldur’s Gate 3 is not the first of its kind, but it may just be the most comprehensive to date, in totality. With 11 different races (many with different sub-races), 12 different classes, 4 different body types, and an array of various skin tones, scars, and hairstyles, this game stretches the limits of the creativity of its players. Unfortunately, it is limited in face types, with only a few being available for each race, and not fully customizable themselves. This issue is largely alleviated by mods, which now have official support from the studio and game, but persists in the base game.
I think it is also worth noting just how well the character creator (and by extension the game) treats gender, sex, and body types. Baldur’s Gate 3 lets you choose a “body type” from four options: the first two are standard issue male and female presenting, with 3 and 4 being a larger version of that same binary. You then choose your pronouns, including a non-binary option. Your voice selection is not limited by your selected body type or pronouns, either. You can choose any voice from the slider, including masculine and feminine-sounding options, regardless of your other choices. Perhaps most notably, you can choose your genitalia independent of your other choices. It’s a great way to bolster inclusivity for LGBTQ+ players.
All of this is then reflected in the game proper, with NPCs referring to your player character as your chosen pronouns, and your chosen genitalia being represented in the romance scenes appropriately. The option to change all of your appearance and pronoun selections is also available via a standing mirror within your campsite, meaning you can make the change midway through a playthrough, if you like. I find this to be one of the best-implemented systems in any character creator I’ve ever seen. It just opens up so many roleplaying opportunities for the player that might not otherwise be available with the current standard A/B body type and gender most games employ.
There are a vast number of options available to the player in character creation and beyond.
The game’s freedom is astonishing in the context of the adventure proper, as well. Larian has somehow accounted for, or at the very least not prohibited, an uncountable number of creative solutions. You can fly to the top of buildings to circumvent enemies or find ways to break into a building, pickpocket an NPC while your player character distracts them, or lay down 100 barrels of explosives next to a group of enemies undetected - whatever your mind thinks of, is worth trying. It truly mimics the feel of a DM willing to allow you to at least give things a go, asking “yes, and?” There’s just incredible attention to detail in every aspect of your interactions in the world.
It’s also a vast and interesting world, thankfully. Set in the Dungeons and Dragons world of Faerûn, Baldur’s Gate 3 has a lot of material to draw from and work with, which it uses to create interesting storylines, visit well-known, legendary characters, and introduce you to varied locales. Larian has successfully navigated decades of prior material and incorporated it in a way that makes you feel like your actions have a real impact on the world while also respecting the source. Along the journey, you will be exploring 3 large areas, one for each act, with smaller dungeons or biomes available for traversal throughout.
While so much of this game wowed me, my favorite aspect remains the characters - especially the party. Nearly every major player within the game has complex motivations or beliefs. The party has a great mix of personalities, which sometimes contrast with your decision-making and sensibilities - and they’re not afraid to tell you. However, if you get close to your party members, you’ll come across some of the best-written individuals in gaming. Each one has their own voice, their own morality, and it makes navigating those conversations and scenarios so much more interesting than if everyone was always in agreement with you. There’s also a romance aspect to those interactions you can pursue if you like. It’s just a pity that the multiplayer mode creates limitations in your interactions with those party members.
And yes - I did partake, thank you.
The multiplayer mode in Baldur’s Gate 3 supports between 2-4 players, with your party playing through the same scenario as the single-player campaign. In many ways, I find the best use of this would be to treat it as a traditional DnD scenario, with your party having interactions and chats outside of the confines of the game. This is largely because in multiplayer, interactions with the companions and other NPCs are much more limited, with each player only able to speak with companions bound to them at a given time. The interaction between the player and NPC is limited to whoever initiated the conversation, and they do not always repeat conversations for other players. With 4 players, companions are entirely cut out of the experience and story altogether. This is a huge loss, in my opinion, and not worth it. I do understand the way things needed to be done to make things work here, and getting the experience to be both playable and fun is certainly commendable, but it’s not a sacrifice I’d endorse on a first playthrough. If you have a group available to meet in the way required to play multiplayer, you’re better served by playing Dungeons and Dragons proper - at least on your first go.
For all of its role-playing opportunities and freedom of expression, Baldur’s Gate 3 is still ‘just’ a game. It’s bound by the limitations of its design in ways tabletop never will be. And that’s okay. There’s so much here that it feels endless, like there’s always another nook to check, or a solution you didn’t try that could alter outcomes. Eventually, we’ll have seen everything there is in the game - maybe we already have - but this is sincerely the best try at replicating the tabletop experience we’ve seen yet. I loved every minute of this game, despite playing it 3 times. Each adventure was filled with different choices, new roleplaying opportunities, and varied outcomes to major and minor questlines. I know that I have not found the edge of possibility here - so much more remains.
This is a truly beautiful game
Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game that can be daunting to even start. It sports an enormous world with deep and complex characters and combat systems, numbers litter every shop and menu, and there’s a massive amount of content within the game. All of these separate systems, and things to keep track of can seem overwhelming, but I promise that every bit you put into this game is given back tenfold.
Verdict Baldur’s Gate 3 is the best approximation of the classic Dungeons and Dragons experience available in video game format. As a game I loved so dearly while playing, I will surely continue to mess around with it for years to come. With exceptionally deep role-playing opportunities, complex and interesting combat mechanics, wonderful visuals, and great writing, Baldur’s Gate 3 is now counted among my favorite games ever. The bar has been raised for what is possible in the AAA role-playing space - let’s see if anyone can ever match it.  |
Image Credits: Taylor Rioux
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