My Baldur’s Gate 3 perfectionism is killing me

theverge.com:

By Adi Robertson, a senior tech and policy editor focused on VR, online platforms, and free expression. Adi has covered video games, biohacking, and more for The Verge since 2011.

Baldur’s Gate 3 has garnered accolades for its flexibility — it feels like you can ally with or betray virtually anyone, including your own party members. I’ve seen it compared to old-school RPGs like Planescape: Torment, “play it your way” immersive sims, and of course, its source material, tabletop Dungeons & Dragons.

After clocking roughly 40 hours in Faerûn, there’s a simultaneously delightful and maddening tension to the open-endedness of Baldur’s Gate 3. On one hand, it pushes me to invest in the high stakes of its narrative, where a single misstep’s personal and universal consequences can feel disastrous. On the other, my most viscerally satisfying encounters have come from abandoning perfectionism and rolling with the punches. I love how badly I can screw things up in this game. But I can’t stand to let the mistakes stick.

I started Baldur’s Gate 3 because of all the weird, silly ways I saw people solving problems; my gateway drug was watching somebody stack 45 crates to sneak over a rampart. (I’m not even talking about the infamous bear-druid romance.) The crates reminded me of my beloved Deus Ex and Thief, where every challenge is a little puzzle box with a complex set of mechanics. The catch is, these games tend to reward methodical, nonviolent mastery. When you can charm, climb, lock-pick, or crate-stack your way through any problem, actually fighting can just feel like a moment of failure.

I love how badly I can screw things up in this game, but I can’t let the mistakes stick

Perfecting the best solution in every encounter, it