Does Baldur’s Gate 3 (BG3) need any sort of introduction? It won Game of the Year in 2023 and has sold over 15 million copies. Set in the world of Dungeons and Dragons (D&D), it follows a group of ragtag adventurers on their way to fight god, as any good role-playing game (RPG) should.
In April, my fellow writer here at The Spectator, Liz Curtin, wrote an article about BG3. Ever since then, I’ve wanted to share my own thoughts on the game.
Mechanically, BG3 is a faithful recreation of D&D. There are 11 playable races and 12 playable classes. These can be combined however the player would like — though certain combinations work better than others.
For example, the half-orc race has bonuses to their physical stats like strength and constitution, so they would be better as a martial class like fighter or barbarian. However, there’s nothing stopping the player from making a half-orc warlock or rogue.
Whenever something important needs to be done — swinging a weapon, casting a spell, getting away with a lie and so on — a 20-sided die (d20) is rolled. Bonuses and penalties are applied to the final number based on modifiers from class, race, equipment and other smaller sources.
The outcome is always a success if the player rolls a 20 and always a failure if the player rolls a one. This way, every roll always always has a chance of resulting in success or failure.
Enough about the mechanics, though. If they seem confusing, they’re easy to grasp when seen in action, and the game does most of the math for the player.
The game hooks the player immediately with a cutscene of a tadpole-like creature with sharp teeth entering the player character’s eye. The player then discovers they are on an airship that is steadily losing altitude. Also, that airship is in literal, actual Hell (more specifically, Avernus).
Once all of that nasty airship business is cleared up, the world opens to the player. There is treasure to be looted, bad guys to slay and adventure to be had around every corner.
The writing of the world and characters of BG3 is top-notch. The six iconic recruitable characters — Shadowheart, Lae’zel, Astarion, Gale, Wyll and Karlach — are all excellent in their own right.
I think Wyll gets a bad rap — he’s the most unambiguously “good” character in the party, so many players, myself included, found him to be generic at first. But once I got to know him, I couldn’t stop gushing over him.
His introduction is really cringey. Bro thinks he’s him. But upon getting to know Wyll, I learned that he was raised on the stories of great heroes like Balduran and wished nothing more than to emulate them. He’s not just a dork — he’s a theater kid.
But despite this love, there’s one character who has and will have my heart for all of time.
Oxygen does not have a sequel. There is no “water No. 2.” I don’t have any children. When something is perfect the first time, there’s no need to reinvent the wheel. This is why there have been no attempts to make a character better than Shadowheart.
She’s everything I love in a character — she starts off mean and broody but warms up to the player over the course of the game. She’s goth, edgy and sarcastic — if she weren’t British, she’d be the perfect woman for me.
I have nearly 500 hours in BG3. I’ve barely touched on the customizability, the mechanics, the gameplay, the writing, the characters and so much more, and I promise that I have plenty more to say about all of those things.
BG3 is an excellent video game. It’s super accessible to those who don’t game much, yet also offers difficulty and customizability for more experienced RPG players.
This game gets an easy 5/5. I recommend getting people who don’t play a lot of video games to give it a shot — they may enjoy it much more than they think they will.
Tolbert can be reached at [email protected]. Send him your Baldur’s Gate 3 characters.
