Below is an informal, in-depth review of the 2023 video game Baldur’s Gate 3. It is written as an informative piece designed for people who are either familiar with the game or those who are okay with minor spoilers. The piece is 2684 words long, and similar works would cost approximately £75 for me to write.
This piece is not persuasive and is not designed to encourage somebody to buy the game: instead it is a genuine and honest review of a video game that is still culturally relevant and well-loved amongst hundreds of thousands of people. Sources have been hyperlinked rather than formally cited for ease of reading.
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Baldur’s Gate 3: A Detailed Review
Baldur’s Gate 3 is an incredibly complex and fulfilling game, accessible to both those who have never played Dungeons and Dragons and those who have spent hundreds of hours doing just that.
The game, fully released first on Windows in August 2023, is the third instalment in the Baldur’s Gate franchise - the first two of which were released in December 1998 and September 2000 respectively - and brings a fresh new perspective to the fantasy world of Faerûn. Arguably the most popular of the Baldur’s Gate franchise, likely owing to the growing accessibility of video gaming as a hobby, Baldur’s Gate 3 has received overwhelmingly positive reviews on video game platform Steam, having received nearly 600,000 reviews within the first year of release alone.
When you first open the game, you are greeted with the character creation menu. Players are given the option to play as one of six premade characters, known as the origin companions, or to play as one of two custom characters. This gives players inexperienced with D&D mechanics the opportunity to start the game without the stress of trying to navigate a set of wholly unfamiliar rules and choices.
Players who choose to create their own character have almost complete control over their character’s background, looks, and abilities. Players who choose to play a truly custom character, whose default name is Tav, can choose any combination of race, class, and background. Another option is the custom character The Dark Urge, whose only unchangeable trait is their background of Haunted One. They are the only playable character to have this background, granting a sense of intrigue and mystery to those unfamiliar with the Dark Urge’s story.
The game mechanics are relatively easy to grasp, although often unconventional. In keeping with the rest of the Baldur’s Gate franchise, characters are controlled in a fairly traditional manner: the player clicks, and the character will take the most efficient path to get to that space. The player views the game from what is largely a top-down isometric angle, with the option to zoom in and out, and can change the camera angle by holding down the mouse wheel and moving the mouse either side. This can be difficult for new players to grasp, but becomes instinctual as the game progresses.
One of the more interesting things about this game is the fact that developers Larian Studios have managed to make the mechanics of a table-top role playing game (TTRPG) translate coherently into a video game. Players control characters’ actions both in battle and out of battle, and can use a variety of tools, attacks, and spells. As is customary with any D&D game, table-top or otherwise, the world is a sandbox for players and they are not forced to complete tasks in any particular order. The game even includes the concept of the Dungeon Master, who comes to life within the game as the Narrator, voiced by actress Amelia Tyler. Players can interact with the world in a myriad of ways, with added commentary from multiple characters and the narrator herself, and almost every eventuality has been accounted for by developers. With this in mind, and knowing how detailed both the game and the world it’s set in are, it’s little wonder there’s been 23 years between the second and third Baldur’s Gate games.
In terms of characters and dialogue, the game has near-infinite supplies of both. A community post by Larian Studios on Steam in June 2023 claims that the game has “more cinematic dialogue than three times all three Lord of the Rings novels combined” - bringing the dialogue word count to over 1,443,309 words! - and “174 hours of cinematics, making it more than twice the length of every season of Game of Thrones combined”. The game has since received patches and updates, meaning the total word count could very easily exceed 1.5 million words.
The plot of the game starts out very simply. Your character, whoever that may be, is forcibly given a Mind Flayer tadpole - a parasite - which resides behind their eye. The primary motivation is to remove this tadpole before it irreversibly corrupts you, turning you into a Mind Flayer. Mind Flayers, often referred to in-universe as Illithids or Ghaik, are aberrant creatures who believe all other species are beneath them. During the player’s search for a cure, they can encounter other characters who can become companions or enemies, depending on the path chosen and the choices made. The harder one searches for a cure, the deeper they discover the mystery goes, eventually leading to the discovery of a cult hellbent on the destruction of both Faerûn and beyond.
