One of the most immersive and detailed games ever crafted, delivering a monumental narrative architecture and impressive dynamic living world
Baldur's Gate 3 has been widely considered a masterpiece, but is it worthy of the claim?
With the beautiful world and characters set, you'd expect the main story to be strong. Unfortunately, it's not, being by far the weakest part of the game. It's convoluted and never really makes sense, with the established urgency of having to remove the parasite and defeat the Netherbrain feeling inconsistent and losing momentum entirely by Act 3. It was in desperate need of being tighter, with a more concrete central plot. The last act is probably the worst in regards to story, with Gortash and Orin making for generic antagonists who don't act rationally given their motivations, with a lack of a strong villain in general. It felt more like I was experiencing dozens of small stories and, as an afterthought, killed a giant brain because a squid was pestering me about it. When that final victory came, I found the ending to be rushed and somewhat unsatisfying.
Companion quests I thought were better, but still could be a mixed bag. Shadowheart's story was excellent, and Karlach's got better as it went on. Halsin, Wyll, and Gale didn't offer much for me. Were they under developed or did I just miss a key dialogue during a long rest? Either way, it felt like favoritism, or worse, made me feel that I might easily miss a huge narrative section if I did not speak to every random NPC in each unremarkable shop. Like the main plot, the companion stories could have benefited from more logical buildup and sustained momentum, not to mention improved interconnectedness with the central narrative.
Astarion's story was a good one for building some hype and emotion, and despite its somewhat standard conclusion, it did have a fun choice to make regarding his transformation into the Vampire Lord. This kind of interesting decision-making appeared in the game far less than I was expecting. I loved how choices were often grounded in how consistent and attentive you were with your worldview, but I would have liked to have seen more consequential, ambiguous choices exist alongside the more common good versus evil dichotomy, which, to be honest, isn't really a choice at all, given how early you establish your character's constitution, meaning I would never choose a rude or evil option.
Speaking of rudeness, god forbid if I rejected one of the six companions who wanted to have sex with me. Why did the relationships have to go romantic so fast anyway? There was very little middle ground available, and I would like to see more nuance in relationship building in a future game. Companions also didn't interact with one another in meaningful ways, which is strange given the sprawling journey we'd all been taking together. They sort of stood around awkwardly at camp and only came to life through main character interactions. The camp environment overall has some cool components to it, but add in some dynamic relationships and more customizations, and the camaraderie and role-playing would be greatly improved.
Moving on to combat, my feelings are mixed. I generally like strategic turn-based battles and have a love-hate relationship with RNG systems. BG3's version of this can be clunky and wildly unfair, but it's ultimately a challenging experience that I enjoyed on the Tactician difficulty. It's rare for me to find combat in open-world games that makes me think. Does it require as much environmental creativity and move-set imagination as it presents itself as having? Not really. I ignored 70% of the spells I had as I perceived them to be redundant or too weak, and beyond reworking my characters’ positions, found that hammering my way through with brute force worked well enough. That doesn't mean I didn't find enjoyment or value in some of the nuances found in combat, like inspecting enemies to learn their strengths and weaknesses, or exploiting some unique mechanism to gain an advantage, but mostly my playstyle was to the point and that seemed to work nine out of ten times at the hardest level.
If I'm totally honest, the combat teeters delicately between enjoyable perseverance and extreme tediousness. The punishing RNG I mentioned draws a lot of 'save scumming' behavior, where I was constantly reloading due to incredibly bad rolls or grossly overpowered enemies. Battles also didn't always need to be huge set pieces that take an hour to complete. Smaller, lower-stakes encounters, especially in Act 3, would have been appreciated and likely would have improved pacing. That said, there were some amazing battles, such as the fight against the Apostle of Myrkul, protecting Isobel at the Last Light Inn, and defending Halsin whilst inside the portal. The final battle, with the allies mechanic, was cool too, but definitely should have included my full squad of companions. Leaving party members out felt like a massive missed opportunity to elevate the fun, and is off from a story perspective too.
To offer some points of view on how combat could be improved, I would start with making the fights more interesting and more fluid. Let's see less of a RNG fest and more structured and puzzle-like encounters that encourage trial and error through environmental and spell creativity, as opposed to save-and-reload behavior that's anchored to your luck with hits. I'd also consider how a checkpoint system might dissuade the player move save scumming, although it's hard to perceive if thats the right solution to the problem. Finally, offering some alternatives to combat loss that is not just a hard reload, making the player actually live with the consequences of my (failed) actions by integrating it into the story. Maybe combat fallout leads to loss of a companion, time in prison, loss of gold and items, or opens up the possibility new quest lines.
I've brought up some significant criticisms now on story, choice-making, and combat, and it has definitely forced me to rethink my justification of a legendary rating. I'm torn, because my head tells me that combat and story are the two biggest fundamentals of a game like this, and given the headway for improvements, it shouldn't be breaking into the 90s.
But my heart tells me it's the right call, because despite the shortcomings, this is an incredible, one-of-a-kind game that gives itself a hugely ambitious goal and delivers on it either decently or in some cases exceptionally. It's the sum of the parts that matters, and most importantly of all, you feel a level of commitment and love permeating through the entire experience. There is something special about this game. Each day I looked forward to entering the world again and exploring what it had to offer, and even if I was happy when it ended, a part of me was quite sad that I would no longer be spending time with my favorite characters, exploring new areas, or getting to be serenaded by that glorious soundtrack again. It's always a good sign when a game you spend 200+ hours on still remains in the back of your mind, wondering if you should fire it all up again.
VERDICT
Baldur's Gate 3 is one of the most immersive and detailed open-world games ever crafted, giving itself an ambitious scope and executing with either competence or exceptionalism across all dimensions. Its character and voice-acting quality redefine industry standards, and the lived-in world is as beautiful as it is dynamic, offering flexibility and cause-and-effect potential in ways that are hard to fathom. The clunky combat might not be for everyone and could be improved, but those looking for a challenge will find it. The story unfortunately does hold this one back, but if future versions offer a tighter, more concrete narrative, and with a stronger antagonist, then masterpiece status is well within reach for this franchise's future games.
RATING BREAKDOWN
Gameplay
88
Visuals
93
Story:
70
Music / Sound
94
BONUS
characters
FINAL
