The Best Things About Baldur’s Gate 3

Baldur’s Gate 3 won 2023 Game of the Year and it definitely deserves it! Here are some highlights of what makes it so amazing.

Overview

I’ve been playing Baldur’s Gate 3 (2023) pretty consistently since it came out and finally finished a full playthrough – by the end I realized that this is my new favorite game! Between the gameplay, the characters, and the story, there’s a lot to love. Plus, it’s super LGBTQ+ friendly.

Gameplay

At it’s core, this is basically D&D in video game format, so the fighting style is turn-based and revolves around class and ability/spell slots. The following classes are available:

• Barbarian
• Bard
• Cleric
• Druid
• Fighter
• Monk
• Paladin (includes an Oathbreaker route)
• Ranger
• Rogue
• Sorcerer
• Warlock
• Wizard

Furthermore, you can tailor the class for yourself and your companions while you level up. For example, each class has a subclass that gives you different benefits, and you can enhance your skillset with things like spells outside your main class (even for melee style classes), special attacks, buffs, etc. You can only have a limited quantity of spells and special abilities learned at a time, so even if you play the same class multiple times or share a class with a companion, you can have totally different builds based on what you pick per level up.

Every player has their own preferences for classes, so I won’t say you should or shouldn’t use any particular classes, but I will offer my own personal insight on the classes:

I have found that the most helpful classes seem to Cleric, Druid, Fighter, and Ranger, and the least helpful seem to be Bard, Monk, and Sorcerer. Monk is certainly one of the more unique classes, and seems like it will be good at first, so maybe if I’d gotten far enough with that one I would have gotten to a point where it was worth it, but it’s difficult to start with because you’re very limited in what weapons and armor you can wield. Warlock feels a bit front-loaded to me, in that it’s great to start off, but the further I got, the more I felt limited with it compared to some of the other classes I had in my party at the same time. This is essentially the opposite for many of the other classes that didn’t impress me much at the beginning, but turned into something very powerful mid-game onward.

At the start of each fight, the turn order is set and for every round, each character gets one turn. From there, they can use a combination of movement, actions, and bonus actions to complete their turn. A handful of classes like Fighter, Barbarian, and Ranger can reach a certain level up that allows them to use most of their actions twice in the same turn, so you can get to a point where your attacking several times in a single turn. Some abilities are limitless, while others – like spells and some attacks – have a cost (either single use per rest, or a spell slot or equivalent). If you’re good at strategizing, you can get the most bang out of your buck by using your traversal and actions/bonus actions to the max and being deliberate about which types of abilities are used by you and your companions based on your resources and positions in the queue, and the enemies’ health, resistances, and locations. 

Outside of fights, there is also a significant D&D style throughout the game in other ways. During dialogue, you have certain instances where you are required to roll a dice to achieve your desired result. There are also automatic dice rolls as you traverse the open world to potentially notice hidden things, and they are built into your attacks with each move giving you a percentage up front on how likely it is to hit.

Characters

Aside from your original character (known as Tav due to the game’s default name, although you can change this), there are 10 potential companions and your Dream Visitor. All of these characters are incredibly fascinating, including your Tav thanks to all the different ways you can customize your character and your story. There are also many awesome non-playable characters (NPCs) who were some of my favorite characters in the game.

Tav

This character creator is one of my favorites. Although you can’t get into the minutia of specific facial features like other games, the default faces are generally quite good, and I’ve made some of my favorite characters I’ve ever created here. You can fully customize the race, gender presentation, gender identity, gender physicality, voice, and other features. They even have a non-binary option, so you could have a male presenting character who identifies as female or non-binary, and vice versa – you can have whichever body parts you want regardless of either of those selections. It doesn’t really impact the story, especially since you can romance any applicable companions regardless of your gender or identity, but as a trans/non-binary person myself, it was really cool to have all these options you don’t normally get in a game. In addition to your class/subclass, you can choose from a wide variety of races, and can modify your class and some aspects of your look throughout the game (once selected, race and gender presentation can’t be changed later, but you can change pretty much any other aspect about your look, as well as your name, throughout the game).

Beyond the character creator, there are also several ways you can make each playthrough unique for your Tav. There is an option when starting out to be a Dark Urge character, meaning you are more inclined toward making evil decisions. This path also unlocks several scenes and dialogue options that aren’t available in a regular playthrough. Additionally, you can also completely alter the overarching course of the game based on decisions made throughout, regardless of whether you are playing a regular or Dark Urge character. For example, early in the game, you have the option to side with the Grove or with the Goblins, and whichever you choose results in different consequences and companion options. Although the main storybeats are roughly the same in each playthrough, the choices you make along the way can allow for widely varying experiences each time. Some decisions aren’t black and white/good or evil decisions, either, so you can mix and match the routes you take and choices you make for a tailored playthrough.

