D&D: ‘Baldur’s Gate 3’ Launches Today – It’s Come So Far Since Early Access
Baldur’s Gate 3 launches today after almost three years of “early access.” Gather your party before venturing forth.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is here at last. This is possibly the most hotly anticipated D&D video game this year, and with good reason: Baldur’s Gate 3 is so good you can sink your teeth into it. When it “launched” into Early Access three years ago, the foundations were there, even if the gameplay and graphics weren’t.
But despite bugs and systemic idiosyncracies, Larian had already laid the foundation of a meaty game that could draw you in. They took liberties with 5E’s ruleset, making improvements to Rangers and martial characters in general, and especially adding some of Larian’s own sensibilities of playing havoc with the environment.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is at its best when you are Thunderwaving enemies off of a roof, into a puddle of oil that your next character sets ablaze. Except that’s not true. Because Baldur’s Gate 3 is also at its best when you’re talking to your party members, or interacting with the NPCs. It was all there from the beginning. Here’s a snip from our first impressions of the Early Access game 3 full years ago:
Baldur’s Gate 3 is full of magical moments for people willing to explore and experiment. The game is packed full of random terrain that has hit points which you can destroy. The characters are delightful, everyone is so very strongly characterized. And they have opinions about what you should be doing and aren’t afraid to share them.
And that was just the beginning. How far have we come since then?
Baldur’s Gate 3 Launch Day – 122 Gigs Of Adventure
In the ensuing years, the graphics have come a long way. And the game has grown even bigger, hitting a solid 122 gigabytes of space, with enough cinematic cutscenes to outlast the entirety of Game of Thrones. I’d say more dialogue than you can shake a stick at, except I’ve just shaken a stick at my computer, which contains all the dialogue, so checkmate aphorisms I guess.
But the point is, with every patch the game grew deeper. Dedicated fans played through Act 1 hundreds of times, with Larian gathering data about player experience and using that to pivot and tweak and enhance as needed. When players weren’t being evil or horny enough, BG3 gave them opportunities to do both. In spades.
And the game has plenty of surprises that were never on the roadmap. Including an all-new custom origin: the Dark Urge, which is all about blood. Blood, blood, blood, blood, blood.
Of course, custom origins are a great place to start. You can take advantage of the game’s robust character creator to make your dream D&D character, and then get to explore the game making whatever choices with whatever you bring to the table:
Or you can play as one of the companions. These are other party members in the game, though you can pick any of them as your starting character. So you might follow the story of Astarion from the outset and get special dialogue options and cutscenes specifically for him.
Larian’s CEO, Swen Vincke, recommends playing a custom character and using that playthrough to meet the other characters to see who you might want to play as next. At any rate, it looks like my download just finished. So.
What are you doing here? Go check out the game!
