This article does not contain spoilers.

I should preface this by saying that I have never played Dungeons and Dragons in my life, and knew very little about it before playing Baldur’s Gate 3. I started playing the game because it was recommended to me by my partner and I was somewhat skeptical about it, because it was so foreign to me. It was nothing like I expected, in the best way possible.

I am not a huge gamer. Even though I work on games, I tend to enjoy that more than actually playing games. I am quite picky with the games I play. There are quite a lot of games that I have enjoyed a ton, but nothing comes close to Baldur’s Gate 3, it is by far the best game I have ever played.

My first playthrough took me around 80 hours, where I took my time but didn’t do most side-quests (which I didn’t even know existed). My partner’s playthrough is, at the time of writing, 196 hours long and we’re only now moving into the end game. I have also started a few playthroughs to explore different classes and approaches to the game at higher difficulties. It will be a long time before I’m done playing this game.

For brevity, I’ll abbreviate Baldur’s Gate 3 to BG3 going forward.

Endless choice and replayability

Having choices is of course a core part of RPGs, but BG3 takes this to almost an extreme. You don’t feel forced to take a particular path in your playthrough and there are no predefined paths you can take.

Choices you make early on can have a lot of influence on later parts of the game. The options you are given are not just to get a particular response from an NPC, but actually have a huge impact on the world in later acts.

No two playthroughs are the same. You can play as a murderous psychopath, a charming bard, or even as a cat. Even if you pick the infamous stealth archer min-max build, it’s highly likely two playthroughs will be radically different, even when you follow an Honor Mode guide to complete the game.

Romancing characters is done incredibly well and offers a ton of choices as well. You cannot romance all characters at once, and romancing a different companion offers even more value to start another playthrough.

On the topic of romance, I feel obliged to mention the ‘bear scene’ (if you know, you know). The fact that Larian took the time to add this as an option to me is incredible, regardless of which choice you made if you encountered this, the fact it’s there is already amazing to me.

Cohesiveness of the story

It’s incredible to me how cohesive the story is. With so many different ways to do missions, get somewhere or handle situations you would think there would be many inconsistencies later in the game.

Sure, there might be some tiny inconsistencies here and there, but to me it’s amazing how a game where the story is not linear apart from the three Acts can make the story of any playthrough feel like it was written to be played this way.

The overarching story of BG3 has some of the best storytelling that I have ever seen in a game, even better than most movies or TV series. Everything comes together, there are many plot twists that all make sense.

Everything in BG3 is interconnected. There are no parts of the story or world that feel out-of-place. Random NPCs you encounter in Act 1 will often reappear later in the game (unless you kill them for fun).

Having a game with such freedom of choice with a better, more cohesive story than most TV series and movies is nothing short of amazing.

Character development

The character development in BG3 is phenomenal, for companions as well as NPCs, both with phenomenal voice acting. Even side characters you meet when making certain choices in Act 1 will show up in later acts, and have gone through some development. The development of the dream visitor is amazing as well.

The villains in the game are so incredibly well-written. The villains are not just your everyday antagonists, they have complex personalities, there is character development for them during the game, tons of backstory and with some you can even work together if you like.

And that is such an amazing part of the game to me as well: there is such a degree of freedom to morality. Without getting too much into the political influence of modern games, I think BG3 does an amazing job of offering choices without forcing anything upon the player, which I think is the best approach, regardless of what your personal preferences are.

To expand a bit upon the complex personality of NPCs, one thing I dislike in some games is when all characters are super obviously ‘good’ or ‘bad’. This is definitely not the case in BG3. Yes, there are some ’evil’ characters, but even a literal devil in the game is presented in an almost ‘good’ way in some parts. This moral ambiguity adds another amazing layer to the story.

The companions deserve mentioning here too, they all have their own storyline with tons of choices, will (dis)approve of your choices and their personalities can change drastically based on decisions made. A part that I have not played myself, but only seen in playthrough videos is the fact that for many characters, you can play with them as the main character, unlocking more unique content.

Attention to detail

The attention to detail in BG3 is absolutely insane, which shows in many ways. A great example is that there are some voice lines that you will only hear in a modded playthrough, as your character enters a scene in a state that isn’t possible in the vanilla game. Even in the vanilla game there are tons of hidden details that most players will miss.

Larian added some details in the game that they knew less than one percent of players will ever see, some might still be undiscovered. This is such a stark contrast to some released games that feel unpolished, or some even unfinished, until a few months after release.

A game like BG3 obviously needs a lot of failsafes, think of cases where crucial NPCs get killed, locking you out of progressing a certain quest. The failsafes in BG3 are very subtle, they don’t limit your freedom to kill certain NPCs and even the failsafes have failsafes. I have had a few nights where I binge-watched videos about the failsafes in BG3 and it’s still incredible to me how many edge cases were covered.

The attention to detail is also clear with NPCs in the game. Nearly all NPCs have voice lines, most you can talk to, and quite a few completely random NPCs will offer some sort of side quest (that of course fit into the rest of the story really well). The banter between companions is another great touch as well.

Post-launch patches

To me, there is a very big difference between post-launch patches to make the game playable versus patches that improve the game. I won’t be naming any games, but there are some prominent examples of games that were released and needed a few patches (not counting the day-one patch) just to be playable. BG3 was not one of them.

Larian did release patches after launch, but these were mostly to improve the game further and take care of community feedback. Some amazing features have been added here, like Honor Mode and the epilogue scenes. In addition, some voice lines have been replaced, they were already fine, but the fact Larian took the time to improve further on this to me is great.

Mod support

Unofficial mod support was already available, but in a post-release patch, Larian added native mod support. Right now, it’s even possible to have cross-platform multiplayer sessions with mods enabled (of course with some platform restrictions). The mods add a ton of new content and possibilities, adding even more replayability to the game.

Music

I’m a huge fan of the soundtrack of BG3. The music fits the game incredibly well. The song of the boss fight with one of my favourite characters of the game, Raphael, still gives me goosebumps when I hear it. Then there’s also the fact that this character stars in his own boss song, which is amazing to me as well.

Lack of microtransactions

One of the things BG3 does that I hope will be adopted by other games is the lack of microtransactions. There are no DLCs and no special currencies purchased with real money. You buy the game and that’s it. All post-release content was made available to all players.

The lack of microtransactions is another way to see that BG3 was made to be an amazing game, not as a corporate cash-grab. I’m not saying BG3 could never be made with investors being involved, but the freedom Larian had regarding monetization by not having to report to investors cannot be ignored.

Conclusion

Baldur’s Gate 3 has set a new gold standard for RPGs. In my opinion, this is, so far, the closest we have ever gotten to a ‘perfect’ RPG. Whether you tend to play casual or are into min-maxing your builds at the highest difficulty, BG3 is a game worth playing, over and over.

BG3 sets an example that I hope many games - both RPGs and other genres - will follow. There are many conclusions you can draw from BG3’s success about the games industry as a whole.

To me, it will be a game that I will keep playing for a long time. With no DnD experience there is a ton for me to discover in the base game already, and after that there will be tons more with the official and unofficial mods.