I’ve barely scratched the surface of Baldur’s Gate 3. I’m still communicating with a seemingly endless array of characters amidst a bustling grove mere metres away from the Mind Flayer ship that crash-landed following the game’s introduction. As a relative novice to Dungeons & Dragons, much of this universe and the mechanics, races, and lore that underpin it remain a mystery to me. But I’m eating it all up, welcoming the confusion that defines every moment.
Because I’ll inevitably spend dozens of hours with the console version, ahead of its launch I decided to take on a companion character with a pre-existing class and personality. There’s also an unfolding narrative I’ll likely stumble across as my adventure continues. I opted for Karlach - a buff, no-nonsense tiefling with a heart of gold, but also outfitted with the need to be brutal and honest when the situation calls for it. She’s also smoking hot, which is nice.
Even though I’ve only met a handful of characters and the grand narrative is unclear, it feels like I’m already making a mark on this world with my decisions. Conversations are filled with potential dialogue options, making use of dice rolls to avoid harsh combat encounters or using my class or race to either scare potential enemies or make allies out of people who will naturally sympathise with my plight. Many of these choices I keep on making in the opening hours feel insignificant, but they all matter. All thanks to Baldur’s Gate 3 making sure I can see, and more importantly, feel the impact within a matter of moments.
The moment-to-moment gameplay is a compelling mixture of Dragon Age and Larian’s own Divinity: Original Sin 2, albeit with more depth and a choice-based narrative which conveys more than the illusion of choice at every turn. Before I even reach a key location associated with the main quest, I keep stumbling across new characters and bespoke dilemmas like I’m actually partaking in a Dungeons & Dragons campaign managed by an imaginative dungeon master. I meet a fellow trio of adventurers, one of which is bleeding out on the ground. The situation takes a turn for the better as a high dice roll convinces them to let me help, but after I decide to be honest about my identity as a tiefling who doesn't worship a specific religion, a sword is drawn and bloodshed soon follows. Moments later and I’m begrudgingly looting the corpses. I couldn’t help but think about who these people were, or what potential quests or relationships might have come to pass if I had done something even slightly differently.
Encounters like this happen all the time, to the point that I’m convinced the 17,000 endings that Larian has been hyping up might not be too far-fetched after all. A brief walk away from my previous skirmish, a fellow tiefling sat atop a hill watching the stars through a fancy telescope. Except she isn’t alone, and an evil goblin is currently beating her to death and will mark her end unless I step into help. The fight was fierce, but with most of my party situated at the bottom of a hill, we were too slow in our actions to prevent the young girl from meeting her end. I mourn her loss - but not before looting her corpse - and find the same questions surfacing in my mind. How different would things have been if I had saved her, and would that had led to more new friends that I’ll now never see.
In a luscious cove flirting with the sea a little boy is under the spell of a siren song. I walk up to him and try to snap him out of his stupor, but I don’t even realise that I’m falling into the very same trap. Every other minute I swear I’m not only discovering excellent scripted sequences off the beaten path, but using the mechanics and storytelling devices to fill in the cracks myself, so everything feels as if it’s of my own making.
When I actually bother pursuing the main quest, it becomes obvious that the road forward is splintered into several different variables. I can decide to escort refugees to a new home or otherthrow the grove’s leadership in the name of overriding prejudice and paranoia. Alternatively, the option is there to draw my sword and cut everyone down and take the place over for myself. Anything is possible and everything I do has consequences, with Baldur’s Gate 3 making it abundantly clear at every opportunity. This adventure seems endless to me, and knowing I have so much more to see that I can’t possibly imagine right now.