Baldur’s Gate 3 early review: Modern fantasy

techcrunch.com:

First, the basics. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a Dungeons & Dragons game through and through, but you don’t need to be familiar with that world or those systems to enjoy it. It’s a dense roleplaying adventure that alternates between an old-school isometric view and close-up, voice-acted cut scenes, offering players a world of choice through complex, cascading chains of cause and effect.

If some roleplaying video games throw you into the deep end of the swimming pool with their ethical dilemmas, Baldur’s Gate 3 pushes you into the Mariana Trench, hands bound, and tosses a pocket knife in after you.

The game offers a fascinating slice of one of D&D’s major settings, the Forgotten Realms, introducing you to gods, monsters and space-faring alien civilizations in a way that’s much more compelling than your average black and white good vs. evil fantasy retelling. No matter what you set out to do, you’ll make Faustian bargains wrapped in Sophie’s choices — and given the complexity and layered world, no two playthroughs are the same. If any of that sounds even remotely compelling, this is a game for you.

Baldur’s Gate 3 follows Baldur’s Gate 2, one of the best-loved RPGs of all-time — and one that was released over two decades ago. Ghent, Belgium-based developer Larian Studios was tapped to craft the sequel, which at the time was incredible news for anyone familiar with Larian’s stellar track record. Personally, I’d only played Larian’s last game, the awkwardly-named Divinity: Original Sin II, but that game’s incredibly wildly rich, interactive world was enough for me to immediately download Baldur’s Gate 3 at launch. This game plays very similarly, but benefits from the combined boons of a massive budget, D&D’s rich systems and its lore.

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