Players can make many decisions which influence the fates of their character, and any combination of these can lead to a different outcome. Players can choose to harness the powers given to them by the parasite, or choose not to trust them at all. Each choice, even simply a dialogue choice or the order in which one speaks to character, has consequences. Decisions made by the player can either raise or lower a non-player character’s approval, which in turn will affect their disposition towards the player. Companions with a low disposition may even choose to leave the party entirely, and no amount of apologising will bring them back. It’s a brilliant take on a mechanic DMs often can’t explore during TTRPGS, since a player leaving the party means that person can’t join the D&D sessions anymore. With the game having so many NPCs, this is no longer an issue.
Another mechanic introduced by Larian Studios is Honour Mode. The game itself has five difficulty modes - Explorer, Balanced, Tactician, Honour, and Custom - which are organised based on whether the player wishes to focus on combat or the story. Explorer mode is story-based, so player characters are given twice as many hit points as usual. Attacks against them do less damage, so characters are less likely to die, meaning players can focus on the plot rather than the stress of learning how to play D&D. This mode is ideal for new or inexperienced players. Balanced mode is the standard difficulty: players have the usual number of hit points and the game does not give enemies any special attacks. This difficulty mode is the closest to a “normal” game of D&D. Tactician and Honour modes are both the “hard” difficulties, with Tactician mode introducing more powerful attacks from enemies.
The truly interesting difficulty here is Honour mode. With all other difficulties, players have the opportunity to save and reload, meaning that if an undesirable outcome takes place the player can reload an earlier save and either make a different choice or try again. Honour mode removes this option: instead, all choices made by the player are final. The player is unable to return to a previous save file, and the only option they have in this regard is to move forward and continue playing. In addition, this is the game mode with the hardest difficulty, as enemies have even more powerful attacks than usual. This game mode is intended for experienced players of both the game and D&D and completing the entire game in honour mode grants both an achievement and a set of dice the player can use in subsequent games. According to statistics released by Larian studios in December 2023, during a single weekend approximately 158,000 playthroughs in Honour mode were started. Approximately 34,000 players failed to complete Honour mode, with only 464 players completing Honour mode during this time frame.
Baldur’s Gate 3 also boasts a multiplayer mode, although this is not cross-platform. Groups of up to four players can create their own characters and parties, leading to new and interesting ways to play. The focus becomes a lot more based around teamwork than in the single-player modes, and the game becomes more and more like a traditional game of D&D. Players can stick together or separate to complete multiple quests at one time, and it allows for a completely different style of play to the single-player game.
Character-wise, the game is rich and detailed. The origin companions, as mentioned earlier, are playable characters in their own rights, and can also be recruited as party members. These are, in alphabetical order, Astarion, Gale, Lae’zel, Karlach, Shadowheart, and Wyll. Other characters who can be recruited but are not origin companions include Halsin and Minthara, both of whom are complex characters in their own rights. Each origin character has their own complex backstory, the details of which are revealed slowly throughout the game. The amount and speed of the details revealed are based on multiple factors, including the player’s race, class, and choices. All characters named above are potential romantic partners, too, although again this is reliant upon decisions made by the player over the course of the game.
Lae’zel is a Githyanki fighter who is the first companion introduced to the player. When the player is infected with the Illithid parasite, Lae’zel is right next to them. She is properly introduced to the player shortly afterwards, and together you plan your escape. Being Githyanki, she is more central to the main plot than many of the other characters, and provides much of the information and exposition throughout the first third of the game. Initially she is rather standoffish, uncertain of the customs of Faerûn, and is firmly devoted to her culture and her God-Queen Vlaakith.
Shadowheart is the second character players can encounter. She appears shortly after Lae’zel, trapped in the same type of pod both the player and Lae’zel found themselves in. The player can choose to try and rescue her or to leave her behind, although she survives either way, and her initial attitude towards the player is dependent on the choice made here. Shadowheart’s origin is shrouded in mystery, as prior to the beginning of the game she gave up many of her memories in a show of devotion to her goddess. She immediately expresses a dislike for Githyanki, but this is mitigated further on in the game. She is, according to Larian Studios, the most popular love interest in the game.
