On the Road to Baldur’s Gate 3

Leena

When I started my Baldur’s gate journey – together with my bestie, Teddy – I was not quite sure what to expect. I had heard many, and I mean many, reports that the game was amazing, fantastic, incredible, but I had to see it for myself. Boy, was I surprised.

Right off the bat, the character creation felt like home brewing a character for a D&D campaign. So, of course, like every long time D&D player, I created an old character that I had enjoyed playing in a different campaign. Don’t roll your eyes, you know you did it as well. The story starts off with a bang, and the hits just keep coming. It is literally a black hole of just pure enjoyment and adventure. We were hooked. One campaign turned into several, with different groups of friends. Each, even though the content was the same, brought a different flavour to the play through as we shared different experiences and just discovered more and more things we missed.

As of yet, we have still not played through the campaign, but we are hooked. Not going to lie, some of the fights are brutal. Some of the content is shocking in its blunt brutality. Some of the decisions you can make in the game are downright scary. But, in the same vein, some decisions are just hilarious. Some scenes you run into just had us burst out laughing.

I cannot stress this enough. This game is a gem, something we rarely really run into these days. As we are approaching the end of our play through, I am already feeling discontent. We want more. More content, more levels, more everything. GIVE US MORE! Yeah, readers, you can already tell that if there is an expansion to this game, it is like an auto-buy in my books.

I will add however, that this game caters at an immense degree to the D&D community. If you are not familiar with how D&D works, it can be very confusing to start. If you are not used to the turn based combat, the pacing of fights can be frustrating. All I can say for the new folks, just keep at it. Perhaps join in a D&D game and ask your local DM some questions – it will all tie up nicely in both your D&D and Baldur’s Gate play-throughs.

Ok, enough ranting on my side. Time for some more Baldur’s Gate. Mooooooaaaaaaaar……….OUT!

Teddy

Here we have it, the ultimate D&D 5e based video game. We pulled up our adventuring boots, jotted down character sheets, and headed into the unkown…

Only to be tossed head-first into a mindflayer ship! We start our adventure with a mindflayer tadpole burrowing behind our eyes, slowly taking control of our minds. We discover devourers of intellect, devils, dragons and drama, oh sweet drama, as we run for our lives through alien territory. We scrape up teammates as we go (unless you’re not a fan of dear Shadowheart and would rather leave her to her fate in that pod), and we desperately rush to the helm before the imminent crash of the ship.

Really, there is no better way to start a D&D campaign. Props to Larian Studios for pulling off one of the most immersive games I have ever experienced. As a fan of D&D, I expected to like Baldur’s Gate 3. I did not, however, expect to be swept off my feet by the attention to detail the developers put into the game. From simple things like choices and consequences (what do you mean if I steal from a trader they’ll eventually notice their stock has diminished? They can count?!) to far more intricate things like spells affecting the environment (trouble getting passed the lava? Try summoning a sleet storm to form a magma bridge). The developers really outdid themselves with the small details. This is not a game to rush through, but one to savour. A game where you can spend hours on end looking into every nook and cranny because trust me, the developers didn’t waste any space on their maps. Every inch of the game is filled to the brim with entertaining encounters, delicious loot and choices, choices, choices that often leave you going “I should not have done that” – I was going to follow my paladin oath! I swear, Oathbreaker Knight.

Above and beyond the incredible storyline, entertaining NPC’s and extremely tempting pastimes in the camp, I was truly impressed with the effort put in by the voice actors. Does Astarion remind anyone else a little of Wednesday’s Xantillarion? Was anyone else both captivated and terrified by Orin’s lines? The voice acting is convincing and powerful, drawing you into the game and refusing to let you go.

If you are a fan of playing solo you can play by yourself or fill up your party with NPCs under your direct control. No more blaming the AI for making poor choices in battle! Or if you are more of a social player, like me, you can drag three of your friends into the game and wince as they make dialogue choices in typical reckless D&D player fashion – ahem, yes, the encounters don’t HAVE to turn into fights.

What do you do when the entire party failed the perception check repeatedly? No, you don’t reload the save file and try again, you shrug it off and see what happens in your next playthrough. There is plenty to explore, plenty to miss, and always a reason to start a new campaign. But you don’t need to take my word for it, try your hand at adventuring in Baldur’s Gate yourself. If you don’t want to face it as a lone adventurer, you can always join us through our Discord and experience a campaign with us.