Game Information
Game Title: Baldur’s Gate 3
Platforms:
- PC (Aug 3, 2023)
- PlayStation 5 (Sep 6, 2023)
Trailers:
- Baldur’s Gate 3 Opening Cinematic
- Baldur’s Gate 3 World Gameplay Reveal Announcement
- Baldur’s Gate 3 - Official Announcement Trailer
Developer: Larian Studios
Review Aggregator:
OpenCritic - -1 average - -1% recommended - 13 reviews
Critic Reviews
ACG - Jeremy Penter - Unscored
Video Review - Quote not available
Attack of the Fanboy - Noah Nelson - Unscored
Baldur’s Gate 3 shocks me with it’s high level of player freedom found in customization, decisions, and consequences, and the compelling stories, both micro and macro, mixed with the expansive gameplay possibilities.
Checkpoint Gaming - Edie W-K - Unscored
Although my time with the game hasn’t been enough to yet form a full critique, I can already tell that Baldur’s Gate 3 is a very impressive feather in Larian Studio’s cap.
GGRecon - Ava Thompson-Powell - Unscored
Larian Studios is on a heck of a hot streak, and Baldur’s Gate 3’s early signs suggest it could be the studio’s biggest success to date. With rich lore and ample customisation for how you approach the world alongside gorgeous visuals, it’s shaping up to be a title that I’ll remember for a long time - and I’m only in Act 1.
GamesRadar+ - Ali Jones - Unscored
For now, suffice to say that Baldur’s Gate 3 feels a little bit like Larian has accomplished the impossible. This is an entire, years-long pen-and-paper roleplaying campaign realized in beautiful fidelity, in a way that brings every tiny detail of your mind’s eye to life.
GamingTrend - David Flynn, Ron Burke - Unscored
They simply don’t make ‘em like this, and I can’t wait to experience all this game has to offer.
IGN - Leana Hafer - Unscored
On the whole, I really am loving Baldur’s Gate 3 so far.
PCGamesN - Paul Kelly - Unscored
Baldur’s Gate 3’s world is beautiful, layered and complex, and challenges you to attack it how you want. And though this is what makes it a little daunting, it’s also what makes me eager to dive back in and see where the adventure is going.
Screen Rant - Cody Gravelle - Unscored
Baldur’s Gate 3 is imposing in stature and its best moments are truly memorable, but some early issues with scale suggest an uneven experience.
Wccftech - Francesco De Meo - Unscored
As of now, however, I feel Larian Studios has done a tremendous job, creating one, if not the most engaging cRPG in a very long time.
We Got This Covered - Ash Martinez - 4.5 / 5
An excellent follow-up to its decades-old predecessor, ‘Baldur’s Gate III’ sets a new gold standard for RPGs in the modern age. Though it has its fair share of buggy problems, the vibrant world, intriguing storytelling, and captivating gameplay more than make up for its shortcomings.
ZTGD - Terrence Johnson - 9.5 / 10
The team at Larian Studios are to be commended, Baldur’s Gate 3 is nothing short of a masterpiece when it comes to RPG’s.
eXputer - Huzaifah Durrani - 5 / 5
Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the greatest RPGs of all time, and a testament to the talent of developer Larian Studios.
Thanks to @simple@lemm.ee
You know a game is going to be good when half the industry cries and shits its pants and begs not to be held to its standard.
As someone that was a late teenager during the run of Infinity Engine games, and then witnessed the subsequent consolization and decline of CRPGs… seeing Baldur’s Gate as a CRPG again and having it be a marquee AAA-caliber release is kinda mind-blowing.
The 2000s were a mistake, and so much of modern indie development is about undoing those mistakes. “Boomer” shooters, immersive sims, CRPGs, point and click adventures? All back on the menu, baby.
There’ve been fantastic CRPGs in the last handful of years. Off the top of my head: Divinity Original Sin 2 (2017), PoE/PoE2(2015/2018), Tyranny(2016), Torment: Tides of Numenera(2017), Pathfinder Kingmaker/WotR(2018/2021), and Disco Elysium1 (2019).
