Baldur's Gate 3

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Baldur's Gate 3 Bioware would be proud of this. Protagonist(s): Player Character Genre(s): Role Playing Platform(s): Windows PlayStation 5 Mac OS Xbox Series X&S Release: August 3, 2023 Developer(s): Larian Studios Publisher(s): Larian Studios Spike Chunsoft (Japanese) Country: Belgium Series: Baldur's Gate

""Consider your predicament. One skull, two tenants, and no solution in sight. I could fix it all like that [...] Try to cure yourself. Shop around - beg, borrow and steal. Exhaust every possibility until none are left. And when hope has been whittled down to the very marrow of despair - that's when you'll come knocking on my door.""

— Raphael

Baldur's Gate 3 is a role-playing game by Larian Studios (developers of the Divinity series). It is the third main game in the Baldur's Gate series, which is based on the Dungeons & Dragons tabletop role-playing system. It was in early access on October 6, 2020 and was fully released on August 3, 2023.

Plot

Set over 120 years after Baldur's Gate 2: Shadows of Amn, your character awakens on a mind-flayer ship with a parasite imbued in their head, you must choose to get rid of the parasite, or embrace it and take over the world.

Why It's Divine

1. Amazing graphics with a large amount of attention to detail.
2. Amazing writing. No character feels one-dimensional at all. This goes to your companions such as the Sharran cleric Shadowheart, the elven vampire rogue Astarion, the tiefling barbarian champion Karlach, Duke Ravenguard's warlock son Wyll, an unsually powerful wizard Gale, and Githyanki warrior Lae'Zel. You can later recruit the Archdruid Halsin or Absolute Paladin Minthara, and returning characters Jaheria and Minsc from Baldur's Gate 1&2.
3. Great combat. Despite being a copy of the Divinity Original Sin games (which unsurprisingly are from the same developer), there are enough original mechanics that make it stand out from Divinity Original Sin.
   • You can shove enemies, this can be useful for knocking them over cliffs and making them take fall damage. You can even instantly kill them by shoving them into chasms, but you cannot loot their corpse.
   • You can throw objects like grenades and vials to make enemies take AOE damage.
   • Dipping weapons make an introduction here, allowing you to deal damage like fire or poison damage.
   • You can even attack with improvised weapons. There's even a Steam Achievement for killing an enemy using an improvised weapon as another enemy.
4. Great side quests that don't just involve going from one location, killing an enemy, and returning to that quest's giver. In fact, these side quests play a role in the main story.
5. The choices are very complex.
6. Amazing voice acting on all the characters. Especially J.K Simmons as Ketheric Thorm.
7. The soundtrack is well-done such as "Down by the River" which plays on the character creation screen.
8. The dice mechanic added to the skill checks is a great minor addition, though it has one major flaw.
9. Microtransactions are absent here, and that's important.
10. Tons of replay value, with the game featuring over 17,000 Ending Variations. YES, YOU READ THAT RIGHT.
11. Great dialogue such as:
    • Hiss! I SAY HISS!
    • May the darkness protect you.
    • Hello, darling.
12. Meta-Example: This game ultimately proves that polish, no monetization, and just passion for the craft are what ultimately makes an amazing product. And this game showed.

Bad Qualities

1. While the dice mechanic is a great touch, sometimes you can roll a 1 (meaning that you immediately fail) even though your character excels at whatever skill the check requires you to do.
2. Accuracy when attacking requires you to be proficient in the weapon and armor your character equips in order to land hits. Sometimes you can still miss even though you have a good enough accuracy.
3. Some quests do not pay off well, such as Finding A Cure for your parasite to which all of them end in failing to remove the parasite. Some, like rescuing the goblin Sazza, will only betray you if you stick to being the good side.
4. There's no way to recruit both Halsin and Minthara without a mod. Originally there was a bug that allowed players to recruit both, but this has since then been patched.
5. You also cannot cook food unlike Divinity Original Sin 2, instead food only serves as a basic resource for Long Rest.
   • Likewise, food (except for berries) no longer restores your health, you have to rely on health potions. Thankfully, they are plentiful.

Reception

Baldur's Gate 3 received critical acclaim for its story, characters, gameplay, and choices. It is currently the highest-rated PC game ever game on Metacritic, and also one of the best rated games on OpenCritic. It also sold well, selling over 2.5 million units on Early Access and peaked in its concurrent player base with over 700,000 players on the third day of its release.

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