Companions

There are six companions you can get early on when following the standard path (Act I):

• Shadowheart  (Jennifer English) – Half-Elf Cleric
• Astarion (Neil Newbon) – Elf Rogue
• Gale (Tim Downie) – Human Wizard
• Lae’zel (Devora Wilde) – Githyanki Fighter
• Wyll (Theo Solomon) – Human Warlock [pictured with NPC Mizora]
• Karlach (Samantha Beart) – Tiefling Barbarian [not pictured]

There are three more you meet in Act I, but can’t fully recruit until Act II:

• Jaheira (Tracy Wiles) – Half-Elf Druid
• Halsin (Dave Jones) – Elf Druid [can’t be recruited in same playthrough as Minthara]
• Minthara (Emma Gregory) – Drow Paladin [can’t be recruited in same playthrough as Halsin]

Finally, in Act III, you can recruit one more companion (well, technically two):

• Minsc (Matthew Mercer) – Human Ranger, and his beloved hamster Boo

One of the things that I find so fascinating about this game is that it subverts gender norms when it comes to the companions. Aside from the Druids, of which there is one of each gender as an option, the women companions rock either powerful melee or mage-enhanced melee classes, while the men are either predominantly long range, or close range but focused more on traversal and number of attacks than brute strength.

Barring multiplayer, solo players can have up to 3 companions at any time. As I mentioned before, every romanceable companion can be pursued regardless of what type of character you are playing, so if you plan to romance someone, it’s advisable to have your romantic partner as one of your main companions. All but two companions, Jaheira and Minsc, are romanceable. Some will even allow you to be polyamorous, though I haven’t explored this route so I’m not sure which companions are okay with it or how to go about it, I’ve just heard it is an option that does exist depending on how you go about it.

Jaheira and Minsc are not new to this game. I’ve never played the prior Baldur’s Gate games, but apparently they are both major characters in those and very close friends. From what I’ve gathered, the main things you need to know if you didn’t play the other games either is that they are over 100 years old, and Minsc and Boo spent about 60 years petrified in the city while everyone assumed they were a statue. 

I love the companions so much. Each and every one of them is so interesting. Karlach is this big, passionate barbarian who is literally on fire and dances every time you pause for a moment. Lae’zel and Minthara are a bit intimidating but both were manipulated by their religions and can be guided to the truth. Wyll literally battles with his own demons, trying to remain honorable while enduring a curse (which can technically be avoided, but it will cost you Karlach to do so). Gale betrayed an actual goddess and has to live with the deadly consequences. Astarion is a vampire spawn who was tortured by his vampire lord, but tries to hide his pain with sarcasm and snark. Shadowheart is on a mission to honor her goddess and become a Justicar, and will stop at nothing to fulfill this (note: Shadowheart is the one companion I don’t much care for, but I’m in the minority here; she’s pretty callous and racist, and part of her story most likely leads to a consequence I don’t like, discussed below, but I still find her story to be interesting and apparently she’s the most commonly romanced companion). Jaheira is a wisened badass who leads the Harpers. Minsc may not be the sharpest, but he has Boo and Jaheira to help him with that, and he makes up for it with an abundance of zeal. Admittedly, I haven’t fully succeeded yet in recruiting Halsin so I can’t say much about him, but he’s the Archdruid at the start and seems cool.

NPCs

Aside from the companions, there are a handful of significant NPCs I want to mention as well. Most notable is your honorary companion, the Dream Visitor. They also have a mini-character creator, so you can modify their look each playthrough. Regardless of their appearance, they have a truly fascinating story and turned into one of my favorite parts of the game.

Additionally, we have lesbian power couple Isobel (Mia Foo) and Dame Aylin (Helen Keeley). These poor woman have been separated for about a century due to various circumstances, but seeing them reunited warms my heart. If you’re not careful, though, you may lose one or both of them before this happens, depending on your actions, especially if you have Shadowheart with you during the Gauntlet of Shar in Act II (note: if you don’t have Shadowheart in your active party during this part, she will leave your group permanently, but if you do, it’s very difficult to save Dame Aylin).

