Was Baldur's Gate 3 Really The Best Game Of 2023? Retrospective

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might seem like the obvious choice for the best game of 2023 (and it was The Game Awards' GOTY), but claiming the throne of a major industry's yearly output is no simple feat. 2023 was full of excellent titles, with games like, and receiving glowing reviews from critics and fans alike. Taking a closer look at the situation helps clarify just how strong the argument for is and whether it can really comfortably rest at the top.

Despite the impressive promise that it showed in early access, was something of a dark horse when it came to garnering sales and acclaim. Following in the footsteps of a series that had been dormant for over two decades, the game stepped into a niche genre and asked players for a potentially enormous investment of time to see its story through. Although there was never much doubt that it would do at least reasonably well within its market, it shattered expectations by taking the general gaming world by storm and making characters like Shadowheart and Astarion hot conversation topics for months.

If there's one easy argument for awarding the title of 2023's best game, it's the incredible scope of what developer Larian Studios was able to pull off. Building a huge RPG story with countless branching paths is an enormous task for any title, although it's a road that many games have gone down before. Doing it with full voice acting, flagship graphics, complex systems for reactivity, and painstaking attention to detail in general is another level of challenge, and seeing the finished result makes it hard to even imagine how much work must have gone into the experience.

isn't the only game of an impressive scale from 2023, with 's boast of over 1,000 planets serving as an obvious alternative, but the amount