Astarion, the high elven rogue, initially comes across as an untrustworthy and narcissistic character. The player meets him for the first time when he threatens to kill them if they don’t provide him with information regarding their situation, but later relents and becomes a member of the party. Astarion’s backstory is deeply traumatic and deals with slavery and sexual abuse, amongst other things, and focuses mainly on the reintroduction of his free will and ability to set his own boundaries. The culmination of his story arc is based around finally becoming completely free of his abuser, and voice actor Neil Newbon brings a gloriously emotional performance all throughout the game.
Gale Dekarios - or Gale of Waterdeep, as he prefers to be known - is the most popular origin character to play as. Voiced by actor Tim Downie, Gale is a character already present within the D&D canon. He is present within the game Magic: The Gathering, which is more card-based than D&D - although equally as complex. Gale is a human wizard who, prior to the game, was an archmage under the wing of Mystra, the goddess of magic. Due to his arrogance Gale was punished by her, and much of his magic stripped away. While Gale can often be oblivious in social situations, he is incredibly intelligent and well-spoken. Downie brings Gale to life with frankly incredible acting, and the character is beloved by both new and old fans of the franchise.
Wyll is perhaps the least detailed companion, although his backstory is arguably one of the most interesting. He is introduced to the player during a fight outside the Emerald Grove early on in the game, in which he refers to himself as the Blade of Frontiers. Wyll is a human warlock from Baldur’s Gate who has dedicated himself to being a protector of the people. He has a very strong moral compass, and is the only lawful good companion. Initially he refuses to talk in detail about his past, attempting to hide his origins and his patron. Wyll is deeply selfless, and is known for his dedication to his role as the Blade of Frontiers.
Karlach is, most likely, the final origin companion players will encounter. She is a tiefling barbarian whom players can encounter part of the way through Act One of the game. She is being hunted by multiple parties, including Wyll, and players do have the opportunity to kill her rather than recruit her. If recruited, though, Karlach reveals herself to be a friendly and loving person with a past as a soldier in a war she didn’t want to fight in. As with many of the characters, her past is deeply traumatic; her heart was replaced with an infernal engine without her consent, meaning that she is slowly dying from the machinery embedded within her.
What makes this game so great is the sheer number of possible outcomes. The player has hundreds of thousands of choices to make, meaning that the game is essentially infinite. Players will never run out of new content or ways to play, with a wonderfully detailed world created by an incredibly hard-working team.
There are, however, criticisms to be made of the game - the most commonly demonstrated of which are to do with the ending. Players say the ending to the game feels rushed, or that it doesn’t make much sense. Endings for characters are not necessarily what the player wants or hopes for, and this can leave a sour taste for the player. Despite the sheer volume of content present within the game itself, players often find that the ending itself is lacklustre and underwhelming. Players have expressed disappointment with other plot related matters, such as the mechanic of the tadpoles in general.
Other pieces of negative feedback have to do with game mechanics such as party or inventory management. Earlier versions of the game had extremely inefficient party management, wherein you would have to dismiss a companion, go back to your camp, and then speak to another companion in order to recruit them. A patch has since addressed this, however, so players can now go to camp and simply speak to the companion whom they wish to join the party in order to do all of this.
Inventory management, meanwhile, is still complicated; there is very little organisation and the inventory can get cluttered and overwhelming. Furthermore, there is no option for a shared inventory between characters, so players must either keep track of exactly what items a character has or manually check every character in order to find a specific item. The inventory menu also leads to the character sheet menu, detailing each character’s race, class, skills, and abilities, which is not necessarily an intuitive space to have linked such a piece of information.
While the game has its frustrating moments, I find that overall Baldur’s Gate 3 is an intriguing and well-written game with more content than I could ever hope to fully explore. I greatly enjoy how much the video game resembles a TTRPG. I did not expect it to be able to do this, so I was pleasantly surprised when this was the case. I found the characters to be much more interesting than I had assumed at the start, and I found that both romantic and platonic arcs between characters were immensely satisfying to play.
While I do agree that the ending is somewhat rushed, I firmly believe that the rest of the game more than makes up for it. Whether intentionally or not, the game forces you to explore your viewpoints on topics such as consent, chronic illness, and the way you perceive others when you have little to no prior information. The game as a whole is a veritable goldmine of new experiences, and every single playthrough provides you with new information. This is, without a doubt, one of the best video games I have ever played.