Also, two of the main villains are voiced by J.K. Simmons (General Ketheric Thorm) and Jason Isaacs (Lord Enver Gortash), so it’s hard to go wrong there!

Story

I’ve hinted at parts of the story already, but lets delve a little deeper. I gotta say, when I started playing, I wasn’t expecting much from the story. I figured it would just be pretty standard/generic, but by the time I got to Act III, it was one of my favorite aspects of the game. It’s filled with twists and turns and several moments that truly surprised me. I don’t want to say too much, because I don’t want to ruin the various reveals, but the more I learned about the story, the more I wanted to replay the game so I could explore early things with more context, or test out how different decisions cause different results. 

Since I’ve only made it through one full playthrough, I haven’t finished every companions’ story, but I’ve gotten to the middle of Act II several times – so I managed to complete several on my full playthrough and at least start most of the rest in my other half-finished attempts, and I’ve enjoyed them all. In other games with lovable companions, like Mass Effect and Dragon Age, there were always a few companions I was excited about and a few who didn’t pique my interest, so I never felt the need to play the entire thing over again to try out different routes and flesh out different companions’ stories. In this game, though, I already have plans to replay the game all the way through at least two more times so I can finish the remaining companions’ stories, as well as try out different paths by making different decisions, because I’m so excited to see what else this story has to offer. 

Also, different companions have different dispositions and approval/disproval triggers, so you can tailor your party to the type of character you’re playing. For example, if you’re doing a Dark Urge character, you probably are going to want your party to include Astarion, since he is more inclined than other companions to support your more nefarious decisions, and Minthara, who is one of the “bad guys” at first. If you’re going to go fully dark route, there’s a good chance you’ll side with the Goblins in Act I, which is almost guaranteed to allow you to recruit Minthara. Baldur’s Gate 3 recently made an update that allows you to recruit her without doing this, but you have to knock her out in battle instead. In any case, if you want to see what happens if you side with the Goblins instead of the Grove, this would be the time to do it. Just know that if you have Minthara, you can’t recruit Halsin, and Wyll will leave your party if you attack the Grove. I’ve made it most of the way through Act II as a Dark Urge and found Lae’zel works pretty well with this build, though I’d imagine Shadowheart would probably fit in as well, since her goddess is on the darker side (literally–she’s the goddess of darkness and night). Even if you aren’t doing a Dark Urge character, certain characters work better or worse with each other so you can plan your party around that as well. For example, Lae’zel and Shadowheart hate each other, so I usually keep them separated–although I have wondered what it might be like to force these rivals to work together.

Multiplayer

One last thing I want to discuss is the multiplayer function. I avoided it for a bit, because I wasn’t a huge fan of the multiplayer design in Larion Studio’s prior game, Divinity: Original Sin II (2017). In this game, though, it actually works quite well. Only one player can “host” a campaign, so they would be responsible for all manual saves and such, and any invited players create a designated character for that playthrough. You can start as early as the character creator, allowing you to potentially play the entire game with a friend or three. You do lose one companion slot per player you invite, however, but companions can be recruited by any players, so if it’s just you and one other player, you can each have an assigned companion to control and interact with. Also, any friendly characters who have neighboring turns in a particular fight can be played simultaneously. So say your Tav’s spot in the queue is next to your friend’s Tav or companions’ turn, you can both make your moves without waiting for the other to finish. This helps ensure the fights don’t get too boring, although you probably want to communicate your choices to your partner or else you might inadvertently both select to attack the same character, which could potentially be problematic if the first one to attack kills the character or pushes them away before the second can finish their attack, essentially wasting their move. You can also choose whether or not to “eavesdrop” on your partner’s dialogue with their companions or NPCs, so long as it’s not a required cut scene, which is helpful if you want to see what they are saying or would rather take the time to do something else.

Conclusion

I’m so in love with this game. I’m not typically one to replay a story game, but one playthrough was not nearly enough to accomplish everything this game has to offer. I can’t wait to explore more storylines and learn more about the companions I haven’t fully supported just yet. Heck, I didn’t even talk about the easily missed side quests that you might not notice without a bit of exploring, so I’m sure there’s plenty of content I haven’t even stumbled across just yet.

My one complaint is that it becomes gradually more difficult to parse out where to go and what to do as you progress, especially in Act III where I found myself googling guides several times. But that really isn’t a big enough issue to ruin the whole game, and now that I have a good idea of what needs to be done, I doubt it will be as much of a problem on the next playthrough. I’m just happy I get to spend more time with my wonderful companions.

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