Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the most highly acclaimed games of the year, marrying the best of video games with the complexity and nuance of a Dungeons and Dragons campaign. It’s unashamedly a PC-centric title, with a dense interface and controls best suited for a computer keyboard so it’s not totally clear how well the game will fare on PS5. Adding to potential controller quirks, the PC build has rather problematic performance in a handful of areas later in the game, which threaten to disrupt the PS5 and its relatively meagre CPU. Happily, PlayStation 5 manages to deliver a creditable rendition of the game, but the now legendary Act Three continues to humble CPU performance – perhaps more than we anticipated going in.
Baldur’s Gate 3 has been available on PC for about a month now and most of the findings from that version apply equally to the PS5 release. It’s definitely a good-looking game, though not a boundary-pushing one – its visual best suited to the elevated camera angle. Up close, you see the limitations of Larian’s proprietary engine tech, with lighting and model detail that doesn’t always survive close scrutiny, but it looks perfectly fine most of the time, especially in naturally-grounded outdoor scenes.
That also mostly applies to the game’s control options. Baldur’s Gate 3 is probably best enjoyed with a mouse and keyboard on its original host platform but also supports gamepad controls on both PS5 and PC. At the beginning of the game this works mostly fine, with various radial menus and trigger-based toggles serving up the full range of gameplay options. Unfortunately this does seem to become a bit cumbersome as you progress, as the full range of possible abilities slightly overwhelm the interface.