There’s definitely been a comeback, I feel like I’ve been eating good on that side for a while now.
1Play this game if you haven’t. It’s so fucking good
Sorry what’s a boomer shooter?😳
Like the og doom
Shooters that are just about shooting the baddies in a usually retro style, things like that Warhammer 40k Boltgun, as opposed to the more complex Darkide.
While I love me some Doom and grew up with boomer shooters, I am not sure if FPS games moving on and expanding past them can be considered a mistake.
I am digging the shit out of Baldur’s Gate 3 tho. This is RPG done right. I bought it during early access years back and I literally took PTO off work to play the final release on launch day.
Has anyone played it on the Deck yet? What’s the experience like?
I have. One small caveat is that I was using the deck to stream it from my Desktop where I have much better hardware (and I’ve noticed that some games play differently locally on the Deck vs streaming, so YMMV).
I played probably 2 hours so far. I wasn’t able to get the controls to work comfortably. I tried 2 of the top listed control configs without much success.
There are a lot of camera controls, like camera rotation, elevation changes, etc and they just aren’t intuitive. One mapped camera rotation to L1 and R1, one mapped it to the back L and R keys (L4 and R4 I think).
None of the configs seemed to support using the analog sticks or d-pad to navigate/make ui selections so instead you’re stuck using the right touchpad to control the mouse cursor and R2 for selecting/left click.
For context, I enjoyed Divinity 2 massively on PC with an Xbox controller, and I feel like it was much more intuitive.
If anyone has any suggestions, I’m itching to play it, but until I find a better solution keyboard and mouse might be the best way.
Thanks!
I don’t have a steam deck but do have chronic neck issues so playing mouse and keyboard is no longer an option for me.
If the controller support isn’t good I’m going to pass for now.
but do have chronic neck issues so playing mouse and keyboard is no longer an option for me.
It’s like looking in a very hunched over mirror lol. Same neck issues, friend. It’s been a difficult transition to couch gaming but the steam deck helps bridge the gap. Can’t recommend it enough.
Controller support is pretty good. I’m playing with a PS5 controller and pretty much the whole interface has been redesigned to fit it. It feels like it was an experience designed to fit the systems of the game opposed to fit a controller onto the PC release of the game.
Most annoying for me was End Turn was mapped to Y/Triangle and I kept pressing it. I swapped it to R2 and haven’t had any more slipups.
There’s refinements and QoL changes to be made for sure, but I’ve been surprised at how well it plays so far.
Cool I use a ps controller too.
I’ll have to check the game out once my cash flow improved.
I’m playing with controller and it works just fine. Only thing I could not yet figure out was how to make t gf e whole party sneak at once.
Thanks! I guess I’ll wait a little bit then before giving it a try.
Thanks for the insight this answered a lot of questions re: playing on my deck as well
I would see what digital foundry says before playing it on deck. They have been very good at settings recommendations and performance reviews for games.
Hope the text is not too small though
Played for the last few hours on my new Steam Deck (the one with the big disk). Game wouldn’t load and I had to select Experimental Proton or whatever it’s called.
Once I did everything has been fine.
Playing handheld and I’ve had no issues.
The text is readable, but it is smaller than I’d like. I haven’t played with any settings so maybe I can fix that. But not an issue while playing.
I’m sure some graphics aren’t optimized or something but the game plays and I’m happy.
Not tested version that came today but saying do not think it’s perfect game for deck as most actions relay on using mouse. Also game has some issues with Vulcan so for now I’m using Direct X
I’m playing docked on the Deck. Animations and cut scenes play really well. If you can, I’d recommend using a Bluetooth controller as I’ve found the deck specific controls to not be the best. The controller UI takes a little getting used to but it is pretty good now I’ve been playing a few hours.
