Baldur’s Gate 3 is out now on PC via Steam and GOG. Even writing these words feels a bit surreal for someone who played the sacred original titles when they came out. They were a revelation at the time and opened the heart’s way to a lifelong passion for the Dungeons and Dragons roleplaying game and the Faerûn setting.
While there were a few spin-offs, the third installment in the mainline series remained but a dream for over twenty years, much like similarly beloved franchises like Shenmue or Half-Life. Whereas Valve fans are still waiting for Half-Life 3 and SEGA fans ultimately got Shenmue III as a decent but not quite great game, after 17 hours of hands-on with the final build of Baldur’s Gate 3, I’m positive that Larian is poised to deliver on the enormous hype. I fully agree with Francesco’s review-in-progress assessment that if this game can maintain the level of quality seen in the first Act for all of its massive scope, it could easily get the throne of best cRPG ever.
I’m here to share with you a couple of things straight from my experience, though. Firstly, as listed in our five beginner tips, quicksave is your best friend in Baldur’s Gate 3, even more so if you choose a high difficulty setting. It’s easy to be absorbed in the wonderful rendition of Faerûn crafted by Larian and forget to hit that save button, but that will only lead you into complex situations that can easily get out of hand. You’ll only be able to avoid an unwanted outcome if you save as much as possible, ideally every five minutes or so. Remember that you can do so at any time, even during combat or in the middle of a dialogue, so just do it and reject any misguided feeling of guilt.
Secondly, as mentioned in the headline, it is my firm belief that you should not play this game in co-op, at least not for your first playthrough. Yes, the game supports multiplayer from the get-go, but Baldur’s Gate 3 shines brightest in the reactivity of the game world and your companion NPCs, not to mention the wonderful storylines, all of which are inevitably dampened if you don’t play solo.
Let’s put aside any intentional mayhem that another player could inflict on you in the midst of a session. Even the most well-meaning friends will never be able to take the reins of a character like Karlach or Gale and play them as the creators of this game wrote them. I don’t want someone’s version of Karlach, I want Karlach as Larian intended her to be, and I can only have that when playing solo.
If that wasn’t enough to convince you, there’s still the harsh truth that no game’s story can survive contact with a group of players all doing their own thing, laughing, asking how to do this and that, not to mention potentially putting music on or talking to someone in real while they’re on Discord with you.
No multiplayer game can absorb you in a storyline as well as a single player one, and Baldur’s Gate 3 is definitely a game where you want to soak in every line of dialogue on your own time and without any external interferences for maximum enjoyment. While D&D itself may be synonymous with playing with friends, I see Baldur’s Gate 3 primarily as a fantastic single player cRPG set in that world and that ruleset rather than a one-to-one replica of the tabletop experience.
All that said, you’re free to do as you please, and there’s certainly merit to the idea of playing this game in co-op – but only as a second or perhaps even third playthrough, once you are intimately familiar with the story beats and the characters as they were designed.
Furthermore, if the developers were ever to add a Game Master mode similar to the one they made for Divinity: Original Sin 2, then the prospect of playing D&D in Baldur’s Gate 3 would suddenly become extremely enticing. Please do it, Larian. It could even be a paid DLC, and it’d probably sell gangbusters anyway.
On another note, Larian celebrated the long-awaited release with an awesome Baldur’s Gate 3 launch trailer and a few words from CEO Swen Vincke. You can find both below.
Swen Vincke: It’s hard to express how much love went into creating Baldur’s Gate 3. For over six years, more than 400 of us poured our hearts and souls into making this, helped by over 2.5 million Early Access players who spent countless hours giving us feedback.
The result is a beautiful, rich universe where you can escape from your daily worries, experience adventure and wonder, and have many many cool and exciting encounters. It’s a place where your identity and choices matter, where surprise lies around every corner, and where your agency is truly rewarded.
I’m super proud of what our team accomplished, and I hope you will have an incredible amount of fun exploring what we prepared for you.
