14 DAY TRIAL // 
Baldur’s Gate is one the sweetest bells that can ring in the ear of a seasoned adventurer. Next to Icewind Dale and Planescape Torment, it brings back memories of a time when RPGs meant more than just hacking around, trying to figure out the skill trees with the most DPS and trying to bag the newest cosmetics. But can the tales from the Sword Coast be as alluring today as they were 20 years ago?
It is no secret that Baldur’s Gate 3 is hailed as one of the best RPGs released lately, and a serious contester for the coveted GOTY title. At least on PC, the home of old school RPGs. But the game was released recently on PS5 as well, and while the experience is still brilliant, there are some compromises that turn the critical 20 success roll from PC into a slightly less engaging tale.
Larian Studios has already made a name for itself with games like Original Sin II, but it all fades in comparison with the adventure they managed to forge in the world of Faerun. After the somewhat troubled early phase on Stadia, the game managed to build high expectations from the veterans of the genre, and the final release turned the heads of even those who would not invest hundreds of hours in a game.
Baldur’s Gate III have risen above those expectations and once again reminds us why Dungeons and Dragons is the king of the RPG genre, breaking records and delighting players. The developers managed to build a game that pays attention even to the tiniest details, making you feel teleported in the virtual world of the game, where you decide how to tackle the story that will put your mettle to the test.
One of the crowd favorite features of RPGs is the very first step on your journey: the character creation system, and BG3 does not disappoint. Next to the seven origin characters, you can build your custom one. There are a whopping number of 11 races to choose from, most of them having their own subdivisions with their own perks. For example, a Forest Gnome gets to speak natively to animals, and they enjoy Intelligence and Dexterity bonuses, while a Rock Gnome will start their journey with Intelligence and Strength bonuses.
Then, you have to choose one of the 12 classes, again picking a subclass, further personalizing the way you want to approach the challenge ahead. The process continues with you choosing your background, abilities, customizing the look of your character to your liking and picking a guardian for your character. This process can be delightfully long, allowing you to tailor your avatar in the tiniest details. It is the best implementation of D&D character creation we have ever seen.
After you are happy with your hero, BG3 starts with a series of adrenaline pumping images and throws you into deep waters. There is no slow build up, no lighthearted tutorial – you start the game fighting for your life and trying to find a way-out from a Mind-flayer nautilus, after being infected with a tadpole, while outside dragon mounted Githyanki are trying to destroy the vessel.
After a short journey that has you pinned to your seat you wake up among the debris left behind by the crash of the nautiloid and you start your perilous quest to remove the tadpole from your head before you turn into a Mindflayer yourself. But this tall order cannot be accomplished alone, so you will gather allies, you will get involved in local problems and large conspiracies, solve both big and small quests, until you reach the grand finale.
The story is very well written, as are the characters, with whom you will develop meaningful relationships. Your companions are built to solicit emotional responses: you might like them or hate them, agree with their goals or despise their purpose, but one thing is certain you will not remain neutral. You can adventure with a maximum of three companions at a time, the rest waiting for you at your campsite.
As the story unfolds you will discover more about your companions, who will also get strong opinions about the course you choose to take while solving quests. They might even get inspired by your actions, granting various bonuses that can be very helpful in tight situations. Their presence cannot be taken for granted, and you can expect several twists and turns on your way to salvation.
A beautiful and enticing aspect of the game is that there is no good or bad decision – there is only your solution, and the developers encourage you to just go with the flow and see where your decisions and actions take you. You may choose to ally with light or the dark, exploit or help people, be selfish or compassionate. This approach grants a huge replay value to BG3, that even though is very, very long compared to modern game standards can be fully experienced only through multiple playthroughs.
Your freedom, although limited by the great scheme of the main plot, leaves you enough maneuvering space, so you fill your adventure truly your own. You can get into locked places by lockpicking them, trying to find the key, breaking down the door or even teleporting inside if you find a crack you can see through. Or, if you have a druid, you can shapeshift into a mouse and fit through a burrow hole.
The options, although not unlimited show a fresh approach that allow gamers to use their heads and choose their favorite way of doing things. This flexibility also applies to the battles that allow the same amount of creativity. You can always let the blades and spells do your talking, but most of the time there is also a different way. And we are not talking just about Intimidation or Persuasion, but also of situations where you can turn the tides of battle by breaking mind control spells by throwing objects at the target or taking out large groups of enemies by blowing up a series of well-placed barrels.
There are also mandatory plot turns imposed by the developers in order to have continuity in the story, that break this spell a bit. The best example is Dror Ragzlin, one of the three goblin bosses you have to eliminate if you decide to save the Emerald Grove. While in case of the other two you can find a clever way to deal with them without turning the entire camp hostile, the third goblin’s demise seems to inevitably put you at deadly odds with the entire hoard – even if no one witnessed or heard you facilitating Ragzlin’s early demise.
There are many long pages we could fill by writing about the story, the characters, the battle system and why BG3 is not just a brilliant RPG, but also one of the best games released in a long time. But the beauty of the game is better discovered personally by embarking on the journey no one should miss, a journey filled with countless awe-inspiring moments.
At the beginning we mentioned that the PS5 version has some shortcomings compared to its PC counterpart. The most obvious is the control scheme, that evidently was devised for keyboard and mouse and then adapted to a controller. While the developers did their best to fit the commands in a way that makes sense on a controller, the experience still feels a bit clumsy.
It takes much more effort on a controller to go through crates stacked to a wall or reach other containers in higher places or in the background. This process is also hardened by your companions stumbling into your focus area thus initiating an unwanted dialogue. Things become even harder if you try to interact with a small object, making you yearn for a mouse that can pinpoint exactly the items you want.
The use of the DualSense controllers’ adaptive triggers is also nothing more than a gimmick. The resistance of the triggers does not add anything to the experience of selecting party members or opening the inventory. If anything, they make it more imprecise. Also, even after the first patch the mechanism seem to be working randomly, the game disabling temporarily the function even though it is enabled in the options menu.
The second part where you can feel a small downgrade is the graphics. Don’t get me wrong, BG3 still looks great on PS5, but the textures take longer to load, and the overall visuals shine more on PC. Combined with a seemingly higher number of bugs, the console version for now is definitely not as smooth as the PC version.
The cutscenes that chose to show scenes from inside the object instead of the camera being placed in the correct position, or the music that mysteriously pauses in random situations are not more than annoying, but they are proof that the PC version got much more polish than the PS5 one. And there are also several other bugs, that though are not game breaking, they are still very annoying.
The Good
- Huge open world full of details
- Complex and engaging gameplay
- Amazing storytelling and character building
The Bad
- The console controls are clumsy
- Buggier compared to the PC version
- Long loading times
Conclusion
No matter if you are a fan of RPGs or not, Baldur’s Gate III is a game that you should experience and let yourself be enveloped in the adventure that will make you feel not just part of it but will actually make you believe that you are living it.
Review key provided by the developer.
