Baldur’s Gate 3 is a bigger hit than anyone could have ever imagined. Even Larian Studios was blown away by the reception as it planned for 100,000 concurrent players and was greeted by a whopping 800,000. People love this game, many of whom hail from established D&D circles or happen to be experiencing an RPG like this for the very first time. Either way, it’s doing gangbusters, and the video game industry will take notice very quickly.
While I’m only 15 hours or so into my own adventure, I’m also loving it. There are countless places to discover and myriad decisions to make that all impact every part of my unfolding adventure. It’s wildly liberating, defined by a sense of freedom that few in the genre can match and make it feel like you aren’t just killing time. However, not all elements of Baldur’s Gate 3 are created equal, with combat being the weakest of the lot.
I’ve already made it clear that I’ve embraced the approachable arms of Narrative Difficulty, which removes the potential for multiclass disciplines and makes the majority of big combat encounters a cakewalk. You still need to heal, deal damage, and manage all your party members effectively, but there is a far smaller risk of death and having to reload the save you haven’t updated for the past several hours. Yes, I am not a very clever gamer.
To be blunt, I came to Baldur’s Gate 3 for the wonders of exploration and nuanced bonds I’d come to form with all of these party members. Combat was always destined to play second fiddle, given my inexperience with Dungeons & Dragons and all the complications involved with defeating enemies and navigating environments without immediately biting the dust. I didn’t come to Baldur’s Gate 3 for high fantasy XCOM, but it’s serving it regardless.
Walk into a combat encounter unprepared, or one you maybe didn’t even realise existed until you stumbled into its clutches, and there’s a solid chance a horde of powerful foes obliterate your party without so much as a chance to respond. I’m still learning the ropes, but given I’d come to this game for stories and atmosphere, having to continually bang my head against its mechanical intricacy only served to frustrate. I can deal with random dice rolls, but not a dungeon full of bandits who understand how to deck me into oblivion within mere seconds.
Seasoned players are likely reading this and mocking me incessantly, believing I should just have the patience to learn Baldur’s Gate 3 and come to love all the battles that are meant to test my mettle and act as gauntlets of strength and resilience. But I’m here for a fun time, and I don’t fancy dealing with the unreliable save states and long load times whenever a big conflict goes wrong, or I make a mistake because I’m still learning the mechanics. Fights get in the way of what I love about Baldur’s Gate 3, right now, at least, so I do everything I can to make them easier to digest and more fun for me. Which is what an RPG built on the foundations of traditional tabletop should allow. An experience that is malleable to our will.
The context of battles matters to me more than the actual mechanical execution. Making the wrong decision in dialogue and suddenly finding myself in a bloodthirsty rager with people I don’t wish to harm, let alone kill, has me fumbling for non-lethal options out of desperation. While I might not admire the mechanical side of combat, I’m more than smitten with its emotional connotations. Making combat easier and far less impenetrable relieves all manner of pressure that Baldur’s Gate 3 is otherwise thrilled to apply, and I’m just not ready for it to ask that much of me just yet. It’s how I want to play, and I don’t see that as a bad thing when the combat feels like an intrusive element of an otherwise fantastic game.