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Baldur's Gate 3 came like a wrecking ball to shatter the confines of what video games dared to do in 2023 and absolutely succeeded in that goal by delivering a long, high-quality epic adventure that only a true masterpiece can hope for. Unfortunately, it is marred by the consequences of cut content and one system that seems incomplete but always intrudes in one's playthrough.
Story
Storytelling is extremely important in a good RPG and Larian Studios certainly nailed it with this game. There is the epic main story you go through that will take the front pages of every storytelling discussion surrounding Baldur's Gate 3 but I'm afraid that the smaller stories will not get the mention they deserve.
Each and every quest in the game has a great story to tell, either directly or through environmental storytelling, with each of them being able to pique the player's interest. Larian didn't choose the easier way which would be the cop-out of repeating the same small activity to inflate your in-game world and the time you would spend there. Instead, you have beautiful hand-crafted smaller adventures that were given the same kind of love the main story was.
Whether it's something that barely gets scratched into the party's journal, like stumbling into a forgotten god's temple, a prolonged murder investigation or the epic main story, you just feel the seemingly endless amount of love and effort poured into the creation of these quests.
Voice acting
Good writing and quest design can sometimes be derailed by sub-par voice acting and Larian is well aware of this. The studio pulled incredible talent to give life to characters that carry the narrative and didn't make a bad choice once, despite the massive list in the credits.
There is one word to describe voice acting in Baldur's Gate 3 - impeccable.
Every character, creature and especially the narrator are selling the game's immersion at every step. Trying to keep a cool head without fully immersing yourself into this small part of Faerun is futile from the get-go because every spoken line in the game is sculpted to pull you in and never let go.
Unfortunately, the romance system ended up largely undercooked in comparison to voice acting and the rest of the story elements.
Romance
Romance in Baldur's Gate 3 is, for some reason, completely bungled and it is not just because of the bugs that plagued the game at launch. Initially, everyone thought all those companions and other romanceable characters are too horny because of a glitch related to their approval and while it's true to some extent, bad design is to blame for the system's overall rough shape.
Characters will assume that you are out to get into their pants and try to jump you just because you are doing things that align with their interests. On each of multiple playthroughs, by the time I got to Act 3, multiple characters assumed that I wanted to have sex with them simply because I wasn't rude at every turn, others assumed I'm into bestiality and a bargain bin Squidward outright kidnapped me for some naughty time because he presumed I'm hot for his tentacles.
Not in one of those cases did I ever say something flirty or insinuate I'm interested in them through dialogue. The game simply kept throwing sex offers I never wanted but ironically, the one character whose romance I pursued, never triggered the related cutscene in Act 3. On that note, despite locking in a romance with one character in the first Act, others still keep throwing themselves at the player, unprompted. At least there is the option of turning down all the unwanted advances so it's not a complete disaster.
If there was a way to avoid romance altogether, it would be great but this badly designed feature will force its way into each and every playthrough.
Gameplay
Baldur's Gate 3 has an extremely deep gameplay system in place and impressively, it works with no hitch for the vast majority of time. The game lets players go through encounters in the obvious way by beating the enemies down with swords and hammers or zapping them with magic but there is so much more that Larian put under the hood, allowing you to express creativity in ways no other game would even dream of doing.
There are occasions where you might want to forego bonking an enemy on the head with a mallet, in favour of pushing them off a cliff. Off the Top Rope meme was born thanks to Owlbear Form and Enlarge antics people pulled and Barbarians just can't stop beating Goblins with other Goblins. This means both throwing Goblins at their friends and literally picking them up and using the hapless creatures as weapons to swing at the enemies.
In the end, you are given more freedom about what to do in Baldur's Gate 3 than pretty much any other game to date. Burgle, steal, fight, talk your way out of tough situations, talk bosses into killing themselves, dismember companions before ever meeting them, give in to the chaotic dark desires without knowing the consequences, fight your urges, have the cutest duo in your camp or just zip through all the content - it is all left to player's discretion. You get to shape your own adventure however you like it.
The aforementioned immersion from fantastic writing and voice acting is further compounded by the incredible wealth of choice to create the nigh-perfect game.
Cut content
While Baldur's Gate 3 offers a whole lot through its gameplay, it is unfortunately not doing well with covering the tracks of content that had to be cut in order to release it. Considering only what the game launched with, you are easily looking at more than 100 hours for a single playthrough and that's without even doing everything you are allowed to.
The game is massive in size and offers high quality, which is not something only a handful of studios can pull off. With Baldur's Gate 3, Larian proved they are the pinnacle of the gaming industry when it comes to refusing to compromise quality in favour of quantity. As such, I absolutely do not fault them for cutting a large portion of Act 3 content in order to release the game and neither should anyone else. This much content in a single top-quality package with no microtransactions or other monetisation shenanigans is unprecedented and should be celebrated.
What I do have a problem with are the gaps those cuts left behind. Karlach, one of the two of my favourite companions ended up with a half-baked ending to her personal quest because the culmination for it was meant to be in the section of the game that was cut before release. As such, the quest ended up losing one of the possible endings and the most endearing person in the party was only left with bad choices.
Other examples include Astarion's personal quest, although to a much lesser degree, specifically because I found it odd that the entrance to a powerful figure's mansion was on the city's ramparts, rather than a gate or door of its own. This too is a patchwork solution for the cut map, which left such traces all over Act 3. If the transition into the existing content was smoother, I honestly would have no problem with all the things that were left out.
Performance
Graphics in Baldur's Gate 3 are aimed at photorealism with injections of fairytale whimsy all over the place. In theory, it sounds great but video games have not been able to successfully integrate one with the other, until now.
This time around, we have characters, items and environments with crisp designs that would easily belong in a game based on historical events or one that strives to depict real-world images as accurately as possible. Everything looks normal and conforms to the laws of nature until it doesn't. At that moment, the world of wondrous imagination springs to life when you inject owlbears, dragons and other mythical races and creatures that don't look out of place and neither do the regular beings when standing next to them.
In a word, Baldur's Gate 3 is beautiful from the beginning to the end. Naturally, this means performance is the tradeoff and it is true in some cases.
My frame rate did plunge a few times, especially in Act 3, over the several playthroughs but the devs did fix the majority of the related issues so far, giving us a smoother experience overall. While working on the Xbox Series X version of the game, they also discovered a way to basically eliminate the worst of the problems which brings the game to satisfying performance overall.
Conclusion
Baldur's Gate 3 is the type of game that gives gamers faith that the industry is not in the dumpster. It is a triumph of passion and incredible effort to give the fans something unforgettable, manifesting through an epic adventure with a lot to love and little to dislike.
There is no universe in which I would have the strength to not recommend the game, to any type of player. I firmly believe that even if you are not a fan of the RPG genre, this is the game that will make you one.Xbox Series X|S
The Good
Great writing- Fantastic voice acting
- Gameplay depth is unmatched
- Delicious graphics
- Incredible value even for the full price
The Bad
Bad romance system- Cut content leftovers are rough
