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Baldur’s Gate 3 review: the rumours are true, this is a really good RPGCritical success
Critical success
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
To see this content please enable targeting cookies.Manage cookie settingsNow that Baldur’s Gate 3 has left early access, vid bud Liam reckons it was worth the wait.Watch on YouTube
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I’d say a practical, directed tutorial might be more helpful for new players. The tooltips, such as they are, provide some measure of help, but combat can be daunting and drawn out, especially in the cases where there are a lot of characters each taking their turn. In some scenarios, for example, you should split up your team and sneak your archer into the rafters before you even speak to any NPCs. Making good use of your ranged DPS characters, using spells that grow spiked vines or spread ice, and sometimes just giving enemies a bloody good shove, all form the weft to the weave of damage dealing. Together, this creates a rich tapestry of taking apart a squad of goblins and splashing blood everywhere. Not realising thatthrowing and igniting a barrel of oilisn’t just an available option, but one that’s actively encouraged, could make for an unenjoyable early game.
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
But! Combat, like switching that new PC on and seeing all the parts whirring, is also immensely satisfying. The systems that interlock and interact, from your character stats, to in-world elemental effects, to those gloves you have that let you snatch arrows out of the air, are really good fun once you have a firm grasp of the nettle. Every fight is different thanks to a variety of enemies with their own spells and immunities, but also due to the landscape itself.
Fully exploring each map will take you a while (I’d estimate about 25 hours per act, give or take) but you are rewarded for your efforts. Though Baldur’s Gate 3 is large, it’s much more focused than otheropen worldadventures where I have complained about thembeing big for the sake of it. This game doesn’t have a population of endlessly regenerating boars or skeletons for you to XP farm; you won’t find any orphaned goatherd begging you to collect his half a dozen chamois or he will literally die. The number of encounters is fixed and intentional. Diligent exploration rewards the curious with secret cliff paths that you can jump to, and which lead to hidden encounters and back routes into locked areas. You are rewarded, too, for paying attention. Sure, you can kill the witch, but to kill the witch and save the child you might need to recall that you read a recipe for a certain kind of potion earlier in the questline…
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
Carry on campingTo fully restore yourself after a big fight you need to end the day and go to sleep at camp. Your camp will look different depending where in the world you are, and it’s here you chat to your collection of besties (or frenemies, as the case may be). They’re written to have relatable concerns as well as huge cosmic problems, and the voice actors really bring them alive. And, of course, they arehilariously DTF.Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
I wasn’t kidding about the cheese. |Image credit:Rock Paper Shotgun/Larian Studios
That is, really, how Baldur’s Gate 3 replicates the experience of playing Dungeons & Dragons so accurately. You encounter good and bad luck, and while you can nudge things in your favour, you only really control how you respond to events. The nature of a PC game makes BG3 more limited and less forgiving than a human DM, but the trade off is that, err you can reload and try again if you die. As with the tabletop game, there’s sort of a high barrier to entry built into BG3, and if this isn’t your sort of game then it just isn’t your sort of game. But if it is, then you’ll find all the good things about D&D too. You’re adventuring with a team of people who all have their own stuff going on, you can disarm a trap or you can throw a barrel at it, and you can get to know combat well enough that you can stack damage and take down half a dozen imps in one turn.
And it’s all set against an appropriately world-shaking, god-defying plot with some fantastic writing, and enough characters offer you double-crossings and secret allgiences that you’d suspect Christopher Nolan was involved somewhere. It’s an incredible world to get lost in, and though it may take you 100 hours, you will want to play it again and try new things. It is, in summary, the best Dungeons & Dragons game anyone has made, and probably ever will make - unless there’s a sequel in another 20 years.
Disclosure: Former RPS deputy editor Adam Smith (RPS in peace) now works at Larian and is the lead writer for Baldur’s Gate 3. Former contributor Emily Gera also works on it.
