Baldur’s Gate 3 has left a long early access period to critical acclaim and massive success – and after playing it I can understand why. Baldur’s Gate 3 digitises the free-form gameplay of D&D in a way that keeps the spirit of the tabletop role-playing game intact, resulting in some of the most interactive and reactive narrative and gameplay that the medium has ever seen. Developers Larian are also using their own engine technology – admirable in an era when even the biggest AAA studios are falling back to Unreal Engine. I’ve tested the game to break down its visuals and performance, as well as provide optimised settings for a range of PCs.
Before discussing the game’s graphical options, I wanted to underscore just how well Baldur’s Gate 3 carries the analogue experience of Dungeons and Dragons, from the overt way the dungeon master’s narration sneaks into moments as internal thoughts beyond the player’s control, or the way you can navigate the environments in encounters, utilising the terrain and your attributes to come out a victor. It is all free form and flows wonderfully, and the amount of choice you have to affect the game in your own way is staggering.
My favourite aspect is how Larian has blended analogue elements from the tabletop experience into play where it matters most. In combat, the rules of chance are automatically dealt with to keep combat as fast and satisfying as possible in a turn-based system, but when it comes to big moments of player action, chance is made overt with a throw of a D20 die that you can see spinning in front of you and determining your fate. If you’ve ever played tabletop games you know how exhilarating this is – how empowering a natural 20 is and how hilarious it is to see a critical failure 1 pop up. As I see it, Baldur’s Gate 3 is the best translation of that D&D table experience into the digital realm that I have ever played.