The biggest negative is, naturally, the graphics. It’s smooth enough, but there is just a lot of blurriness and weird edging I can’t get rid of on any setting. In the close up cut scenes that pretty much goes away. That said, I’m still having a lot of fun and none of that was a deal breaker for me. It runs significantly better than it did in EA for me.
The one ‘annoying’ thing that has happened is I’m the video cut scenes there is quite a significant audio delay. It is not there for the in-engine ones or during combat. I’ve only seen two of these though and they’re right at the start of the game. I just watched on YouTube to see them properly.
I’m kinda shocked we’re seeing a major game release where it actually works well day one. They don’t even have to write an apology letter.
It works great day one. Multiplayer actually works and is easy to do. No shitty mobile game features. No shitty micro transactions. No shitty battle pass that keeps blinking in the corner reminding you that you haven’t bought it.
No predatory user hostile features.
See, every other video game company, it can still be done!
I mean, technically speaking, it isn’t Day 1. It’s Day 1031.
It’s been in EA for over a year, so they’ve already worked the bugs out.
…More like three years.
I always wondered what EA stood for in EA Games!
The most I’ve seen was a few t-poses in some cutscenes, but nothing crazy.
I had to take today & tomorrow off because I hit my vacation cap at work and would lose my days if I didn’t.
Opened the internet this morning & saw that the BG3 release date is today.
Well. I now know what I’m doing with my next 4 days. Game is currently downloading on my PC.
Well. I now know what I’m doing with my next 4 days. Game is currently downloading on my PC.
Yeah, depending on your connection, will probably be done in 4 days :)
Oh no. There goes my workday productivity.
Started yesterday evening and it’s been so much fun. Already sacrificed some sleep
I’m really interested in playing this on the Deck. I know they said that it would run on Deck performance-wise, but I just don’t see how the controls won’t be awful and the text way too small.
Hoping for an official controller support patch and maybe some UI/text scaling options.
I have no problem playing on Desktop, but this is a game I would love to bring over to a friend’s place and play in handheld or on the TV, but right now, I have my doubts that it’s not cumbersome as hell. I can try the trackpad and R2 mouse style, but I dont have high hopes
I played through Divinity Original Sin EE on the deck with absolutely no issues when I was bed ridden due to an illness. Trackpads make the experience good.
Great to hear! I’ll be sure to give it a try at some point, then
My husband is currently playing it on steamdeck and it works just fine!
Having played DOS2 with a controller & split screen, it worked just fine.
I heard BG3 didn’t have controller support for UI menus and stuff. If it does, then I agree, it would probably play just fine
Larian said BG3 is launching with controller support, it just wasn’t in EA.
That’s awesome! Great to hear
I’m having a blast with a Bard character. So many dialogue options open up and I get like +7 on many dialogue rolls. This is the best D&D experience I’ve had in a video game.
This is the best D&D experience I’ve had in a video game.
This is the exact quote I’ve been using to explain this game to anyone that asks. So much truth!
I bought it this morning on Steam, but had to leave for the day for errands and appointments. I’m so ready to drive into this gem tonight and all weekend.
I’m really enjoying this game.
Me and my two friends bought the game the day that EA launched because we loved DOS2 so much. Almost 3 years later and here we go! Last of the three of us gets off work in a hour and I hope he started his download remote!!
My graphics card is out on RMA 😭. Enjoy everyone. Hope I get my card back soon.
GeForce Now while you wait?
Solid idea, that didn’t even cross my mind. Thanks!
Very interested to hear how it is on an M2 MacBook Air!
You’ll be waiting a bit, the release today was Windows only with macOS and console versions coming later.
Are you sure? It says it’s ready on Steam.
I’m going off the Ars Technica article on this 🤷
Today’s launch is for the PC version only. Versions for Mac, PS5 (September 6), and, eventually, Xbox consoles are due to arrive in the coming months.
I’m definitely picking this up when I can afford it. Larian looks like they put an absurd amount of love, effort, and polish into this game.
